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Showing posts from May, 2021

Teige and Tahg Take on Thrilling Traumatic Thoracic Treatments Day 13

  May 25th, 2021 And just like that, the sun has set on senior project, and soon on my high school experience. This is all way too crazy for me, so I am trying not to think about it. Anyways, for our last day of senior project, we worked one last time with Diane at Ragged Mountain Physical Therapy. We had a good day. We got to see our snowmobile friend one more time and joke around with him, as per usual. We led him in his exercises before Diane made us take one more quiz on the anatomy of the shoulder. We both aced it, no big deal. We then worked with a woman whose lumbar region of her spine has flattened out. It is usually supposed to have a curve inward, but after surgery, it has flattened out. Diane did a lot of work on it by herself, there are not many exercises to help with that. We then headed out for our senior seminar and lunch, before returning for the final stretch of the day. During this, Teige and I played pass a lot while “testing” out some of the equipment. We just had t

Teige and Tahg Take on Thrilling Traumatic Thoracic Treatments Day 12

  May 24th, 2021 Second to last day of senior project has come to an end, how sad. I have really enjoyed this time to really dive into something I care deeply about. Today was a short day for Teige and I because I had to rehearse for senior dinner. Therefore, we only spent two hours today learning about how to suture. We ordered a suture kit at the beginning of senior project and it just recently came! I am sure it will still get used much more by us. We watched a video and then just practiced suturing. We even practiced on a banana. It was very funny, but also a super cool experience. I am sure that suturing an actually human being is much different and I am excited to see what that is like, except I am not excited for anyone to injure themselves so that I have to suture, I am not a monster. Tomorrow, we are back at Ragged Mountain Physical Therapy working with our favorite mentor, Diane! We have finally reached 55 hours, and we are even a little bit over!

Second Weekly Reflection

And just like that, we are finished with the second week of senior project, and only have two whole days left! What? That is so crazy to me, it feels like we just started. Before I know it, I will be walking across the stage at graduation, and I will officially be done with Proctor. Now that makes me upset! I have really enjoyed senior project, like a lot. Teige and I have been having a blast watching surgeries online and working with Diane Fowler at Ragged Mountain Physical Therapy across the street from campus. This is making me very excited to go into medicine, I can hardly wait. Well, actually, I can, I do not really want to go to med school at the moment. Anyways, I feel like I learned a lot this week, even though we did a lot of the same stuff that we did last week. First off, I learned how to read over a patients chart in physical therapy. Although it was not that hard, you really just read, it was still such a cool experience to have. I feel more professional! I learned what al

Teige and Tahg Take on Thrilling Traumatic Thoracic Treatments Day 11

  May 21st, 2021 Teige and I were back with Diane today! It was a very interesting day because I am currently on vocal rest during the days so that my voice is at its best for my performances every night. Therefore, it was a lot of listening for me today and using text to speech on my phone to communicate when I needed to. It was extremely entertaining. Teige and I were given the opportunity by Diane to read over a patient’s chart. This patient had COVID back in December and was hospitalized for eight days straight. Since then, his balance has just not been the same and he completely fell backward, straight down onto the ground. He is pretty okay from the fall, but he is coming into Diane’s to work on his balance, and help heal some minute injuries to his lumbar and thoracic spine. We did a whole balance test with him which was super interesting to see. He was amazing with some things, but others, he really struggled with. We then led him in exercises to help with his balance. We also

Teige and Tahg Take on Thrilling Traumatic Thoracic Treatments Day 10

  May 20th, 2021 Another day, another surgery, actually surgeries. Teige and I spent the day watching two valve replacement videos. We started off watching an aortic and mitral valve replacement happening at the same time. It was super cool to see that happen and to know that it can happen. Up till now, we have only seen videos of single valve replacements, but now we have watched a combination of two. It is still so wild to me that they can stop a heart on their own, cut it open, do whatever needs to be done, and then close it back up, then it will just heal. I feel like once you slice open a heart, it should be dead or something. I am just amazed that we have figured out how to make that possible. For our second video of the day, we decided to round out our valve replacements by watching a pulmonary valve replacement. Before this, we had watched an aortic, mitral, and tricuspid valve replacement, but we had not yet seen the fourth and final valve. So, now we can say we have seen all

Teige and Tahg Take on Thrilling Traumatic Thoracic Treatments Day 9

  May 19th, 2021 I cannot believe we are over halfway through senior project! That is so wild! Anyways, for today, Teige and I decided to watch two different surgeries. The first one we watched was a posterior hip replacement. We already watched an anterior hip replacement because of one of the patients we work with at Ragged Mountain Physical Therapy, so we decided to watch a posterior one. Anterior replacements are more technically challenging because it does not have as good of a view as posterior, but it also does less damage to major muscles. Posterior replacements have to cut through some muscles, but anterior replacements just work around them. The second surgery we watched was an ACL reconstruction. There are so many ACL injuries that come through Diane’s, so we figured we should probably watch one of those surgeries to get an idea of what they went through. Now we can put an image to the patients’ knees when we see them. We are now 43 ½ hours into senior project! We are almost

Teige and Tahg Take on Thrilling Traumatic Thoracic Treatments Day 8

  May 18th, 2021 And another day with Diane at Ragged Mountain Physical Therapy has come to an end. Diane really put us to work today, learning about the knee and the shoulder for a quiz she is going to give us. We spent the first 30 minutes studying for that, then we got to work with the patients! Our good friend snowmobile guy was back and better than ever today. We joked around with him while also leading him in his usual exercises. Teige and I were very helpful today by “testing out” exercises, which was really just playing pass with a bouncy ball. We saw more patients with injuries such as ACL tears and the usual stuff, leading them in their exercises as well. After we returned from our lunch break, we had the chance to work with an old EMT who was having problems with his shoulder, it kept popping out. He told us a pretty awesome story where he had to hold onto an aorta of someone by pinching it with two fingers for 45 minutes straight while bouncing around in an ambulance. He he

Teige and Tahg Take on Thrilling Traumatic Thoracic Treatments Day 7

  May 17th, 2021 Teige and I love valve replacements so much, that we spent our entire day watching them. We started off with a mitral valve replacement. Next, we watched a tricuspid valve replacement. Everyone reading this might think, “Oh, but those all sound similar. They are all valve replacements.” Although that may be true, these operations are not the same. Including an aortic valve replacement, they all happen in different parts of the heart. Each valve is extremely important to the functionality of the heart and keeping us alive. It is still so mind-blowing to me that somehow, we humans figured out that we had the power to cut someone open, do something to their body, such as replace a valve, and keep them alive. Surgeons literally hold people’s lives in their hands, and although that is very daunting, I am so excited to have that feeling when I get the opportunity to save someone’s life. This marks day 7 for us, and we are now 33 ½ hours into senior project.

First Weekly Reflection

 May 15th, 2021 The first week of senior project was pretty awesome for me. I love what I chose to do for my project, and I am grateful that I have a close friend to do it with. This week has also been very, very informative, furthering my knowledge in this area of my interests. A lot of what I learned was from Diane and working at Ragged Mountain Physical Therapy, not necessarily from the surgeries. It is quite hard to learn a lot from just watching a surgery online because sometimes the surgeons do not talk often, others, I struggle to comprehend what they are saying because I personally have not gone through med school. Even so, the surgeries have been so amazing to watch. From Diane, I have learned an incredible amount in such a short time. Some things very simple such as preparing a heat pack. Others more complicated like what stim does, and why it is used. Another thing I have learned is that Russian Stim is extremely uncomfortable and leaves your legs (or wherever you got the Ru

Teige and Tahg Take on Thrilling Traumatic Thoracic Treatments Day 6

  May 15th, 2021 Today was a very relaxing day for Teige and me. We kicked it off with a sleep-in till 10am, before convening together to watch one surgery. We decided to watch another cardiac valve replacement since we were both so fascinated by the first one. It is just so cool, being able to see what actually happens during surgery like this. Not many people care to see or understand what truly happens during surgery. I am grateful that Teige and I have the opportunity to watch these surgeries, watching every step. It really just makes me excited for my future, but only for actually performing the surgeries. It is also awesome that I have someone as interested in this stuff as me. It is also extremely funny that we basically have the same name, same interests, and want to do the same exact thing with our lives. We are now 28 hours into our senior project. Over halfway there!

Teige and Tahg Take on Thrilling Traumatic Thoracic Treatments Day 5

  May 14th, 2021 We spent the day focused on watching neurosurgeries! It was a nice change of pace, and honestly, very interesting. Although cardiac surgery has both Teige and I’s hearts, we enjoyed watching these surgeries today. We watched two tumor removal videos. The first was a 4th ventricle ependymoma and the second was peritorcular meningioma. Both of these videos were extremely satisfying, especially when they pulled the entire tumor out, or just large chunks of it.  Teige and I kept rewinding so we could watch it again. Our third surgery for the day was an aneurism: Thalamic AVM. This was not as satisfying as the first two, but definitely still very intriguing to witness. There is so much going on in the brain and to see someone go into it and fix something like an aneurism is incredible. I cannot wait to just be able to know exactly what I am doing during surgery and know what everything is. It is a little hard watching these surgeries right now because Teige and I do not kno

Teige and Tahg Take on Thrilling Traumatic Thoracic Treatments Day 4

  May 13th, 2021 We had another fun, full-day working with Diane at Ragged Mountain Physical Therapy. We started off at 9am with preparing for our “quiz” on the knee that Diane is giving us within the next week. Then, we got the privilege of working with our snowmobiling friend again. Teige and I got to lead him in exercises, which was super cool since that is part of Diane’s job, it made us feel important. We had a fun time with him, laughing and joking a lot. Next, we worked with a girl from Tilton with a knee problem. She completely destroyed her patellar tendon and had to have it rebuilt. We lead her in exercises as well, including me throwing a ball at her while she balanced on a balance pad. We then had some downtime where Teige and I got to do some of the exercises we were leading. We headed off for an hour to eat lunch, then returned for our afternoon session. We worked with an older man who had open knee surgery, hearing about his back story of his knee problems. He had surger

Teige and Tahg Take on Thrilling Traumatic Thoracic Treatments Day 3

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  May 12th, 2021 The day started off at 8:30 to begin our surgery watching. Yesterday, Diane told Teige and me that we should watch a hip replacement since we worked with a patient who had one. Specifically, she told us to watch an anterior hip replacement. It was extraordinary. They just saw right through the hip bone, removed it, and put an artificial one in. It is so crazy that they have come up with an artificial thing that can work the same as a regular hip. Next, we watched a coronary bypass surgery to get ourselves back into cardiothoracic surgery for the day. To be honest, it was not as interesting as the valve replacement, but still incredible. We finished off our 5 and half hour day with a video on “The Day in the Life of a Cardiac Surgeon.” It was super cool to see what Teige and I’s life will be like in the future. The surgeon had surgery starting at 5 in the morning and last him all day, doing three different operations. I am so ready for that, I think! This marks hour 15

Teige and Tahg Take on Thrilling Traumatic Thoracic Treatments Day 2

  May 11th, 2021 It was a bright and early start to the day at 8am to kick off our first day at Ragged Mountain Physical Therapy. We worked closely with Diane for just over 4 hours today. We did small things such as preparing heat packs or getting the ultrasound gel. We watched her work with many patients, hearing some very cool stories of their injuries. The first man we worked with had a complete anterior hip replacement, so he and I bonded over our hip surgeries, even though his surgery was much more intense than mine. We got to see his battle scar from the surgery, along with just watching Diane treat him. Next, we had the opportunity to work with this super cool woman with many interesting stories. The reason she is in PT is because of a horse accident. While trying to herd cattle on a horse, she fell off the horse straight onto her shoulder. Fortunately, there were no other bad injuries. She was also a nurse and is currently an anesthesiologist, so she was very informative for Te

Teige and Tahg Take on Thrilling Traumatic Thoracic Treatments Day 1

4:40pm Today, May 10th, 2021, Teige and I spent our whole day watching surgeries! We started this morning at 8:45 and went until 12:30 before stopping for a lunch break. After lunch, we picked it back up at 1:00 and watched until 2:30. Today was majorly focused on cardiothoracic surgeries. The first surgery we watched this morning was a cardiac valve replacement. It was so cool to witness one of those surgeries being performed, even if it was online. We watched them stop the heart, open up the aorta, take out the old valve, and put in a new one. At some points, the surgeon was even holding the heart in his hand and all I wanted to do was be there, holding that heart. That may sound super strange, but surgery is what I want to pursue in my life, specifically cardiothoracic surgery. We also watched a slide trachioplastly surgery on a child at Washington University in St. Louis. This surgery was performed to fix scar tissue build-up in a young girl’s trachea, which was basically suffocati