I photographed my first open heart surgery today. Granted, the patient was a dog, not a person... But still, it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen, cooler than the Klan rally, cooler than the $57 million cocaine and heroine bust, cooler than Janet Reno's (actual) dance party.

The patient, Lucky, is a shelter dog who had a heart murmur. She did incredibly well throughout the whole procedure. They think she'll make a full recovery if she makes it through the night tonight.

They actually let me get up on a (spinning) stool and shoot down on the scene in the OR. (These people don't know me very well.) I did not fall off or accidentally fling anything into the body cavity, thank you very much. :)

I really wasn't grossed out. The hardest part, for me, was when the vet tech had to give Lucky her first morphine shot and she kept crawling in my lap and cowering in my armpit and I had to push her away. No one from the shelter could stay with her, so it was just me and the two vets (who originally caught the heart defect) who observed the procedure. I was trying to take her picture as the one vet was petting her, etc. She kept licking my face when I covered it with the camera.

The family who originally adopted her decided (heartbrokenly) that they really can't give her the attention she needs during her recovery. Anyone want a gorgeous German Shepherd mix dog with a "good as new" heart? :)

Still, it was just.. cool. Jason, I have a whole new level of respect for you. How does your back not kill you after two hours?

So, yeah, I'm 24. I honestly don't hear the ticking of the biological clock yet. Every now and then, I think, yeah, okay, I could probably picture myself with an infant. Still, though- the desire to care for a walking, talking child (or a mouthy middle schooler, but that's another story) is as foreign to me as the desire to vote Republican.

But last weekend, I was at a fall festival. At one point, I was talking to someone when a toddler came running up to me and threw her arms around my leg in that incredibly trusting, relieved way that small humans have of showing possession of their parents.

I instinctively reached down to touch her curly little head as another woman, also wearing dark blue Old Navy turned-up cuff jeans, reached out and spatula-ed her confused child from my thigh. The lady I was talking to kept rattling on- but later in the day, I found myself thinking about it. I've never been hugged like that before.

Tick. Tock.

I think I need a new template, something to psych me up to blog more often.

Yawn...

Oh, I'm back, I'm back, I am so sorry... I totally wussed out on the Great Blogging Challenge because my laptop totally crashed and burned in a most frightening way. I'm talking static filling the screen, total lack of power and broken drives and - whew! - we're back online and back in the game. I am a complete klutz, I fully admit that I fall down stairs and off dinosaur statuesd and drop things, but I swear- the scariest thing about this computer problem was that this was in no way caused by anything tangible.

I had a good start on the GBC topics, but I haven't been able to get to the files until the lovely UPS man brought my laptop back to me today. YAY! YAY! YAY, I say! :) Completed entries coming soon...