Surgery Time

It's been a while since I've had to go on a med run. My charlas have kept my calendar pretty full and after a while Tia Rosa stopped asking me to take the kids places because I always had something else going on. We run into a little bit of a problem now that Mark's leaving this week. Mark's two big responsibilities are controlling the pharmacy (monitoring the medicine that leaves and ordering more as needed) and accompanying the kids on their med runs. Unfortunately we've been having a really hard time keeping track of all the meds; folks keep taking stuff out of the pharmacy for the kids without writing it down, so the numbers are way off. To help control the problem, Mark and the doctor decided that Mark would be the only person to have keys to the pharmacy from now on. The only way for this to work is for Mark (and subsequently the new clinic assistant) to stay in the clinic all day so people can have access to the meds. That means that the bulk of med runs just fell back onto my plate. I can't complain much because the second half of my year definitely has far less charlas scheduled. I can fit med runs in, it's just going to take a bit of time before I'm used to the hours again.

Anyway, this week has been pretty bad. A lot of little things have been adding to this, there's no one HUGE thing that's bothering me. I had told Alex a while ago that I'd help him go visit culinary schools and he cashed in that favor this week. I took off from work today to bring him to the capital, and while I was happy to bring him, I was also really nervous since I don't really know the capital well and leaving my safety in the hands of an 18 year old who's effectively been confined to NPH for the last ten years is not an ideal situation. I was afraid of taking the bus into the city since it requires lots of switch overs, so I asked Tia Rosa if we could bum a ride with the transport she had for the med run. She told me that it was no problem, but asked if I could stay with a kid in the morning while he was admitted for surgery and then go see the school afterwards. Since it meant having transport, I agreed but explained that I could only stay an hour since I'd have Alex with me and he needed to look at schools.

Yesterday afternoon I was talking to the doctor and she mentioned that the kid I was going to be getting admitted for surgery was going to the hospital here in Chimal, NOT the capital like I had understood. I went to Tia Rosa and explained that the only reason I had agreed is because I needed a ride to the capital; stopping in Chimal for an hour in the morning would mean that I'd miss the transport going to the capital. Luckily I didn't have to stress for long because Alex cancelled on me, to my great relief. I told Tia Rosa it was no big deal and I could stay in Chimal.

So this morning I go to Chimal with this kid (who's not really a kid, he's 22. I was there more for moral support). We get into the hospital and have to ask several people where to go before we're directed to a corner of the hospital full of very sick looking patients shuffling around. We sit and wait for a staff member to show up (again, funny how different things are here. I sat next to a med cart that had twenty pre-drawn syringes on top of it and cups of meds. I sat next to it for a full twenty minutes before anyone walked by. Definitely not kosher in back home). When a nurse finally showed up we asked about the surgery and they had no idea who this kid was or what he needed. There was no paperwork at all, they just asked him "what kind of surgery do you need?" and he replied, "I'm not sure but I have a tumor in my knee." They said, "well we can probably do a resection of it. I don't know if we can fit you in though." I just sat there quietly, not shocked anywhere near as much as I should have been at the fact that they were willing to do a surgery with zero information. It was about this time that the NPH doctor called me. I asked her if she knew what kind of operation this guy was supposed to get and here's exactly what she said to me:

"I'm not really sure either, but can you do me a favor? There's a chance that they might try to amputate his leg, can you make sure they don't do that? Thanks!"

...

Say whaaaaaaaaaaat?! Maybe the dude who speaks fifth grade Spanish is NOT the one you want ensuring that a kid's leg doesn't get hacked off. I didn't want to tell the kid any of this because he was already nervous as it was, so I just resolved myself to stay attached to this kid at all times and drill all doctors that came near him. After an hour of waiting, a doctor approaches us and tells us that we're in the wrong department, we need to go through the ER and wait at trauma. Makes no sense to me, but whatever. We do that and naturally the ER tells us that we shouldn't be there and to return to the other place. You can see where this is heading, but before we could transform into human ping pong balls, one of the nurses from the other department walked by and I snagged him so he and the ER nurse could duke it out. Finally the ER nurse conceded and the kid was prepped for surgery. I met with the surgeon and ensured that his leg would NOT be removed, only the tumor (I asked him three times JUST to make sure)

This all took place at 7am. Fast forward to 3p. I'm still standing at the kids gurney in the hallway for surgery prep. I have now started and finished a 450 page book. FINALLY the kids gets pulled in and one hour later, brought into recovery. By that time I'm pacing the halls wanting to get the heck out of there. I made sure he got to recovery okay, then high-tailed it out of there. I hadn't eaten or drinken (is this a word??) anything yet, so I went straight to a restaurant only to hear that the only thing they had left for lunch was liver. Think I'll pass, thanks. I got on the bus, headed back to NPH and passed out.

I decided that I was going to take off tomorrow since I was mentally exhausted after today (and my damn parasites have been partying hard all week). The only thing I had planned for the day was my English class with Juan Carlos, and even though I didn't feel like going, I needed the money bad. Naturally right after I call him to confirm, I get a call from Tia Rosa saying she needs me to do another surgery run tomorrow at the same hospital. I am so not in the mood for this two days in a row, NOT to mention that I had to cancel my class (and paycheck). Needless to say I'm not feeling too happy tonight. Hopefully things will be calmer next week. On the bright side, I get to finish writing my STD charla next week! Who doesn't enjoy scaring kids into safe sex with gruesome photos?!