The OR

Today I was able to help out in the hospital. Both Daniel and Josh were suppose to be in the hospital, but Daniel decided he didn't want to help out today.  So Josh came to my hut and told me if I wanted to help out, be at the hospital in six minutes. (He actually yelled outside my door and freaked me out.  I was still asleep, and I practically jumped out of my cot in fear).

I got there a little late, but before the doctors. I sat through worship, and was ready to help in any way I could. Things were really awkward though. No one told me where to go,  or what to do.  I followed Dr. Bland like a lost puppy as he talked to the other nasaras. He started rounds without saying a word to me. I "confidently" followed him because I didn't know what else to do. I'm glad I did.

There were some short-term nurse anesthesiologists and a short-term doctor doing rounds with Dr. Bland and I. They explained what was wrong with each patient and what they did to treat them. The short-term doctor, Dirk, asked me to be the physical therapist for two patients and even let me take out a patient's stitches. He asked me to scrub in at the OR for an operation as well. (Sadly, I had never scrubbed in before and no one was availible to show me how. So he did his best, while I helped him in other capacities). I was given homework to top off the observations. It was a lot of fun. 

The end of the day turned into a nightmare. We were tricked this morning into thinking there would be few surgeries. However, once we got started patients were being rushed in one after another. The patient I just removed stitches from started leaking pus. We drained the pus by reopening his wound then packed the wound with bleach. We will suture it after the infection is gone. The patient is already on the heavy duty antibiotics because the wound was aquired in a dirty place. 

Next came a keloid, then a hematoma (which turned out to be something else...we don't know what it was), an emergency c-section, a concusion , and two cysts. The cysts patients were the most exciting.  They were both under the age of one. The first baby latched onto me. It was weird because most little kids are scared of nasaras. Their parents tell them that the nasaras will beat them if they misbehave. But, this particular child liked me.  He hid his face in my chest while we gave him anasthesia and waited for it to take affect. Then we quickly removed his medium sized cyst. His cyst was nothing compared to the next infant.

The cyst was the sized of the baby's head and clung tightly to its jaw. It was a difficult surgery because there were multiple major structure in the area.  The cyst was a medial multi-sac cyst. In the end the doctors nicked 3 arteries, which droped the baby's blood pressure a total of 25 points, and popped a few of the cysts.  Praise God that the baby survived the operation. She is doing great. I pray that she will heal quickly with no infections, and have no permanent damage from the cyst, or the operation.