Day Seven: Last Day in Can Tho, Bus Ride to Saigon

The last day of surgery was very exciting. Today we went up to the hospital with the rest of the team to see the early morning surgeries, which turned out to be all of them because the IEP doctors work very fast, and finished 5 operations by noon. Before surgeries began, Jenni and I went up to the recovery rooms on the 5th floor to hand out pain medications and antibiotics to the patients we operated on last night and their family. The patients complained of đau, meaning pain, which is normal for patients who had no pain medications for a whole night after surgery. The hospital does offer shots of morphine for patients to purchase, but most of them cannot afford it.

Here's the little boy from yesterday in recovery. He isn't feeling much pain, and was very happy to see Jenni and I, especially since we had candy! Everyone's parents were extremely thankful to us and the surgeons for the work that they have done, and the success of the surgeries helped to calm those still waiting.

Schedule for OR 1 on day 2

Schedule for OR 2. Unfortunately, about 6 surgeries had to be canceled because the hospital made a new rule that no children under 5 years old could be operated on.

X-Rays of the man above.

Hard at work or hardly working?

WARNING: These next images may be disturbing to some viewers. There is more blogging to read, so scroll down!

Don't worry, its iodine, not blood.

After the surgeries were finished, which, due to the amazing work of all of the doctors, happened before lunch, we congregated to the cafeteria for my last meal in Can Tho. After lunch, my dad and I handed out the extra candy in the recovery ward, and headed back to the hotel.

 As you can see, all of the patients were happy to see us, and were glad that they had the opportunity to get their operation. We then went back to our hotel and made the long 4 hour trek to Saigon with the Mullens Family. Tomorrow we travel out of Vietnam and back to the US.