At long last

Finally, now that I'm doing something interesting, I've decided to blog again.
Well, it's not so much interesting to some of my readers as it may be ironic.
Take, for example, where I found myself this afternoon: in an operating room overlooking the Fraser river with an open chest cavity exposing a heart that pumped in tune with 'it's raining men, hallelujah', which was playing softly in a corner of the room.
Or take, for example, the way my supervising doctor introduced me today:
"This is Dr. Heather Davies and she'll be sitting in on our consultation today, if that's all right with you."
Don't call me doctor, I wanted to say. I'm not ready for that. I'd rather be climbing trees in a skirt and flip flops.
I kind of blew it big time with one surgeon today. Apparently he's this big-wig hot-shot, and my supervising doctor introduced me and we shook hands and made small talk for a moment. He was looking me over from head to toe with a kind of look older doctors don't usually give young students.
"Is there anything exciting happened on the unit today?" my doctor asked.
"Nothing except me." The surgeon said, smiling at me.
I gave him a withering look. "I'm sorry, you're too old for me."
You should've seen the look on his face. And on my doctor's face. (Afterwards she told me, I couldn't believe you had the guts to say that. Right now you should be sucking up to those surgeons in the hopes they'll give you a position.)
We chatted for a few minutes and then went to leave, and the surgeon called out, "Well, stop by another day and maybe I'll have something interesting to show you."
Then under his breath he added, "even if I am too old for you."
But enough of that. I spent most of the day in an operating room with another surgeon, watching open heart surgery. The poor man was having a quintuple bypass and a valve replacement. It would be hard to capture in one short blog entry the majestic feeling of watching someone's heart quivering inside their open chest and the bright blood spurting out and the delicate silver instruments and the sight of it finally beginning to beat on it's own again after everything had been re-connected. I had always envisioned life-saving surgery to be tense and serious, but the surgeons and nurses and I talked and joked and listened to music while working (okay, I wasn't doing anything besides watching, to be honest).
At one point I suddenly thought, this is a real man we're operating on. I reached under the drape that was covering his head and lightly touched his hair, as if to say to him while he slept, I'm thinking about you.
I learned so much today, one of the most important things being, never wear high heels in surgery. Secondly, always go pee first. Thirdly, don't cry under your mask when you see something really moving because you can't wipe your nose with sterile hands. And fourthly, maybe I should become a surgeon. I bet underneath my surgical scrubs and shoes I could wear a skirt and flip flops and no one would ever notice.