We received a pallet of essential vitamins and nutrients to be distributed on our next mission. Nutritional deficiency is one of the leading cause of blindness. Thank you, Douglas Lab!
Thank you, Douglas Labs!
The Thank You messages for Dr. Kondrot are pouring in. Here are a few clips.
Continue reading “A big Thank You from the patients in Liberia”
Today is our last day here in Liberia. I must admit I am walking around the waiting area and it seems like there are more people on the last day than on the first day! How could this be? We worked very hard every day from early morning to late night and people are still waiting in long line. Some has been waiting for days.
Words travel fast and as people hear that we are here to do eye surgery, they are coming from far away to get the care.
Take a look at the waiting area this morning and tell me if you agree with me.
Sitting in the lobby, I hear from Joe Sackor, our coordinator for this mission talk about the praise from the patients sitting outside the operating room. They sit there waiting before and after surgery. We are too busy to visit with them so we don’t get to hear these things first hand ourselves. We barely have just a few minutes in between operation to look at people eyes to give the go-ahead to get them scrub up for surgery. We don’t even have time for lunch let alone time to chit chat with anybody.
What a day! We did seven surgeries today including repairing a traumatized iris prolapsed for a young four years old boy. We did surgery until late, even after the big generator has stopped, and the big light is out. We use the iPhone flashlight often.
By the grace of God, the team arrives safely at Redemption Hospital through the horrendous morning traffic and the crazy maneuvers of large sixteen wheelers tow truck near the entrance to the Monrovia Freeport on Somalia road. When a truck decides to do a U-turn on Somalia road, traffic on both ways comes to a standstill waiting for the large truck to finish its moves. At the midpoint of the U-turn, the truck would just cut off traffic completely going both ways and slowly makes it back and forth maneuvers until it is lined up to go in the driver desired direction. All the while, we have cars and tut-tuts and other vehicles mixed in with pedestrians peddling the things they are selling, either carrying them on their heads or pushing their coconuts and drinking water in plastic bags in wheel barrels. It is a dizzying scene and I wonder how many accidents happen a day. But amazingly, we actually have not witnessed one accident since we arrived and we have not even seen an ambulance here.
As we enter the hospital, we are reminded of the tough time in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak:
Tell me a story that can top doing surgery when the generator shut off and we have to finish the operation under the light of an iPhone flashlight? Yes, Apple to the rescue in the Operating Room. Then driving against traffic in the morning at a crazy speed and driving back to the hotel in the back of a pickup truck in the dust of Monrovia Broad street!
The day started at a hectic pace. But team spirit is high!
Here we are all smiling for Day Two of the mission.
We hope today we will start surgery at Redemption Hospital as planned.
I lost my bag of scrubs, so Ed says just wear my scrubs. There is nothing Dr.Ed cannot fix, even his wife wardrobe issues. I am wearing the surgeon scrubs, but I am no surgeon. Pants too long and too large, top too big but I don’t think anybody cares.
We start the day at 6 AM and get back at 9 PM to the hotel. No lunch, no food and we share one small wafer! There is “intermittent fast”, “religious fast” but we are on an “unintended fast”. We were so hungry by the time we raided the dinner buffet set up
Another patient is waiting in the dining hall to be checked by Ed. We are so exhausted we have to tell him to come back the next day.
We hit the bed and passed out with exhaustion.
Note: I type this report at 7 AM on day 2 morning and I have to head out to Redemption Hospital. I am loading some picture and will come bad and add more details tonight.
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The two buses that we are given to us: one has no head lights. So we can’t leave before sunrise and we better be back before sunset. The other slides back randomly even when we are driving forward. Which one to board this morning?
Continue reading “Monrovia Mission Day 1 : Morning reflection”
