How to save a life...

So now what... this week has been a roller coaster for sure. I am surely not EVER surgeon but today my surgeon said that I have good hands and its a shame I am not going to cut people for a living. I thought about Grandma Latz and thanked her for my hands... for today I saved a man's life. Probably. Maybe. I hope. The captain of a ship out of Seward showed up to the hospital today clutching a CT scan- he had 3 years of abdominal pain that he hadn't gotten looked at because he was a captain and had to wait until the fishing and shrimping and crabbing and major tourist seasons were over. He worked through the pain, but every day he had this nagging feeling something was wrong. So this 54 year old strapping guy went to the ER and walked out with what he thought was a death sentence- a soft-ball size mass arising from his colon. Cancer until proven guilty- and he showed up today to beg my surgeon to cut him from stem to sternum and get it out of him. We toiled for 4 hours today to rid this man of this cancer, and when we made the final cut, I lifted this cancer out of his body along with nearly a 1/4 of his entire bowel that was involved. His family thanked us and cried. His prognosis is good since he is young and active, but how something like cancer changes the way you look at the world. Both from the patient's side and the surgeon's. So today my hands helped save a man. And today marked the end of my month as a surgeon. Bring on the kids....