Partial Hiatus

Hello everyone. I'm am appologizing in advance for my partial hiatus from blogging. This is not because I'm tired of blogging. It's mostly because I'm just plain tired. Surgery is long hours. 11-12 on a good day. Today, 15.5 hours. The last 7 hours was one surgery. Sigmoid colon tumor resection. Supposed to be a 2-3 hour surgery. This guy had a 10 pound mass in there filling up his whole pelvis. We had no idea it was that big before going in. It was a rush to be done because he had ignored it a long time and now his bowel was totally obstructed. We also found in process that one of his ureters (the tube from the kideny to bladder) was running through the tumor and also was obstructing urine flow out of that kideny. So, needless to say... it was much more complicated than planned. All out with having to call in a urology surgeon to fix the ureter we had to remove... he took a short part of it and moved the bladder a bit and re-attached them. It was pretty cool to see all the stuff they did. Before the surgery he told the nurses, "Don't mess up my penis, if you do, my wife will be pretty upset." Another example of a couple in their 70's that are still quite sexually active. Anyway... we didn't touch his penis except to put the cath in. Except we had to take one of the vas deferns (where the sperm runs from the testicle out the penis)... so he's down to half the sperm count. But hey, if he really wanted he could still have children. So, we adhered to those wishes as much as possible. When first looking at that tumor we wern't sure we could get it all. But, after 7 hours of work, I think we did, AND we reattached almost everything to where it belonged. If things go as we think they will... this guy may actually be cured. 10 pound weight loss from removing the tumor and all. Anyway... all that to say... long days at the hospital, studying, and sleeping, I dont' have much time left for anything else. So, if I don't post very often between now and February 10th, I'm sorry. I promise I will sometimes, but it may be once a week. Please don't take it personally.