"Let's get the **** outta here"- Anonymous Anesthesiologist

The weekend after Norderney we were packed up and headed straight to Mallorca, another island this time off the coast of Spain. (I warned you I was an island girl) The goal of this weekend was to lay on the beach, drink some sangria, and just relax after going non-stop the past few weeks. However, as all of the previous weekend trips have taught me, traveling never goes as planned. When we get to the airport to hop on our flight to Spain, we all get an email informing us that our flight back to Bonn on Sunday was cancelled due to French strikes (not sure what this has to do with Spain or Germany but oh well) We were allowed to rebook our flight for free but the next flight wasn't until Monday morning, meaning we would have to stay an extra day on the island.... tragic. We rebooked our tickets and then prepared for our accidental long weekend getaway.

We didn't arrive until around midnight in Mallorca and a shuttle from our hotel was there to pick us up. Our hotel was kind of out in the country so as we winded our way through the dark for what seemed like forever, we wondered just exactly what we had gotten ourself into, but we finally made it, checked in, and tucked into bed excited to hit the beach in the morning. We woke up not disappointed. The views were so impressive. Definitely on my list of top 10 places I've seen, maybe top 5. Mallorca could not have gone better.
 My mission of relaxing on the beach and drinking Spanish sangria was accomplished. My brother studied abroad in Barcelona and has been dying to go back ever since, and now I know why. Spain truly is such a special place. The girls and I really enjoyed everything there, the culture, the views, the people, and especially the food. Paella..... just wow. Speechless. One of the best meals I've ever had in my life and worth every cent.

Coming back from Mallorca brought us into a pretty calm week in Bonn, however I was very excited for our hospital visit to shadow surgeries. Megyn and I were the only two assigned to our station: ZAO. Based off what we saw, this was just a general outpatient surgery area. The anesthesiologist who took us to our scrub area though it was extremely funny that the ZAO was in the ZIM... he laughed for a solid 3 minutes about this fact and none of us were quite sure why but we just went with it. After "going blue" by getting dressed in our scrub and fancy crocs, we stepped out into the OR hallway and stood a little cluelessly. No one seemed to know who we were or why we were there and none of the nurses seemed keen to speak any English with us, they just kept repeating the same things in German. Finally, another anesthesiologist comes by and asks us who we are and why we're there. We explain we are with AIB and there to shadow, which he had never heard of, but he lead us to an OR where a woman was having a lipoma removed from her back. It was an extremely large lipoma but I found it pretty interesting since I had a smaller (much smaller) one removed from my back a few years ago, but I wasn't put under for it.
We thought it was super interesting that the patient was 32 years old, but from looking at her she appeared to be in her upper forties or fifties. The anesthesiologist with us, who was a super friendly and helpful guy, informed us that this patient smokes at least one pack of cigarettes a day. It was kinda cool, but sad to be able to see the effects heavy smoking has on people, and it made it even more odd seeing some of the doctors and nurses taking smoke breaks. How were they okay, knowing first hand exactly how bad it can be?? The surgery took about an hour to an hour and a half (again, this lipoma was huge) and the anesthesiologist played games on his phone for most of it. However, when it finally came time to wake the patient up, he had some troubles getting her to finally come to. Again, he said this is due to her smoking habits, as smokers blood pressures drop dramatically more than most people's. She finally came to, he gathered up her charts and said "alright let's get the f*** outta here" and wheeled her away.

Overall it was super educational, however not being able to understand the surgeons and nurses and not really being well welcomed or received took away from the experience a bit.