A week in scrubs

I am absolutely exhausted - and ecstatic about it!

This past week, we (at Padre Damian) hosted are first medical team of the year, a group of orthopedic surgeons, residents, anesthesiologists and nurses from New Mexico and San diego. We basically lived at the childrens hospital, where the team operated on 30 children, doing preliminary evaluations one day on about 100 kids (electing 30 for the surgeries themselves), five FULL days of surgeries, and then one day of reevaluations and follow up plans.

Basically, my life as a volunteer was completely redefined. I felt like i was working in Alaska again. Waking up at 530 every morning, picked up and taken to the hospital at 6, working until about 130, catching a bus home to make it to my after school program from 230-5, and then returning right to the hospital until going home with the last group at about one in the morning, just in time to pass out for four hours before waking up and doing it all over again. Crazy thing is, I probably could do it for another month straight and be fine- it was just so energizing (mentally and spiritually that is).

I spent most of my time at the hospital helping translate between the doctors and the parents of the children or Ecuadorian hospital staff. It was tricky at first with my limited familiarity with medical terminology in spanish, but by the end of the week i was explaining detailed medical procedures and drug instructions as though i had been doing it forever - it was crazy! I did a lot of running around the hospital, bringing patients down to surgery, running to get xrays, talking to parents about how things were going, translating for nurses in post-op, getting supplies to operating rooms, pretty much any random job that came up and needed to be done. It was a lot of go-go-go, mixed in with some down time to just sit and talk to the nurses or anesthesiologits about drug dossage, or procedures, or medical school, or life...

One of the coolest things I got to do during that down time was going into the operating rooms and observing some of the surgeries they were doing. I could just run in for 20 minutes at a time and watch some crazy hip surgery on a 2 year old. And here is the kicker - I even scrubbed into 2 of them! This was seriously the coolest thing i have ever done. I was in on a tibial osteotomy of a nine year old boy named Danny, where we had to saw the tibia in half, rotate it about 30 degrees, and screw it in place with a big metal plate. I mostly just held open the incision and retracted tissue, but I actually got to screw in one of the screws and did one of the stitches too! Granted, i would never have gotten to do that in the US. It was incredible. And of course as soon as the surgery was finished and they were casting, I was nailed with a huge stream of pee as one of the surgeons accidentally leaned on his bladder, and was literally SOAKED in urine. The entire operating room just burst out laughing, informing me that i had now been officially initiated. It was hilarious.

I got to scrub in on another surgery too, which was moving a dislocated hip back into place on a three year old little girl. This surgery took over 3 hours but it was so interesting i felt like I was in there for no more than an hour. With all of the time in the operating room, i was seriously just blown away... In my discernment about whether to go into medicine, i just kind of always thought the more clinical side appealed to me, doing family practice of pediatrics. But there was something about being in that operating room, retracting a muscle or tendon or something so the surgeon could get to the tissue she had to cut through that just really made me want to take the knife myself and do it. It was just SO awesome. It´s definitely making me want to look into surgery more if I continue along the medical path. And after this week, its looking even more promising.

I was just on fire all week, so excited to learn more about medicine and getting to talk with these families and the frustrations of the Ecuadorian medical system and horrible expenses that keep kids from getting needed surgeries. I wish i had time to just continue working with these families and get them what they need to care for these kids. But if nothing else, i am just already looking forward to December when the next team comes and anything i can do to just get even more care for some of these kids.

The only somewhat really hard thing about being at the hospital all week is that I really did miss out on a lot at home. I barely saw my roommates, for one, but more importantly I missed out on the usual time I have in the evenings going around and visiting neighbors and talking with the kids in my after school program. I feel as though I just have no idea what is going on in their lives right now. Even in weeks where I spent every minute out walking around that I can, I still don´t get to everyone I want to visit or is expecting me to stop by, so being absent this week was especially hard.


oh, and i officially have a parasite! It´s name is Ascaris Lumbricoides (but I call him Al) and is a worm making its home in the lining of my stomach at the moment. But no worries, in four days I will be worm free!!!

Blessings and hugs!