I could have never thought today would be what it turned out to be

I would have never thought my day would end up like this. Let me give you a brief, ok not so brief, synopsis. My day began at 4:16 AM when my alarm went off. Ugghh! I got up reluctantly and got ready for clinicals. I left my house at 4:51 and arrived at the hospital at 5:17 AM. I was the first one to arrive (13 min early) but that was what I wanted. The early birds get to pick their patients first. So I got the census and picked my patient. He was scheduled for surgery at 6:30 AM. They came and got him ready to go at 6:15 but surgery didn't start until closer to 7. So I changed into my surgical scrubs and observed open heart surgery. Yep you heard me right. I watched them make about a 10 inch long incision, slice open a guy's chest, cut through all the fat layers right down to his sternum and rib cage, saw through the bone and pry his chest cavity open. Don't forget the sauttering iron to make the blood vessels stop bleeding as you slice open the chest. The heart was right there beating. It was so cool. Then they took an artery out of his leg to replace 5 of the arteries on the heart. I watched them stitch in each artery, one by one. I wondered why they were putting ice on his heart and this is what the doctor told me. As you are doing surgery, it is very possible to have complications. Well duh! jk. Anyway, the colder the heart is, the less damage it will cause if something were to go wrong. So they had the temperature down to about 12 degrees while they stitched everything in place, taking care to check for leaks before finishing up. It was absoultely breath taking. Ok seriously though. About half way through the 6 hour procedure, I suddenly felt way sick. All the blood and everything didn't make me nauseous or anything but it was my blood sugar. It was 430 when I ate breakfast and now it was around 9 AM. Well I suddenly got really really sick. Nothing I had ever felt before. My whole body was burning up. I told the one doctor I needed to sit down and he got me a chair. They said I was white as a ghost. They helped me out to the lounge/kitchen and made me sit down with my feet up. I took off my surgical mask and my face was so sweaty. It was really disgusting. I sat there with some cookies and apple juice and was better just like that. I returned to the operating room and was fine the rest of the surgery. Very weird but I never want to feel like that ever again. They rewarmed the guy's body and heart as they neared completion of the surgery around 1130. Then they took him off the machines to let his heart beat on his own. We had to shock him twice before the heart started beating regularly but it was interesting to see the whole experience. Then they had to wire his rib cage shut again which was cool to see them stick a needle through the bones and wire it together again. After surgery, I went and got lunch and then hung out on the cardio floor until 3:30 when I went home. It really was such an amazing experience though. I would die to see it again, except for maybe the blood sugar part. And I am off to bed. Its late and I've been up since 4:16.