Surgery

Well, I got to see another surgery. This time I was there from the very beginning. The patient was an eleven year old girl with a large tumor below her lungs and near her aorta and kidneys. The doctors wanted to do a biopsy and evaluate the extent of the tumor growth, so they opened her up and looked around. I got to look over their shoulder.

The idea is really simple, "something is wrong, so let´s take a look." I mean, we have our insides with us all the time, but we don´t ever get to look at them, which is kind of sad in a way. It´s like being married to someone and living on seperate continents. It would be so cool to see how all our little organs do their thing, maybe we would be nicer to ourselves if we could see all our internal squishy machines working so hard to keep us going.

Simple idea, and they made the procedure look simple. They just cut her open, layer by layer, cauterizing any bleeds, until they had reached the abdominal cavity. Then they stuck their fingers in and felt around, then they stuck their whole hands in and felt around, then they cut a chunk out of the largest tumor in front for the biopsy. They showed me the aorta pulsing to deliver it´s cargo to the bottom half of the body. "Veedy dangerous," says the doctor. They are actually hoping that the tumor is malignant, because it has wrapped and attached itself to the aorta. With malignant tumors, you can do chemo and radio thearapies, but if it is benign, it will continue to grow and strangle that artery; the only option if it is benign would be a risky surgery to remove the growth from the aorta.

I also made a small change to the Mita´i website. It sort of looks cooler, I think. I have also been training one of the secretaries to update it and she has also been making a blog for the hospital itself.

This weekend I am going to Saltos del Guaira to see my friends Felix and Lili. As a missionary, my companion and I taught them so that they could get baptized in 2003. Their 2 sons Fernando and Alejandro were also baptized. I hadn´t heard anything from them since the mission, but it turns out that about a year and a half ago, Felix was put in charge of the church in that town.

One week till Jill gets here!! I am very ready to see her again and for her to see, hear, and taste Paraguay. I was going to put smell too, and Paraguay has a lot of good smells, but there may be more bad smells than good ones.