Sunday August 24th
I fell asleep around 8pm and sleep all the way till 6am. It felt good to sleep that long. Breakfast was quite interesting, I just wanted some cereal, but I had to keep in mind to embrace the culture and not to be so.. well America! We loaded up the bus and headed to the hospital around 8am, when we got there, the empty chairs from the day before were now over flowing with people anxiously waiting for pre op's. We got off the bus and everyone went straight to to work, my job being to take pictures of course. I was sure that most of these people hadn't seen white people before, from all the stares I got, either that or I had a booger or something. I love taking pictures of all the people, I felt like a creep getting up in their face, but I got some good shots. I enjoyed taking shots of the kids the most, I was kneeling and one even came up and touched my hair, not many blondes in Thailand! I walked around taking photos for a good hour, all the people just sat patiently, happy to even be seen. They were the poorest of poor, it was probably some of their first time even seeing a doctor. walking out of the pre op room I caught one lady starring at me and gave me a big smile and nodded, i smiled back.Surgery would be starting soon and I wanted to be part of the first team that got to go in the OR (operating room). I found some scrubs, threw em on and found Kim, hinting I was ready to go. She gave me the go ahead and I went to the OR. Cheri explained the instruments and their purpose, and other necessities for surgery. Not long after the first couples patients were being prepped and Dr.Aryah and Dr.Haines followed and we were off for the races. I had seen John do cataract surgeries before, but always fun to watch. Cataract surgeries are fairly simple, a small incision is made close to the iris, then a small tool hooked up t the machine in inserted in the slit and works as a small jack hammer that breaks up the cataract. Then another tool is inserted and sucks it out, after that a new lens is replaced. Fascinating. I got some good shots of the first surgeries of the day and left, feeling as though I was in the way. The rest of the day I hung out with mirror one two crew. aka the 12-21 crew. We got to see the country side which was pretty rad, and we stopped at a Sunday market and tried some more pallet intriguing foods consisting of duck foot and fried banana. Back at the hospital, still hurting from jet lag I fell asleep on the cement floor and woke up to about 8 bug bites. I had a small heart attack about the possibilities of malaria, but felt better when John ensured me there was no malaria in this area. Surgeries ended around 9pm with a total of 50 surgeries, quite impressive. Tomorrow I think our goal is 65, bring it on.
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