Our Mission the first few days.

Our Medical Mission; the first few days.

When we do take a South American vacation, we usually take it after the mission so it almost felt like a bit of a downer as we left Peru knowing we had 6-7 days of work ahead of us.  This feeling evaporated as we met our team.  Someone asked me in the past why I keep coming back and I replied it was the team.  Of course we all want to help people less fortunate than us but it is a lot easier being part of a "band of brothers (and sisters)".  

Every mission is a little different but we made some fairly major changes this year.  Usually the routine is to arrive in Cuenca on Saturday after spending some time in Quito and Otovalo.  This year however largely because of the new airport in Quito, the group flew to Cuenca on Friday after arriving Thursday night.  We of course came from Peru which was different.  Usually Saturday is a fairly relaxed day of unpacking and settling in.  This year we did a combined follow-up and pre-assessment clinic, with the plan of starting cases Sunday afternoon.

Clinic is an exhausting slog.  People come from all over usually with about 5 friends and relatives so the area is congested.  You do have to remember that just about all of these people are desperate for help.  The area where we see the patients is less than adequate for assessment by nursing, orthopaedics, pediatric ortho, physio, dental and oh yes, anaesthesia.  This is complicated by the fact that every one of these groups needs 1-3 translators and we certainly had nowhere near that critical mass this year.  In addition not knowing  from year to year what type of space will be available makes it hard to plan in advance.  This year our crowd control was much better which made the congestion in the clinic area less and we were able to see about 150 patients over 8 hours, 48 or so might be going for surgery which meant anesthesia had to see them as well.  On days like this it is really important to keep repeating the mantra "it is all about the patient".  

We limped back to the hotel and a cold beer followed by our first of the excellent Inca Real meals and then off to bed.  

We arose the next morning and ate our first excellent Inca Real breakfast.  Some people went to mass but I decided not to spend one of my few remaining hours of freedom on a hard pew so we looked around the markets before Mary and I headed over the hospital around 1100 to set up for a planned 1200 start time.  

 I was actually in the cathedral does that count?

Most of my anaesthetic equipment I had unpacked the day before and I was relieved to find out on arriving in the OR that the hospital had left the monitors in this year.  Normally the hospital has stripped the OR of monitors leaving us to depend on the ancient monitors we leave down and the borrowed monitors we bring down. 

We were able to get our first 4 cases done and got home in time to watch the Super Bowl in the bar and the hotel even brought down our meals.  Soon it was off to bed to rest for our first full day of work in the OR.