Got to go down to our OR's for a few hours this week, and WOW. Are all OR's as cool as this? (Or theater as my British friends call it). In the space of two hours I got to see pieces of 6 different surgeries in progress in 4 OR rooms.
In the first room, Dr. Tertius Venter from South Africa was putting back together a man's toes that looked like he'd stepped on a landmine - a "T-bomb" as the OR staff joked - he had localized macrodactyly - i.e., his toes were enormous. They hadn't stopped growing so Dr. Tertius was debulking them, taking out extra tissue, fat, muscle, and fashioning new toes for the chap that fit in shoes. Plump weird and way cool. Not a huge fan of the little basin of extra toe pieces though. Gag.
The second about broke everybody's heart around and what a priveledge to see her surgery. Sweet little eleven year old girl who was flown in from Nigeria to have her surgery. I had seen her quite by accident before her surgery. I'd gotten up late one morning, went for a cup of tea on the 5th deck cafeteria, looked down and choked on my tea. This little girl, calmly waiting in the admissions tent had a bone tumor the size of a melon right below her eyes. A massive bone tumor. Solid as a rock made of enamel and calcium. You couldn't discern a face because all there was is a huge tumor. I wish I could show you picture, but i'm sure that the Mercy Ships will be writing an article on their website about her in the near future, so keep your eyes out. When I walked into that OR, Dr. Parker had been at it for about 3 hours already. The tumor was sitting on a side table with a couple of teeth sticking out of it, and the little girl didn't have a face at that point, just a bit hole.
It's a fascinating surgery and what a miracle that we have this awesome team who can do this surgery. It involves taking out the tumor, opening up a flap on the side of the head, bringing down the temporalis muscle to swing down and create into a barrier between her nasal and bucal cavities, then sewing that flap back after placing some drains, and then creating a face out of the hole that is left after the tumor is out. All I could identify was the child's tongue. And guess what, apparently she's doing just fine two days after surgery. I can't wait to see what she looks like.
The other four surgeries were cataract removals. Super way cool 'cause one minute they can't see and the next they can. They're awake for the surgery, with local anesthetics deadening the eye and (I hope) something to chill the patient out. I got to watch the eye surgeons slit into the base of the squishy clear stuff, scrape out the cataract, replace it with a lense and then suture it back shut. And the blind shall see.
One dude needed a bit more anesthetic as he flinched... they were asking him, "Are you feeling pain, do you hurt?" and he wasn't answering.... I busted out my sucky Krio on him, being a nurse, I do know how to ask a patient if he's in pain. The surgeon looked up at me wide-eyed and said, "Welcome to the Eye Team". heehee. yeah right.
Lionel just became way even cooler in my eyes.
3 comments:
I am even more jealous of you! I would LOVE to watch some surgeries! So amazing what you guys can do - ON A SHIP!!!!!
Love you tons sis!
o my gosh you are my hero. HERO, do you hear me? and i love you too. give that little girl extra attention if you can, can't imagine what that is like. can't even picture it. not sure i want to. :(
Wow, what incredible transformations!
Ok, I'm assuming the patients who come to the Mercy Ship don't have to pay for the care they receive, do they? I've been thinking about the two economies we each live in: the gift economy, and the market economy. Creation and our lives are gifts from God, so the entire market economy is based on applying creativity and work to the stuff God has given. Your work and that of the doctors, nurses, and staff there is an incredible picture of the good gifts God gives. Thanks for giving us your time to write your observations.
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