Friday, September 17, 2010

outrageous.

September 16, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Oh wow. Today was crazy. We saw 140 patients and did 2 surgeries! I’m exhausted. Haha. But I have got to write down the story now! :)
We got to the village at 9 and started our set up. Today we packed everything a little different and brought quite a few more drugs so we decided to set everything out more so that things would be easier to get at. Right from the beginning things got going. Steph and I were super busy filling prescriptions- then the doctor would ask us to come do other random things for him. I assisted with 2 vaginal exams, put topical anesthetic on a little boy’s private issues, gave a screaming child a shot in the butt, and handed out more worm meds then I can count. And that was only in the morning! Haha :) We took a lunch break for about an hour- half of which was spent in the pharmacy getting more meds. This afternoon I was working away filling prescriptions and the doctor had Steph doing a bunch of ear irrigations. She said she saw some crazy stuff. Oh- and she also did a finger nail extraction this morning! This afternoon was just crazy busy. I hardly had time to take a drink of water. I gave a ton of shots in the bum and as soon as I was done filling the last prescription I had to run over and assist the doctor with a hernia repair surgery! It was definitely one of the craziest things I’ve seen or done. It took a long time, and it was dark- thankfully tonight we had electricity but the bugs were all over us. I guess this lady had had this hernia for 24 years! I think that’s why it was so hard for the doctor to repair, well, that and the conditions were less then favorable for this type of procedure. He was pushing and prodding and stuffing and cutting… I was just watching and holding instruments in awe of the whole thing. Haha. I love it. This is stuff I would never get to do or see at home, and I’m just soaking it all in. :) At one point I was worried that he wasn’t going to be able to repair it. But finally he figured out a way to poke in back under the muscle and we put a few stitches on the inside and a few on the outside and I gave her a shot in the butt. Haha. Then about 30 minutes later she got up and walked out of there. The people are so incredibly strong and brave here. It’s pretty amazing. The second surgery wasn’t near as cool. It was a small tumor on the hip of a younger girl. The doc just cut the whole thing out and sewed her up. But the amazing thing was, it literally took him probably 20 minutes to do the whole thing. It was so fast. We didn’t get out of the village until a little bit after 9 pm. It was a LONG day.
Oh, and after all that I had to fight off a gigantic moth that was in my shower. I mean this thing was like 4 inches across. Ridiculous. I killed it. With my flip flop. Hardcore, I know. Hahaha :)
Well, I guess we’re going to Pucallpa tomorrow for some government health fair thing… I don’t really know anything about it, but I do know I’m tired and it’s time for bed. :) buenas noches.

2 comments:

  1. This sounds amazing! Teaching English so boring compared to surgery. Keep up the good work Rach. Praying for you!
    -Geoff

    ReplyDelete
  2. What an amazingly frightening awesome experience!

    ReplyDelete