2/27/09

 I’m now not only a surgeon but a dentist. So maybe not quite a
dentist or a surgeon but I have pulled 6 teeth, okay so maybe four
were baby teeth. I think of it this way though, if baby teeth are
teeth than kids aren’t humans. My new experiences as a dentist became
possible because a medical missionary team has just been here from
Oregon.

This team was headed by Dr. Erling Oksenholt, the man who originally
got Fletcher Justin and me interested in Gimbie and played a huge part
in us coming here. Our house was transformed the day before he came
into a cafeteria to feed the 13 ferrangies and many other visitors who
would join our every meal. It was nuts! Each of the 10 days they were
here I was absolutely exhausted when my head finally hit the pillow.

The team included a dentist, two doctors, an eye specialist, a
physical therapist, a nurse, a journalist, and others who acted as
medical assistants. Most days this team would head out to one of the
clinics to receive and care for huge crowds of people that had come to
see the “ferrangie” doctors. The biggest hit was always the eye
specialist Dr. Harris. Many people have a lot of trouble with there
eyes here due to both the sunlight and the dust.

I switched off with Fletch going to these clinics. One day I worked
with Dr. Raj Bamon. I started out being his assistant and helping him.
 After a couple of hours though, the translator was talking to me and
not the doctor and I was diagnosing problems, prescribing medicines
and ordering lab tests. While I was doing this Dr. Raj was usually
busy taking pictures out the window or reading. It was great! At the
other clinic I went to I assisted the dentist Dr. Ray Lunt. After I
watched a couple of patients get their teeth pulled. A little boy came
in and Dr. Lunt informed me that this was my patient! Oh boy, I though
to myself, it just has to be a kid who will probably cry and I am
supposed to pull not one but four of his teeth. That just sounds
great. It ended up going well though, well at least all four teeth did
eventually come out and the poor kid didn’t cry to hard  as I was
yanking viciously at his teeth. I saw one other patient that day also,
this second one I received a little professional assistance but I did
eventually get two of his teeth also.

Life is almost back to normal now. One of the best things is that the
group left all of their extra food. I can’t tell tell how good it is
to have cheese, Heinz ketchup and cold cereal. Wow! It’s a taste of
home I tell ya. But I was jerked back to reality when one of the first
patients I saw back at the OPD was a 10 year old girl who had been
raped, and was coming to get medical attention. Well only two more
weeks of this, and that is another thing that doesn’t quite seem like
reality.

2/13/09

In the past few weeks I've gotten the chance to observe many
surgeries. Jacob, our new roommate has been helping us with triage and
because it does not take three people to work there we take turns
doing other jobs or things. This includes watching surgeries and
shadowing the doctors. The experience has been absolutely great to
far.

There are a couple of surgeries that I have seen that have really
amazed me. The first was that of young man who came in with a
distended stomach. Because this hospital does not have the proper
imaging equipment the doctors were not sure exactly what the problem
was, but the figured it was a blockage in the bowel. It turned out
they were wrong and the surgeons, Dr. Kahlid and Dr. Johnson, were in
for a very big surprise. They did a midline incision and his insides
practically popped out of him. His whole digestive tract was filled to
bursting with air. The worst part of it seemed to be his colon and so
it was decided that it should be removed. Two and a half hours later a
four foot section of his 5 inch in diameter colon was removed. Wow was
that ever amazing to watch. Even Dr. Johnson had never seen anything
like it.

There also have been some other interesting operations. One was a boy
who had a perforation in his bowel from a tree that fell on him.
Another was a lady who had a liter of pus drained from a sore on her
back. Recently I also saw the the most disgusting operation I've seen
so far. A young lady came in with a absolutely horrendous infection in
her lower leg. They brought her into surgery to see if they would need
to amputate it. The smell was enough to make you vomit and that
combined with the sound of the steel instruments scraping away the
dead skin and pus from the bone put me to the point were I had to step
out of the room to catch some fresh air. Luckily there was some life
still in her leg so for now no amputation is needed.

This last week I also got my first chance to be a real surgeon. Well
not quite but for me it seemed that way.  A young man came in and he
had all the signs of appendicitis, but he did not have the money to
pay for the operation. When I found out about this I decided that I
could use some money I had gotten from the states for charity to help
the boy out. If not he might have been sent home, and appendicitis can
easily kill you if left for too long. So off to the operation room we
went, I went along to try and get some pictures to send back to the
donor. It was late afternoon and so there was no one to assist Dr.
Johnson in surgery. An assistant is not necessarily needed for and
appendectomy but Dr. Johnson asked me if I would like to help. Of
course I jumped at the chance.

Dr Johnson showed me how to wash and get all sterile and in my gown
and drapes and soon I was standing over the patient. It was amazing!
Just to be so close to what was going on. I proceeded to help by
mopping up blood with gauze, cutting sutures, holding the skin apart
with retractors and so on. It was the highlight of my time here so
far. The only complaint I had about it was the fact that my nose
itched terribly and I couldn't itch it! The young man has now been
discharged so I know now that I didn't do anything wrong too, which is
good news.

I now only have about one and a half months left here, and I'm very
much looking forward to more time in the OR. By for now.

nk