28 September 2021 – Tuesday – Day Two

Today was another day of first stage cases. Everything went well in both cases. That’s good!   

I decided not to show more surgical pictures. Instead you get to see the hospital areas.
As we enter the hospital, the patients and families who are waiting for various appointments line the area outside. They are always curious and excited to see us. And we too are curious and excited even if many of the patients aren’t going to have surgery. As you can see, locals are nicely dressed in bright colors.

We pass a person just inside the doors who takes our temperature and gives us hand sanitizer. We walk past the pharmacy which looks like an old fashioned spot. Then we continue past a lovely interior courtyard with roses.

A few more turns takes us past the post operative wards where patients spend several hours being observed after they have had surgery. Then they transfer to a regular patient floor.

The break room is the coffee room ( Guatemalan coffee is excellent) and lunch is self service from a steam table. The food is adequate. Haute cuisine doesn’t exist here and there is no reason to expect it.

As the day ends, we gather in the break room to walk back to the hotel or to dinner. We are told never to walk alone even though it feels safe and the walk is about 5-10 minutes. Tomorrow we will being doing some second stage cases. So you will see the implanted ear get elevated so that it looks more normal.