Day Four of Surgery

It is another warm and humid morning in Chiclayo and the two valiant night nurses Tricia Cabrera and Rachel Hovland have just returned to the hotel after a night on duty. The small, cramped ward where our patients spend the night after surgery is very warm most of the time. George Steiner hit the local Supermercado and purchased an "easy assembly " fan, which of course didn't have all the pieces in the box. He fearlessly negotiated an exchange for the correct pieces and got it running in order to provide much needed relief. The two nurses who staff the ward by day, Patience Kankeh and Jan Martland literally do not sit down from 7:30a to 6:30p. One minute they are checking vital signs on an undernourished 6 week old lip case, the next explaining to a recently widowed, jobless father, how to measure the correct amount of medication to give his one year old daughter he has brought in because "I knew it was what my wife wanted." They are adapting to the limit on supplies by fashioning patient wristbands out of red duct tape(thanks to the ingenuity of Lynn Randall), and quickly clean the plastic covered foam rubber mattresses with a blast of Lysol between patients, The hospital, Las Mercedes, is the town's Public Hospital; the place where the most impoverished Peruvians bring their sick. During the time we have been here many mothers and fathers have approached any one of us walking in our blue scrubs (which announce that we are part of the team of los americanos), carrying their sick babies. Many suffer from ailments we are unable to treat, however we have received tremendous support from the staff of the hospital to partner in cases where we can. During the first day of surgery the power went out locally, but team doctors continued using head lamps. We are amazed at the circle of family members that accompanies most patients; mother/father/aunt/uncle/cousin are in tow as the patient comes forward to the screening area staffed by Maria Ferrara. Everyone on the team is multi-tasking in order to do what needs to be done. We have operated on the child of a mother whose husband didn't want her to seek care for the child, forcing her to choose between her husband and the needs of her child. We have helped a 24 year old boy who has spent his life walking with his hand in front of his face to hide his cleft lip, as well as a small boy who is know among his friends as "Cracked mouth." The true joy comes at the end of each day when we had the patient a mirror to take a first glance at themselves post-surgery. Somewhat swollen, but always vastly improved, they glance back at their new faces, and smile.>