Update

This is the hospital kitchen. They use coal in a fire to cook with.

This is Melissa with Dr. Taylor at the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. He has quite a story to tell about his life. Too long to go into here, but a wonderful man. There are lots of divers here parilyzed from the waist down from the benz. The chamber helps.

I'm including some random pictures. Janet L. and Katrina S. have been working nonstop in recovery and doing a splendid job. They are pictured with Peggy, a pharmacy tech from the California team who stayed and did pharmacy for us. No problems..... awesome. We gave some Spanish medical books to a couple of Drs. Dr. Taylor is doing the preop assessments and looking after our hospitalized patients for us. He got 2 and seemed thrilled to get them.

I'm spending most of my energy on the patients. Today was the first day I became a complainer and made them get me a drink of water while I was doing surgery and asked if they could aim the a/c toward me. Keveta gave me grief for whining so I bucked it up and quit whining. I must admit it's nice to go to work every day in flip flops and shorts. We change into scrubs at the hospital and are so hot and sweaty and dirty we wear them home to shower before changing back. I've used my scrub pants as a towel after washing my hands in the undrinkable water at the scrub sink. The wrench handle so far has always had water. There is no soap there, but we have Avegard. I did a couple of big thyroids today. I was frustrated because there is no pathology readily available. Where is Dr. Lacey when you need him? I took out a small portion of the gigantic pack in the guy that bled from his nasal tumor.

Our cleft baby went home, eating and smiling. She's already learned to look at the pictures after you take one.

The rat in the recovery room, heading for Carolyn's sterilizing area and the flock of vultures out back are the talk of the team today.
Dr. Cespedes (of the fish bone) helped in surgery today. He's full of jokes and stories in Spanglish. Then we have Lionel who is a scrub tech and has a very interesting fold job he does on the drapes. He gives you exactly the corners he wants you to have and makes you open it in a way I'd never have dreamed of. He's also taken the liberty of telling Sue & Jody how to arrange their trays (which hasn't gone over the best).

Pete, Tam and Melissa gave talks tonight to some of the local medical folks, Drs, Nurses, etc.

at the Oasis restaurant across the street. We gave out our stethescopes and various medical gifts.