The laughter of children

Yesterday was  spent at the Orthopaedic Rehabiliation Center.  It was a day of starts and stops.  First we learned there was only 1 anesthesia person.  The 2nd had not come in.  The first patient was a difficult anesthesia.  The mother was in the room in her street clothes holding him while they tried to start an IV!  We ended up starting about 1030 with 11 cases on the schedule!  We asked if Angel could do a block on a patient for the second room.  That was agreeable so with a small baby on a stretcher at the door recovering from a procedure done by one of their doctors, Angel put in a popliteal block and started working.  By 1230 we had 3 cases done and did we want to go to lunch.  We suggested that we needed to keep working.  Rose and another woman "a volunteer per Rose" went off and came back with metal cafateria trays with "baby bamboo, rice, morning glory greens, tofu, egg and chicken and fish sauce!".  We sat in the changing room 'command central" and ate, hearing the sounds of children playing and construction.  For the afternoon, we had 2 rooms for a short period of time and then the Vietnamese surgeon wanted to do some cases in one room.  Back to 1 room.  We operated on 2 brothers, 14 and 16, who had some type of muscular dystrophy or neurologic disease.  We had done the older brother and at 6 brought the 14 year old into the OR.  Then a discussion, anesthesia only wanted us to do one side.  I basically said, we should either do both sides or not at all and that since we had done his brother, I felt we should do both.  Both Angel and Mario scrubbed in and each doing a foot finished in the time it would have taken to do one side.  Everyone is happy.  The nurses were working hard cleaning equipment and keeping up with everything.  They are very good. Throughout the day as we walked from OR to OR and to command central, the laughter of children playing could be heard.

We changed clothes, called a taxi, said our good byes and went through the standing crowds in the hall way.  A thank you from many of the parents of the children was given.  We went down the stairs, around the construction replacing much of the courtyard parking and waited for a taxi.  A small TV was playing next to the kitchen/restaurant for the patients and families.  Sitting on rows of small stools and peering through the doorway at the TV were about 30 adults and children, many wearing blue hospital clothing.  Racing around in and out of the courtyard gate were about 10 children, laughing, screaming and kicking a plastic ball.  Their faces lit up with big smiles and they yelled "hello!" when they saw us.  Asking our names and where we were from, they swarmed around us.  We started taking pictures and showing them.  They really hammed it up!  Laughing, running around and providing a great end to the day.  Pictures will be posted later.  Taxi waiting