What a great day #1 of surgery week - we did surgeries on 50 patients – 5 lives & families changed! Since on some of my past missions we did 100 patients total in a week this number seems amazing!
At breakfast they gave us Operation smile Morocco 20 Year Anniversary scrubs – they are super heavy cloth so I am not sure if I will wear them this week or not – some people wore them today 😊. When we got to the hospital about 7 we spent the 1st 2 hours setting up the recovery room. We have a PACU team that is VERY experienced & seem like they will be fabulous to work with. There are the 2 girls from my last years Morocco mission in Tangier that I know Samia & Rania, Angelica who is originally from Bolivia but has lived in Arkansas for 19 years, Chris from Sweden who I knew from a mission in Ethiopia, another girl & guy from Morocco, & 2 guys from Egypt – so 9 of us & 2 are “training”. There are also probably 10-12 others of the 130 team members I know from past missions. I am not always great with names but I know faces & that has been fun. A few from last Nov. in Tangier, & some from many missions’ past. It is nice to have these past connections. We did the “mock code” & reviewed the emergency plan & then the cases got started with a lip repair on all 10 tables.
I knew it would be a while before we got patients & the child life “pre-op waiting” for the next 10 patients to go in is right outside of the PACU so I put on a cover gown & went out there & saw some cuties playing. I recognized one mom from the 1st screening day. I had helped her put on & connect the straps on her baby carrier & also took their photo. I showed her the phot from that day & she remembered me too & then she instantly got teary & tole me she was “so scared for her baby girl” Her daughter is Ghita (pronounced Rita) & is 9 months old & so stinking cute! The mom herself had a cleft lip – I don’t know when she had It repaired but it was by Op Smile & I don’t know if she was just anxious as any mom would be or more aware of what this was like having gone thru is? Either way I hugged her & talked to her & thru a translator (so she really understood me) told her I would take care of the baby after surgery. That was kind of a big promise because there is no way of knowing when the kids come off the surgery tables & if you already have a patients etc but yep I made that promise. I needed to get back to PACU but I passed her off the Whitney my new friend/mission daughter who is the child life specialist & I knew she would give her some TLC. I came back out once more just as they were calling her number (which was 02 – so she was the 2nd patient screened!) so her mom was able to pass her off to me, kiss her baby girl & I walked her in – divine intervention for certain!
Our first patients came back at 10:30 & we got all 10 in the PACU by noon but it never felt too chaotic then…later it definitely did! I was trying to get blankets for all of the beds, the OR table also each want a blanket & we need another set to “share”. Some times on missions we have BOXES of fleece blankets people make & donate; sometimes so many that we give one to each child. This time we had one box & some if the blankets were the size of placemats & would maybe work for premies??? I asked the Program coordinators if I could us the money from a friend of mine & purchase blankets…they were fine with that but I needed to figure out who could go get some because that big market I went to was closed on Mondays? It was pretty easy to work out & before they left we also realized we didn’t have many disposable diapers…so they would get those too. By about 1 pm we had 30 nice blankets & 6 packs of diapers…how blessed am I to have people who entrust sacred fund to me to do good as I see fit or as I feel directed. I really do want to be a conduit for good & magnet for Moroccan miracles this week & this felt like a good start. I also brought some cute onesies & some hand sewn dolls to give away & didn’t do that with the first round of patients cause there was so much going on – fortunately we have 200 more patients to give those items to!
I taught the students how to make
IV armboards out of the cardboard from the cargo boxes with covering from the
disposable blue OR table drapes – they did a bunch & that was really
helpful. We have 2 Intensivists – Peter who is from Sweden, about my age &
very experienced & mature & has done many OSI missions & David from
the USA a younger intensivist who I am told loves the comraderies of missions
as he has a busy professional life & not a lot of recreation time in his
personal life. I like him for many reasons – first of all he came with bleach
wipes & asked me to wipe down the rather old & slightly rusted carts we
were going to use to set up our supplies on…his germ prevention reminded me of
my friend Linda Vitullo! I had brought 2 bottles of hand sanitizer & he
& I both brought Lysol wipes. But there is more…I have a Ziploc baggies of mission
supplies but he was over the & had done some serious Amazon shopping. He gave
us all small pocket mirrors so older patients could see their new smiles in the
PACU, he had 2 new forehead thermometers, writing pens, sharpies in about 10
colors & 2 big boxes of full size candy bars….I started calling him Santa
Claus each time her would pull something new out for us! We had a big Moroccan
OSI donor come thru today with a large Moroccan Government entourage…they were
nice & had us introduce ourselves.
Ghita finally came into the PACU
at 1:15 & I had told some of the PACU team I really needed to take care of
her & it worked out thanks to Chris helping me with a patient I already
had. I will post some pics of the but cant
post the detailed photos out of respect for our patients but what a change from
her bilateral (both sides) cleft lip - I
could hardly wait to get her awake take
her to her mom in post op. I did give her a doll & a onesie! I took her to
her mom & she just SMILED & was so happy. I am hoping I can see hem in
the morning in post op before they go home. It is always so remarkable to me
that I make these special connections for 24-48 hours & then will never see
these sweet people again.
The new post op ward is honestly
about 150 yards away through an outside walkway to a different building. Let’s
just say my average steps will be well over 15,000 each surgery day. I already
had 8000 by 2 pm & have had 11-15K every day that I have been here.
By 5:30 ish we still had the last
6 palates of the day to get on operating tables plus the bottom row of 10 lip repairs
so our best guess then was we would finish by 9 pm. It actually ended up being
closer to 10 pm but as we got down to the last 4 patients the 2 people who were
on call stayed with 2 others & the rest of us left so I got back to the
hotel by about 9:30. I will stay late tomorrow plus I am on call on Thursday. I
feel like we had pretty controlled chaos today – I don’t think we ever had more
than 7-8 patients in the PACU at one time just with the flow so that was good –
sort of one patient each unless people were at lunch or morning or evening coffee…which
as I said are “major daily events”
The bathrooms in the OR/PACU area
were not ideal so I tried to time my bathroom needs with taking a patient to
post op where the nicer bathrooms were…you have to plan for these things on
missions! I did go into the OR bathroom about 6 maybe & one of the OSI
volunteers was in there on her prayer mat having her prayer time. We hear the
call to prayer over loudspeakers everywhere & Abdell told us that the call
to pray is 5 times a day – sunrise, noon, afternoon, sunset & night. I was
very touched by her figuring out to stay true to her religious practices even
if it was in the changing room of the OR.
Another humbling conversation was with
Ibrahim one of the PACU RN’s who is a cardiac critical care nurse in Egypt
& very skilled & very smart. In Egypt her is “on salary” as a nurse
& has to work 19 twelve hour shifts in a month – pretty much 5 days a week
or 60 hours a week. For that he is paid 6000 Egyptian pounds/month. He wasn’t sure
of the exchange rate or what they would be in the US…I looked it up but did not
continue the conversation because we got busy & honestly I was so bothered
to find out the 1 Egyptian pound exchanges for .062 US dollars that equals in US dollars
$372/month for the same work we do. I don’t know ANYTHING about the Egyptian
economy but as we at CHOC pay $500 bonuses on top of your hourly rate plus
overtime if you work a 4th shift I just couldn’t make sense of it
all. There are many things that are
challenging in our country but I do feel blessed to live in the USA when I am
exposed to so many other countries in the world.
I was able to call some family
tonight – it is hard to be away when things are going on & Kimmi has had a
tough few days with a recurring shoulder injury that prevented her from
something that was really important to her – when those types of things are
going on & I am 6000 miles away it is tough but I was glad I got to talk to
her for a bit & got to talk to Doug. Again it’s close to midnight. My roommate
Terry is at the hospital as a night nurse so I have the room to myself which is
really helpful for me as I get back to the hotel, typically shower, have a
peanut butter sandwich for dinner (there are many options to join people but I
am too tired to go out every night!), turn on some music from my phone &
wite my blog as a way to process my day, plus I get myself packed & ready
for the next day – it’s my mission “routine” and now that routine says….get to
sleep! Good Night!
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