After we got back from the internet cafe yesterday, the nurse at the front desk of the hospital called us over to let us know about a surgery being done at 2pm. We volunteers can go and watch the surgries (glad I brought my scrubs!) but you never really know what you are going to see, since anyhting OBGYN related is "c-section" to the nurses. I was excited, and really not nrevous since I'm really good at disections and have no trouble watching surgery on TV. We got into the operating theater (after a long chat with the anestisiologist, whose son lives in Balitmore) and watched as Dr. Gigi made the incision, clamped bleeding and pulled out a very blotchy, very slimy, baby girl. She was wisked away into the next room (since the pedaetrition takes over as soon as the baby is born here) and Dr. Gigi had started putting the mom back together when the smell, beeping machines, breathing through the mask, and bloody clothes all rushed at me at once and I felt like I was floating about five feet over my head. I managed to make it out of the operating room into the scrub room and get my head between my knees before I totally passed out. The anestisiologist came to check on me and gave me a candy, and I was able to go back in for about two minutes before I started gagging and had to go out again. So much for smelling the ether!
So, again, sorry Mom!
It was fine afterwards, Dr. Gigi said I did fine and told about the boy volnuteer they had who fainted out on the sterile instrument tray, while Lizeth said that Dr. Gigi's brother (Dr. Roy, the ortho surgon) fainted during his first two surgeries. I felt much less stupid after that, though a little nervous for the next time I would go in.
Lizeth, Kayla, and I then went to the huge temple on the edge of town. We were a little uncertain about heading out (since we hadn't been before) but the rickshaw took us right to the front of the Temple square. We went in through a dark, narrow street full of shops with oil lamps, flower garlands, candies, and other offerings. About five feet from the door, stacks of shoes were lined up, so we added ours to the pile and headed in. Its really had to describe what it was like, since it really was a whole complex of buildings and gardens and pools with recesses for staues of the gods. It is mainly a temple to Shiva, so bulls (his carrier), lingums (fertility), and the Dancing Shivas were everywhere. But there were also Ganeshas, Hanumans (the monkee god), a pen for live cows and an Elephant. We just turned a corner of the huge colonade and there it was, with its keeper, decorated with chalk mandalas and eating hay. If you gave it a few rupees, it woul "bless" you by putting it's trunk on top of your head and blowing slime on you. Which I did (of course!). It can't be a great life, but he had a nice pen and could walk around the temple to his hearts content, so it's not so bad for a domestic elephant.
We met up with a Temple volunteer (they wear yellow bandanas that say "Don't tip, just smile!" so you can tell them from the 'guides') who took us under his wing because he has a son who is a doctor in Canada. He showed where it was alright to take pictures, how to get around the complex, and sent us off into the main shrine. The complex was laid out in concentric squares, starting at the outer colonade (home of the elephant and the only place it was ok to take pictures, though not of the elephant becuase he doesn't like that) and working into smaller and smaller rooms. The inermost room had priests doing blessings, and through Shiva was he biggest statue Ganesha had the longest line. The rooms goot hotter and hotter as you went in, and the scent of insense was really intense in the inner chambers. By the time we left, our feet were black with dirt and hundreds of years of soot.
We took a quick walk through an ajacent gardin with a pool, and were heading back toward the exit when our friend found us and brought us to a man in Western clothes with Einstien hair and ashes on his face. He was the chairman of the board of trustees, and he gave us ashes for our faces and little cards with images of Shiva on them, then made us sign the guest book. It was a lovely afternoon, and we got back to the restaurant to have dinner just as it got dark.
Back at the hospital, we relaxed unitl about 10 and got into bed. Aftre 15 minutes later, the nurses came knocking on our door saying "Alison! Alison!". We rolled out of bed and were told that there was a "c-section" going on. Kayla had been hoping to see a delivery (which always happenin the middle of the night) so we raced down to the delivery room to find Dr. Gigi in the middle of a forcepts delivery for a pre-term baby, the membrane had ruptured. When the baby came out, it was lilac. The nurses rushed him into the other room, and we three followed. The pediatrition was working on pumping the baby to get it to breathe. I was sure that they wouldn't be able to. They rubbed it with warm cloth, put it under the heat lamp, and slowly the color started to come back to it and it started crying, though not very stongly. It looked vrey weak and didn't move purposfully, just kind of lay limply. They took the baby to inensiv care, and we returned to watch them finish cleaning the mother. We went to bed soon after, and got up early because there was another "c-section" (really a hysterectomy) at 6:30 this morning.
On the way to breakfast, we ran into the pediatrition who told us that the baby died in the night.
It was hard to focus on the surgery after that, even though it was really interesting. They took out the woman's uterus with a lemon sized-tumor attached. We got to open it up and do an initial assesment (though it had to go to the lab for a biopsy to see if it was cancerous). After this, we follow Dr. Gigi through her consultations. I'll let you know how it goes.
1 comment:
I have the same reaction to inhalation sedation. That's why I don't use nitrous. It's not the surgery, it's the drug.
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