and what are you doing in the morning?

because i'm going to be pounding a sharp-tipped metal instrument called a trocar into the chest of an anesthetized dog. honestly, i'm a titch nervous about it. it's a live surgery (chest tube placement), and it's very antiquated. you'd think there would be a better way to do this - to introduce a tube into the chest. but there's not. you actually HIT this instrument with the palm of your hand. you basically have to pound it through the intercostal muscles and into the thorax. hoping, of course, that you don't hit a lung lobe or the heart. of the 2, i'd rather hit a lung lobe. you can take those out. the heart - not so much. we also get to do a thoracotomy (open the chest, look inside at stuff), a pericardectomy (removal of the pericardium from around the heart - which is still beating - how does one suture something that is MOVING anyway?), and a lung lobectomy. a dog can live without 5 of its 6 lung lobes. i kid you not. pictures will be, of course, forthcoming. on that thought, good night.