Eviceration Surgery

This blog might be a bit much for my squeamish ones. Caution blood is mentioned a few times. In the locker room I put on the blue scrubs provided for me to wear during my viewing. As I look in the mirror my heart is excited to know when I will actually get to put on this attire everyday for my career. I slip into the little booty coverings for my shoes, put on the hat and with my camera in hand walk into the operating room. As I walk in there are four patience in the chairs. the room is warmer than a typical surgical room, the smell is a different smell and all the medical staff greet me with a smile or a common "who just came in" glance. I stand in a place that I can see all four Tv's that are showing the surgeries that are occuring at that time. Cataracts are the focus of this operating room. I choose to watch this one doctor for he was teaching a local surgeon how to do this special advanced procedure. He seemed to be the teaching type: calm, well spoken, knowledgeable, patient. His name Is Glenn. As I watched the first surgery I got a little hot and a bit anxious because i haven't seen s surgery in quite some time. I distract myself a bit as I glance over the chart on the wall with the structure of the eye. After my core temperature and blood pressure went back to somewhat normal I finished watching the remaining of the surgery.
Glenn then invited me to come watch his next surgery which was an Evisceration surgery. An Evisceration surgery is the removal of the inner parts of the eye. In this patients situation, she had some trauma to one of her eyes and has been blind (in her right eye only) ever since. Glenn asked me if I have ever seen a surgery as bloody as this one before and i said only on TV. I was never once grossed out, I was fascinated the entire time I was there. He began the surgery and I was amazed. He removed the cornea and there was a black mass in her eye. Glenn had never seen such a thing before and removed it to find that it was an encapsulated calcified mass. Glenn said because of the trauma its most likely that their was something in her eye and since it was foreign to her body, her body took defense and protected itself. I wanted to dissect this thing... I took a picture of it which one of the pictures but I edited out the bloody stuff for my squeamish viewers. Glenn then sewed up the eye after inserting a glass ball to give the eye shape, and then gave her a prosthetic eye that she can remove and insert herself. I was so excited to get to be apart of one of the most interesting surgeries on the ship and get to experience the blessing that Mercy ships is taking a part in. These patients are being blessed beyond what they ever expected.