First Day of Operations

Well up on and off all night long. I was snoring and keeping Doc awake. I couldn’t breathe through my nose very well, my throat was sore so breathing through my mouth sucked too. I was so exhausted that I would dose off and no matter what position I was in I would start snoring. I wanted Doc to be able to get some rest but that was not going to happen so I just got up and started to work on the updates.

Right now I am sitting in the office of the hospital. There are operations going on in the two OR rooms 3 surgeons operating on 3 different patients.

We were supposed to start at 8 but this being the first day working out all the kinks we started at 9. I think that is pretty fantastic considering all the hurdles.

Once it hit 6am I jumped up out of bed and pursued trying to make copies of the schedules that Amanda was up all night typing up. The internet service stopped working(found out later it was because the power went out) and I didn’t have the two schedules, one we made the night before and the one Doc just made. I failed to bring a flash drive and only brought my large hard disk which is only configured for a mac so wont be read by a windows machine which is what they have in both offices. I had to get crafty and load the files onto the cf card I had for my camera using the card reader. Once I had the file on the card I had to get online and download the other file which I had saved on google( I make a draft and attach a file and then just save it). Things got so complicated. I grabbed my laptop and started looking for someone who could let me into the office so I could fix the internet connection. I walked around and could not find any one who even lived there. No one was out yet. I had to go to the bathroom and had been holding it for a few hours already trying to get things done. I went back up stairs(we are staying in room r3 which is up on the second floor) but the bathroom was occupied. I am sharing a room with the director of the trip S. and Doc. There are 3 beds in our room as well as our own separate bathroom with a full bathtub and shower. I was still trying to get the internet working but having no luck so back out for a search for someone who could let me into the office. We were supposed to eat breakfast at 6:30 and leave on the buses by 7. It was 6:25 and I did not have the schedules printed up which is what the top priority was. I finally found someone and was let into the office. He went into the back and turned the power to the internet back on. A few minutes later my connection was up and working. I got the files I needed down loaded and set off to printing them. Doc came back down to find me and see how the progress was going. I was still working on it but making progress, not about to give up to go get food. Then another one of the staff came to stick his head in and let me know I should go eat. Doc went back up I finished up and printed out the copies and then went up to go to the bathroom then into the dining room to eat breakfast. I had to eat as fast as i could and then grab my bag and get on the bus to head to the hospital.

We arrived and I started working on the internet connection so I could check the upload speed. I also worked again on printing out schedules. I got the files to the computer but I could not print because the printer was out of black ink. I worked my way around this by changing the text to color. I tried dark blue, dark purple, and green. Then I ran out of paper. I asked for some paper and eventually someone came in and handed me two sheets. It was quite funny and we all got a chuckle out of it. I told him I needed more and off he went to make it happen. That is one of the great things about India, here you ask and they do what they can to make it happen.

I walked around outside and took some pictures out there, they walk and travel for weeks to get here for this week in hopes that their child will be one of the ones to be fixed. There are big tents where they camp out and wait to see the surgeons, and then wait to have surgery. The families are really great about having us walk around and take pictures. Some of the kids really love it and some of the kids are shy. I took quite a few photos and then headed up to the dental clinic. There I met up with one of the nurses who was teaching a mother how to use a breast pump. Her son was 3 months old and weighed 2.2kilos. She also had a daughter that was 2 years old. After talking with her they figured out that the 2 year old was still nursing and the baby was trying to nurse. There are so many of these kids and even the adults who are malnourished. The man who takes all the video and pictures for the mission told me that in the summer it gets up to 104 and there is no water anywhere. They have water at the mission and the purifier runs 24 hours a day and up to 600 people a day line up for the water. So water and food are major issues here. I also learned that most of the girls are married off by the age of 14. The nurse was showing the parents how to use the cleft palate bottles and also she gave some of the families formula.

Things I need to bring the next trip over here, good hand pumps for expressing breastmilk, slings to hand out to the mothers, EC information in Hindi to hand out, clothing for the babies, prefolds? potty bowls?
multivitamins? maybe chewable for the kids.

I got to scrub in on a hand surgery today....too tired to write more going to bed now.