Medical Mission -Zimbabwe: Day 2....the boy who needed to pee & being a bully

Mission trip to Zimbabwe

I have been invited to be a member of a medical team sponsored by Operation of Hope. This is a family run foundation started by a plastic surgeon from Longview, WA. I depart from Portland, OR Oct 6, 2010. The first leg of my journey takes me to NY. My friends Philip and Periuza Wegner will meet me and send me onto Johannesburg, South Africa. A 15 + hour flight UGH...compression hose here I come. I have a short layover then a final flight to Harare.
Once in Harare we will be setting up at Harare Central a large government hospital. We hope to complete 70 cleft lip and palate surgeries over a 2-week span. Children will travel from all over Zimbabwe to have these surgeries performed for free by an American medical team. Apparently there are no plastic surgeons trained to perform these surgeries in Zimbabwe
My last week in Zimbabwe will be spent 60 miles away in Makumbi a Jesuit run orphanage and school. I get to do my favorite thing hug babies and children! My travels home bound take me to Ethiopia, Amsterdam, and then finally back in the Pacific N.W.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Day 2....the boy who needed to pee & being a bully

Well our day begins with french press coffee to the veranda outside my room. The British occupation left it's mark. Oh yeah this is at 05:30, We then have a lovely British breakfast...eggs sausage, bacon ;fried tomato...I have never eaten so many eggs... Today I had fresh fruit, yogurt & granola..much better.
We go by mini bus to the hospital by 0645, Set up and start the day of surgery!
Lots of children with profound facial deformities. Similar to Peru significant need and overwhelming gratitude.'
The forth case of the day was a six year old boy who had a cleft palate repair. He wolk up nicly, then screamed for an hour and 20 minutes. We gave pain meds ...NO change.. We tried to find family unavailable...We gave sedating medicine (versed) No change. None of the Zimbabwe staff spoke his dilect... I had picked him up and was rocking him. f inally his unnncle came in and because he spoke multiple languages we were able to communicate. My little guy needed to pee. Poor guy. After he was fine. We also learned they had traveled 36 hours to come for the surgery, and we were the first WHITE folks he had ever seen. I'm sure we made a lasting impression.
At 2 PM we needed to stop operating in one of the rooms. One of the Zimbabwe surgeons does not like that we come and use his ORs. He believes the Zimbabwe goverment pays us rich ammericans to come. So he had a screaming match and we had to cancel a surgery today. The politics in the USA hospitals pale in comparison.
So we left the Hospital at 9:00 PM ate at 10...it is now 11:30 and I need to repeat the drill in O Dark Hundred. Sorry I can't tell more stories.