Días 27 y 28

I can't believe it - our last week en el hospital!


Since it's our last week, we pretty much get to go wherever we want. We start off by heading to surgery, but there really isn't anything that we haven't seen. Sadly, radiology was the same as well. After this less than memorable day, we pretty much want to just end our work week today. I mean, why keep going back to a place where we don't get to do anything anyway!

Thank goodness we actually did go back on Tuesday - one of the best work days in a long time! We went to surgery, only because we knew one of our favorite doctors, Carlos, would be there. He has been doing his rotations en quemado, but he was going to cirugía to help with some reconstructive surgery for the burn victims. Entonces, we get there and find him in quirofano 6, helping another doctor with something we had never seen before. This little child was born with 6 fingers on each hand as well as 6 toes on one of her feet. We were under the impression that there weren't actually any bones in the extra phalanges, because the doctor simply cut them off...with scissors. During this whole procedure, we were talking to and getting to know the doctor a little better. We simply asked him if we could help out with the next procedures, and he told us absolutely! There were 3 surgeries coming up, each of which required a skin graft - and there are 3 of us. How perfect!? I won't bore you with all of the gory details, but to sum it up: each of the 3 children had burns of different sizes and severities, and each had a skin graft taken from their thigh to be used to replace the damaged skin of the burn. All of us got to help out in different ways, whether it was holding tools or body parts or severing nerve endings. It was pretty cool to watch and help with. I had never seen a skin graft before, but you know those things you use to cut slices of cheese - the ones that you usually use on velveta? Well, that's what it reminded me of - just shaving off a thin layer of skin from the leg. Pretty crazy!

After work, we decided to head up to the park to play kickball and/or frisbee. Well since there are only 6 of us, we asked the local kids to play with us. Naturally, they said no. Instead, they asked us to play fútbol with them. Those of you hat know me pretty well, know that I am absolutely awful at soccer. Luckily, I didn't get hit in the face or anything too bad - just took one in the chest that wasn't exactly pain free. But, it was a lot of fun and we're thinking about going to play with them again tonight (Thursday)!