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Andrew volunteered as a translator for a mission with Alliance for Smiles. He traveled to China for two weeks to assist in clef lip and palate surgery. Here is his email postings to our Club members .... unedited and from the heart.
hello from Guang Yuan 05/10/2010 hi everyone,
today is officially the first day of our mission. we got a morning call at 0550, breakfast at 0630, team meeting at 0710, and by 0800 we were at the hospital, Guang Yuan People's Hospital. our hotel is about 15 minutes walk from the hospital. so it's good exercise for us to walk to the hospital after breakfast. since today is the first day of our mission, we had a opening ceremony hosted by the hospital which meant there were a lot of speeches from government officials, sponsors, it's kind of boring actually. i saw one of our team members almost fell asleep but luckily he didn't snore, and i was not about to wake him up. a lot of media coverage from newspaper agencies and tv stations both locally and nationally.
after the ceremony, we set up the triage/clinic on the first floor. i was shuttling between the Operating Room on the 12th floor where we stored our boxes and the clinics during the morning for getting our equipment and charts. we took turn to eat lunch at the hospital cafeteria and i spent most of my afternoon in the pediatrics clinic translating for our pediatrician and the parents of those kids. by the end of day we had screened 167 children. i just had to repeat the same questions over and over and over and over again.....
i think i can be a good pediatrician for this part after this mission, at least i can act like i know. looking at these kids and parents, the yearning for help just touches all of us. another round of selection will take place and the parents will be notified of the schedule in the next couple of days.
tomorrow will be the first day of surgery, we will have three ORs for us and three surgeons work non-stop all day. i will be in the OR tomorrow. i have already tried the scrubs, gown. hat(i don't like it because it mess up my hair), mask,shoe cover today. it's not easy to put on and these things make you sweat. i wish i had watched ER or HOUSE more carefully to see how they do it.
it's been a long day but a rewarding day. we will see how tomorrow goes.
finally, i want to thank everyone's warm, encouraging message to me. ron asked me why i joined the rcsfc, my answer was food. but i think that's not the real answer and i didn't know why i told him that. ALL OF YOU is the reason why i joined the rcsfc. by the way, the food here is good, both lunch and dinner, good chinese spicy food. maybe we should have our weekly lunch meeting here in the hotel ( i will propose that in our next board meeting and probably get rejected).
anyway,i might be sweating inside my scrubs and gown or having a sore throat, but ALL OF YOU give me the strength to overcome any obstacles. yes, i'm only the person from our club in guang yuan here, but WE are on this mission together.
i'm gonna go sleep now, again, morning call be at 0550.
be safe and be good.
sawhorse drew
hello from Guang Yuan 05/11/2010
today is the second day of our mission. yes, we operated on 12 children today (all cleft lip surgeries)and all of them are successful. the local hospital staff are very accommodating and helpful. my unit OR-1 completed 5 surgeries, age range from 3yrs to 15yrs. the older kids tend to bleed more, and the younger kids tend to cry more. but the servoflurane will do the trick and eventually they will all calm down. i realize there's so much to learn in translating medical terms and procedures. yesterday i felt like i was a pediatrician, today i feel like i'm a surgeon, anesthesiologist and dentist. i didn't have to do a lot of talking(translating) comparing to yesterday because when i only need to translate between our team members and the local hospital staff. each surgery will take at least an hour and half assuming no complications. everyone stands in the OR. my feet hurts by the end of the day and we went out for a foot massage. it felt sooooooooooooooooo.......good!!!!
so, here is the little things i learned: curing light, prophy, bovie, atropine,fentanyl,propofol,scrub nurse, articulate paper...........
tomorrow we will start our palate surgeries.
sawhorse drew
hello from Guang Yuan 05/12/2010
hi all,
again, surgeries performed on another 12 beautiful children today. we started the day by doing the morning round. i accompanied the surgeon to check on the kids we operated on yesterday to see if we can release them. actually, majority of the kids recovered well and were released, only a couple of them had minor problems.
i spent all my time today in the OR, we don't have enough translators and since OR is considered an important place. but i did go to the Post Anesthesia Care Unit room to see those kids, they are just great to look at it. some of them woke up looking for mom, some of them woke up so thirsty and would drink a full cup of juice. they don't even know their lips and palates have been operated on since we don't have a mirror in the PACU. the parents/grand parents of these kids smiled the most when they saw their children after surgeries. our unit did four surgeries, 3 palates, 1 palates and lips. palate surgery usually takes longer than lip surgery. the last one took us 2.5 hours.
anyway, i'm the on call translator for tonight. everyone is on the rotation schedule to be the on call person. i just need to be ready to go quickly to the hospital when the phone rings.
by the way, i know what a DINGMAN GAG is now.
best,
sawhorse drew
from guang yuan 05/13/2010 another 12 surgeries were completed today, my unit OR-1 did 5 of them. the last kid today was a 14 year old tibetan boy who lost his parents in the earthquake last month. he had a bilateral cleft lip. he was accompanied by a lama to the hospital. the surgery was a success and i have pictures to show you. he is a very pleasent kid, talks to everyone and he even knows a little english. he was kind of nervous about the surgery but he did try to keep a good spirit. he will be very surprises when he sees himself again in the mirror. we will find out tomorrow when we do our morning rounds.
word of the day: MACROSTOMIA, LIDOCAINE
sawhorse drew
from guang yuan 05/14/2010
another good day of work, our unit perfomed 5 surgeries including 1 palate, 3 lips, 1 palate & lip. we will be working tomorrow, but at least we will have sunday off.
word of the day: MALLET---------why don't they just call it hammer?
sawhorse drew
from guang yuan 05/15/2010
well, we are at the half way point. we have completed 62 surgeries by the end of today. tomorrow is our day off. arrangement has been made for us to tour the guang yuan city.
guang yuan is the birth place for WU ZE TIAN, she is the first and only female emperor in chinese history. she was in power for about 40 years. i didn't know guang yuan is her birth place, i guess my chinese history knowledge is so limited. i Will let you know after i visit her place.
but i still need to get up early to go with the surgeon for morning round before we leave.
word of the day: BUPIVACAINE------------------------local anesthetic drug (injection)
best,
sawhorse drew
from guang yuan 05/17/2010
hi,
it was nice to have yesterday off. we visited the birth place of the first female emperor and another ancient town. i will tell you all about when i come back. we had banquet style dinner last night since it was one of the team member's birthday, very good spicy food and reasonable price.
so far today is my easiest day since the beginning of the mission. i stayed in the OR just for one surgery this morning and i went to the sterilization room to see how all the tools and instruments are sterilized. it's easy (because the autoclave machine will do the job) but demanding. i spent the rest of the day in the ward where the family activities room is. we have volunteers from gymboree to help us. i was just playing with the kids and talking to their parents. one child's surgery was cancelled because he has a cold, it's kind of sad since he has been waiting for this day to have the operation. but operating on the child could cause potential problems.
tomorrow is going to be a long day and i will be back in the OR again. and i'm on call again tonight, actually i have been on call since last night, one of the translator got sick.
anyway, have a wonderful day.
the word of the day: OSTEOTOME--------------------------just another fancy word for chisel used on bones.
sawhorse drew
from guang yuan 05/18/2010
today i'm back in the OR. another 4 surgeries from our unit. one of the kids had a cleft lip which resulted the collapse of her right half of the nose (nostril). what the surgeon did was cut open behind her ear and took a piece of cartilage put it inside the nose for support. now the girl has a shaped nose instead of a flat half nose. the whole process was amazing. i guess that's why they are called plastic surgeons.
sorry about not sending any pictures. i actually have a lot but i need to sort them out first. i promise i will show everyone the pictures.
word of the day: INTUBATE
i think we will complete this mission by the end of friday and leaving guang yuan on saturday morning.
sawhorse drew
from guang yuan 05/20/2010
today is the last day for surgery. we have performed surgeries for 118 children in this mission. tomorrow will be our last day of the mission. we will still have morning rounds and we probably spend all morning checking all the kids we have operated on ( we have asked them all to come back on friday for a second visit). we will have our closing banquet tomorrow night and leaving saturday morning. i have already got the assignment of going with our quartermaster with our equipment separately from the team .
we are going to perform a couple of songs during tomorrow night's banquet: you are my sunshine and auld lang syne.
it's not easy, believe me , try to sing you are my sunshine in chinese. well, a few of our members (non-chinese speaking) will do just that and i have the important task of practicing with them...... i only have one day to prepare. but they just need to sing one verse, i hope the audience will understand what they will be singing. if not, at least they will have a good laugh. i went to the dental clinic this morning and spend the afternoon in the ward translating for the parents and the pediatrician. our dental team leader gave a two hour lecture to the dentists in the local hospital and i was one of the translators. it's a easy day for me and most of us, we all only have lip surgeries, no palate.
lastly, group picture will be taken tomorrow morning.
word of the day: OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA, ----i wonder how many of our members have it. RHINOPLASTY, ALAR ROTATION, FISTULA, DEXAMETHOSONE.
best,
sawhorse drew
from guang yuan 05/21/2010
hi,
mission accomplished. we had our clinics this morning and everything went so smoothly. i translated for my OR-1 surgeon and all his patient. telling them the recovery is going well, eat soft food for the next two weeks, drink more (not alcohol), keep head up when sleeping to help reducing the swelling........ some of the kids actually healed very fast, i will of course have the photos to show everyone.
what really got me was when i saw the joyful parents, grandparents holding the babies kept thanking us for what we have done. their smiles bring tears to my eyes. we take a lot of things for granted, we spend two weeks here and 118 children will have beautiful smiles that's something they never had in their lives. little things we do in our lives that can change someone's life in a positive way forever. that's why i'm here, that's why afs is here, that's why we are all volunteers.
i had time in the afternoon to get another foot massage. the dinner banquet was great. great food, a lot of fun, karaoke singing. btw, three of our members did well singing the verse of the" you are my sunshine"in chinese. we only had a little time to prepare for this but i was impressed by their performance. but again, lots of speeches by the government officials, many pictures were taken. sometimes i was asked to take photos with people i don't even know. a lot of drinking, but not me.
we will leave 0730 tomorrow. the members probably will split after arriving in chengdu. some will stay a little longer, some will leave earlier, the rest will leave on sunday.
i plan to contact the chengdu hts on sunday to see if i can make arrangement to visit and i will keep everyone apprised.
it has been a great mission, a great experience for me personally.
word of the day: YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE, MY ONLY SUNSHINE
YOU MAKE ME HAPPY WHEN SKIES ARE GRAY
YOU'LL NEVER KNOW DEAR, HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU
PLEASE DON'T TAKE MY SUNSHINE AWAY
YOU ARE MY HAPPY SMILE, MY ONLY HAPPY SMILE
YOU MAKE ME HAPPY WHEN SKIES ARE GRAY
YOU'LL NEVER KNOW DEAR, HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU
PLEASE DON'T TAKE MY HAPPY SMILE AWAY...................
.......................................................................................
i want to thank all of you for writing me emails, it means a lot to me. sorry i didn't get chance to reply to you individually.
best,
sawhorse drew
out from guang yuan
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