Loja, Ecuador Surgical Volunteer Trip: A Dream That All Goes Well With The Operation

Photos

Mary and Maria
Originally uploaded by interplast.

Tuesday was the first day of surgery, and like other trips I’ve been on, we had to work out the kinks. As sometimes happens, we had a problem with the autoclave and had to rely on the hospital to sterilize our instruments. The result caused delays and we got behind schedule. To add to the situation, a one-year old patient was not recovering well (bleeding) and had to return to the operating room. This necessitated canceling the last patient - a sweet 15-year old girl named Maria. She was scheduled to have an abbey flap to create more of an upper lip which was malformed due to a previous cleft lip. She was so gracious despite having waited all day without food or water. She understood, saying the little ones were more important. We rescheduled her for the next day (Wednesday).

Wednesday turned out to be very busy and she waited the whole day again, but this time we were able to do her surgery. Like many patients, she’s very afraid of needles, so when Melissa (the anesthesiologist) came to pre-medicate her and put in her IV, I distracted her. Melissa has such a gentle touch that apart from the little sting from the numbing medication, Maria never felt the IV go in.

Going in to the operating room I told her to pick a sweet dream to think about while we put her under - she said she would dream that all goes well with her operation. She let me take her picture just before she went to sleep. What a wonderful spirit this young lady has! She’s so grateful for our help and said she’ll stay in Loja so she can say hello to the Interplast team next year.

Note: This text previously (and erroneously) went with this photo of Andrea. I have fixed it so this post is the correct story and picture of Maria, and the other post is the correct story and picture of Andrea. Sorry for the confusion. --Interplast