We would get up around 0600 and have breakfast in the hotel's dining room. This was a buffet with heuvos of course, little pancakes, bread, bacon or sausage and fruit. The hotel makes an incredible fruit juice, a different fruit every day, All this with coffee which we diluted 50:50 with hot milk. The best part of this was getting to eat with members of the team as opposed to at home where I usually eat breakfast alone before heading off to work.
One we finished breakfast we would walk throught the streets of Cuenca to the hospital. Cuenca would be bustling early in the moring. We had a choice of routes, we could walk past the cathedral or past the food market which would just be getting started. We would descend down to the Tombabomba river, cross it and then walk to the hospital. The tile sidewalks were slippery if it rained or as happened that week when a volcanoe deposited a layer of volcanic ash. Once there we would change into our greens and set up for the day. Mary worked on the floor and the nurses after taking report from the local nurses who covered over night would get the first two patients for the day ready while looking in on the previous day's patients.
All our cases were planned spinals. In eight years we have only done 1 case under general and have been fortunate to have never had a failed spinal. We are of course ready to proceed to a GA if necessary.
Above is a "selfie" of my in the OR. I like to tape things on the wall as you can see. The hose behind me is a Bair Hugger hose blowing cold air because the rooms are very hot.
This is the machine and monitors that the hospital provides.
These are my anaesthetic supplies. We use a tackle box to store drugs along with this plastic set of drawers. As you can see I am just as messy in Ecuador as I am in Canada.
This is a fairly typical case that we did. You can see that she had the other side done in the past. You can see the destruction of the joint on the right side. These patients are not getting their joints done to improve their golf game!
Here are some of our team operating on a patient.
We were able to run two rooms and did 4 patients in each room for a total of eight patients a day. This usually took us until between 1700 and 1900 every day. The nurses of course stayed later.
At the end of day we would walk in groups back to the hotel, stopping to shop sometimes. Usually a cold cerveza or a glass of vino tinto was waiting for us in the hotel bar.
Dinner was usually served around 1930 in the large dining room. The suppers were excellent as was the company. Towards the end of supper each group did a report of their day; some were funny, some were touching. Supper tended to last until around 2100; there was often time only for another drink, a chat or check the emails before we went to bed.
On Thursday of the week, the surgeons had an educational dinner with the local surgeons so I took advantage of this to go out to Santa Lucia with Mary, Amy the resident who came with us and the floor nurses, We like to go to this restaurant at least once a year. It is a beautiful room and serves a variety of Ecuadorian and other food. We had a leisurely dinner there which didn't wrap up until about 2200.
Friday was only a half day as we had worked half a day the previous Sunday so we did only 4 cases in two rooms. That meant that after packing up I was able to get out of the hospital shortly after noon to walk back to the hospital. Mary had to work the rest of the afternoon but she got home around 1600 and we were able to get out and do a little shopping including buying her a birthday present because it was her birthday.
Normally on Fridays the local rotary club invites us to their hall for a dinner, speaches and party in honour of our hard work. Because it was Mary's birthday I was able to get out of this and we went together to Tiestos for a excellent meal together. We got back to the hotel and chatted with some of the OR nurses who had not gone to the party because they had to pack before heading off to bed.
The urinal at Tiestos.
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