AVR = aortic valve repair

心血来潮想用华语写下这一篇。

昨天是很长的一天，在学校呆了整整十二个小时，累归累，却有幸observe了人生的第一个AVR手术。病人是一个67岁的中年男人，有着typical heart failure symptoms - dyspnoea on exertion, bibasal crepititions, ankle oedema.

手术的准备过程，从麻醉到central line insertion到draping，整整用了一个多小时。接着下来就是胸口上一刀，再来就是锯子狠狠的把胸口剖开两半。
（写到这里有点后悔了，还是用english继续吧）
It is such an amazing experience to see blood flowing through the bypass machine, and watching the heart from beating normally to going into ventricular fibrillation to asystole. The very pathologic aortic valve was removed before a tissue valve is inserted (the process took very long, lots and lots of stitches are needed to secure the valve for the next 15 years). Throughout the entire process, the patient's body temperature is maintained at 27'C! It's a bit hard for me to believe that the guy lying on the theatre bed is still alive, with severe hypothermia and a non-beating heart.

We didn't get to observe the entire surgery due to time constraint. More big big surgeries involving bypass machine is coming up. I'm still considering if I should attend those. It is tiring standing for hours watching a surgery!