Tuesday June 9th – 22 more surgeries done – what a wonderful day!

Well I just got back to the hotel & it’s nearly 10:30 pm but I want to blog before bed otherwise one day blends into the next & there are too many great people I have met who have touched my heart here & stories I have heard that I dont want to forget.

I got a great night sleep last night & I felt like a new person when I woke up J  We had a full day ahead of us. Yesterday another 20 or so people came to be screened & we already had a full schedule & some had traveled several days to get here. Op Smile is very aware of that & tries to prioritize patients & work things out. In this instance there is another organization near Addis this week that they are going to refer some patients to & some will wait until the next mission or see a local surgeon who does some individual cases. The mornings are always chaotic for the Pre/post ward with 20 patients who have spent the night after surgery & 20 more there to have surgery all together in 2 rooms with mats on the floors. The Recovery Room is slow until the first cases are done so I try to see where or how I can help. Today I made the “post it schedule” where each patient we will do surgery on is on a post it so everyone has a visual of what is going on where J
This morning I played with Meftea a 7 mos old cutie who has a cleft & facial deformity (I took a picture with her) she was going to have a big surgery & be in the OR for awhile & her mom was nervous. I told her I would be caring for her after.  She was a 2^nd case & finally got back to the recovery room at 1:30 – she had some troubles though with fevers & things so stayed with us until 5:30. Her mom was SO OVERJOYED with the results – the plastic surgeon Malin from Sweden did amazing work.

One of the earlier cases out was Kaleb, he was an 8 mos old boy. His mom was well dressed & spoke some English, she was very soft spoken & expressed gratitude that we came to her country. He was a little chunky boy, very well fed & I gave him some cute shorts & socks. It is interesting to me that even families that seem to have some financial means rely on organizations like OSI to get their child help. The day stayed really busy and Julie & Aziza helped me give out lots of clothes.

I forgot about my “no hydrating policy” & drank 2 botttles of water & ended up “paying to potty”  at a nearby building that is really nice that John Hopkins University built here to offer aid & do research. They said we could go there but the woman who had the key was very inconvenienced that we asked so we “tipped her”. It was truly the best $$ ever spent!!! A nice bathroom with flushing toilets & sinks was almost like the joy of Christmas morning! Seriously….

There was one patient that really disturbed me; a little 1 year old who had a beautiful lip repair done but his head was covered with probably 30 circular burns from cigarettes – in the US that is obvious child abuse but here I was told it was a tribal treatment to get rid of evil spirits? It was really hard for me to handle; I understand it is their culture but I imagined this little guy crying each time he was burned & it just turned my stomach…he was so sweet & cuddly.

There have also been lots of kids coming into surgery with Mohawk haircuts – I wondered if it was a tribal thing too & found out today that it is often done before surgery as the Mohawk is the “handle” for God to hang onto & keep them safe during surgery – now that tradition seemed much better than the evil spirit one!  

Another one of my favorite patients today was 6 year old Matu. Her mom had hid her away in their hut & never let her go out in public most of her life because she had a cleft lip. About 2 years ago a Christian Ethiopian woman who goes out into small villages to help people “found her” in this hut & told the mom about the opportunity for surgery but the mom didn’t believe it could be fixed & thought the woman was going to do something with her daughter. Finally the woman convinced the mom to let her bring her to Addis this week  and possibly get surgery  & today she had a lip repair – an hour surgery that would completely change her life & let her live outside her hut. The mom wasn’t here but when the woman came in she was very tearful because of how great the little girl looked and knowing the change in her life. I gave her a dress that she put on right away – it was pink as were my scrubs today so we did a little photo shoot together!

Since I left at 7:30 last night I stayed for the later cases tonight…most of them were older patients – 2 were 22 year old with VERY LARGE bilateral cleft lips – they were truly transformed by surgery today & it is just amazing to me to think that their lives & how they are seen, accepted & looked at will be totally changed by the one hour of surgery. We also did the 74 year old man – just with local anesthesia…some people thought WHY? But it was a 30 min ”quick fix”. When asked why he had never come before for surgery he said “he never knew he could” so the physician team agreed that if he was brave enough to come now & ask for help at 74 they would do it – HOORAY for him!

We had a surgeon cancel at the last minute due to an emergency  so we have 4 surgery tables & 5-6 patients on each per day. I think our total will be about 90 patients getting surgery.  The needs are always greated than the resources & I have to remind myself it isnt about the #'s it is about the individuals & families.

We did some palate repairs today too – those are more complicated & more painful for the kids but they did pretty well – a couple we kept awhile in recovery so at one point we had 3 who needed to stay for “extra attention”, 3 others & each with a parent so our little 4 bed recovery room was bursting at the seams & very noisy but none of us complained because everywhere we looked we saw joyful families. We may not be able to communicate directly with them in a similar language but seeing how much these moms & dads love their kids is the same worldwide & just having the privilege of being a part of their care is a gift. Tuesday is over & I already know that in the blink of an eye it will be Friday & the week of surgery will be over so I am really taking it all in there are so many sights, sounds, smells, people etc all of which is going into my memory. I really am blessed to be able to be a part of this work & while we are “changing lives one smile at a time” I think I am having my own life changed one mission day at a time on every mission I am a part of…I am a different person than I was 5 years ago when I started doing this – I know this is part of why I became a nurse to use my skills and serve people whether 10 feet or 10,000 miles in my world.

It’s almost midnight & again the wake up call will come soon so GOOD NIGHT from Addis Ababa Ethiopia!