Another manic holiday

You have to be a little manic to be a neurosurgeon. Occasionally, we must eat delusions of grandeur for dessert and use flight of ideas as our condiments to be able to deal with the sleep deprivation and high expectations. Cinco de Mayo this year was definitely one of those times. Crazy partying down in Hermosa Beach, driving home at 3:30 in the morning and waking up in an hour and change to get to work by 5:30. Then operating all day. Man. What a rush though. I was doing out patient procedures with just the attending and he let me do most of the cases as they were pretty simple. Changing batteries on deep brain stimulator generators, localizing nerve roots using fluoroscopy for radiofrequency ablations. Awesome times. The best part of working with an attending surgeon is that if you earn their trust during the earlier parts of the operation, they'll just leave the room and let you finish up once the "critical parts" of the operation are done. It's fun being "the surgeon" in the room, sewing things up, making sure the patient wakes up, and taking him to recovery. Suffice it to say I was in dire need of some operative cases. When you're cutting and slicing up the insides of someone's skull or body, sleep is definitely a distant thought... at least for now. I'm sure one day it'll become commonplace and I'll pass out on the operating table just like I do everywhere else (I swear I have narcolepsy).