Best Laid Plans of Mice and Newts. . .

Oh-K, so I'm still extremely tired. After my APEX--which went extremely well even though a girl passed out during Nicole's surgery presentation--was done, I had to march straight home to a physcis formal lab re-write and another lab writeup for Nueroscience. I couldn't party, because early the next morning I was to begin surgery on my rat for the second time. I was too tired to do work, so I set my alarm for 5AM, thinking that if I went to bed early it would be alright to wake up at this hour. .. . WRONG AMBER. I woke up incoherent and confused many times to slap the snooze button tuesday morning. Eventually, I got out of bed, walked over to the Becker's office to turn in my lab report, then off to Bates for rat brain surgery.

Downstairs, my rat was already drugged when I got there--the professor and the lab instructor had decided to give the procedure a head start. My rat still had to get around 4 supplemental doses past an already higher dosage of sodium pentabarbitol to really put him under. You see, our surgery involved using what's called a stereotaxic apparatus:



you may be able to see the two pointy bars running horizontally towards eachother? those are ear-bars. You have to line up the rat's head--once he's again shaved and passed out--so that the bars slide into his ears: first you put the left ear bar in, and then you have to bring in the right one. If you have the earbars perfectly in place, the rat's head won't budge if you wiggle his snout from left to right. This easily took 20 minutes to accomplish, and that was after he flinched a couple times--resulting in the supplemental doses of anesthetic. Then I had to hurry, because there's a window of time where the rat is fully under and operable, and we don't want to have to give him extra anesthesia while I'm operating on him. . . . so I disinfected his little bald head, and then it was time for the scalpel. . . .

Oh dear lord. It was a strange feeling in MY head. I was scared, apprehensive, almost nauseous, and at the same time trying to ignore those feelings and actually trying to get psyched for the incision. Deep breath, and cut--starting between the eyes and moving back. Apparently rat scalp is tough stuff--I had to push so freaking hard down his little head! And with a sickening little drop of the blade, I made it through the scalp, and then I had to pull that incision back to the base of his head--which was hard because the skin there is so loose the blade couldn't really get purchase on it. It's weird to see an open scalp, because--no drama, no fanfare--THERE IS THE SKULL. Right there. The scalp pulls aside easily and you can see all the sutures--where the little brain plates have fused together. It was amazing. Really amazing.

Actually, the whole thing wasn't as traumatic as I thought it would be. I thought the blood would freak me out--it didn't. I've seen blood, many times; I should've known better! It was *interesting* trying to drill a hole in a tiny skull, with a tiiiiiny little drill bit. Then I had to slip the needle (which would have been held by that vertical bar you see in the picture, through that tiny hole and to specific coordinates--the coordinates of the exact spot we were supposed to lesion. I loaded up my ibotenic acid, gave the syringe a gentle tap, and that was it. I don't even know if I tapped the full amount in--I won't be sorry if I didn't. But then it was all over. We pinched the little rat's scalp together and stapled it closed (with surgical staples). It looked so much nicer all closed up. Coated that skin-ridge scalp wound with vaseline, and we gooped my rat's eyes as well since he was all drugged and couldn't blink. But he could breath, I saw him doing it! We put him back in his little cage, with his head resting on a folded paper towel. All gooped up and drugged up--so peaceful. I was happy, most happy.

I hadn't yet killed the best rat ever. And I have the utmost respect for surgeons everywhere. It was so emotionally draining, and my surgery was easy. . ..

Life after that has been hectic and yes, crazy. I had a neuroscience exam today, so I'd been studying and catching up and all the usual. I'm so tired. .. but happy that the big horrible stuff is over.

OH and please disregard the repeat entry below--blogger messed up and I can't delete it.