Surprise - not a gratuitous food picture. Instead, the beautiful Steffanie doing her best to comfort a scared little patient.
Traveling from the first floor ward to the operating rooms involved a convoluted trek from one building to another. This is the sign that let us know we were on the right track. It seemed like admitting was on the right hand side of this picture (where the gleaming metal bars are, a disturbingly recurring jail theme here).
Once you got an elevator to the 11th floor, you were greeted by this familiar face. She assigned you a shoe locker and a clothes locker, and handed you a passel of green hospital scrubs, disposable cap and mask. As you can see by my spicy surgical cap, we did manage to bend the rules a bit...
First patient of the day for me, another incomplete cleft lip, a 14 month old boy.
Looking good after surgery.
After cleft surgeries, the parents (and the patients) had to learn how to drink very carefully, using a syringe to squirt liquids into the mouth. These precautions are taken to avoid disrupting any of the delicate work done on the lip and/or palate during surgery.
Pam, taking expert care of the babies, getting them ready for a good sleep.
Second patient of the day. If you look carefully at this 13 month old boy, you can see a tiny notch on the underside of his upper lip. Following that up towards his nose, it looks like maybe someone has already been here - a nice surgical scar, perhaps?But according to his family, this baby had never had surgery before. What looks like a surgical scar on his lip is actually a microform cleft lip.
After surgery. He was a very peaceful fellow.
With my patient Changde scrub nurse, Tien. She was so excited to hear about how much Jen and I appreciated spicy food, that she brought some spicy dried pressed duck, a Changde-only delicacy, for us to try.
Charles, looking stellar as always. His scrub nurse's name was Mao-Mao, as in Mao Tse Tung.
Maybe it looks like hard work and long days, but some of us got a little extra help to push through the pain. Exhibit A: Charles getting a back massage in OR 2.
Exhibit B: Alex, receiving icy saline bags to help cool down his back.Alfred can't believe it either.
The morning-friendly surgeons of the first week, left to right: Charles, Jeff, Alex, me, Johnny.
The babies were all brought up to the operating rooms in their own clothes; if you were older, you got to change into these special patient gowns. See what I mean about the jail-ish theme?
The local nurses were so smitten with their American counterparts, they gave them their own uniforms, complete with the cap. Lee Ann and Krista definitely owned the look.
