Cappuccino in hand, I boarded the minivan for the hospital. Traffic this morning was typical with tons of motorcycles weaving in and out around cars and buses along the congested streets heading towards the hospital. We laughed at the nightmare thought of exchanging the motorcycles for cars. But then gasoline is too expensive for most people to drive cars.
The ORs started much faster and more easily today than yesterday. Everyone was ready to go. I am working with Kris in the room with Scott who is the fastest surgeon. He also has great music in the room with a wide range of types. It’s always a pleasant day. The other rooms made good progress so that all the ORs were done by 6pm. I am the late person tonight but 6 pm is early in terms of what I expected. Kris and I finished the last case. The ear looked great!
One of the crazy things about being here is that Vietnamese is not a language that any one of us can speak. Many of the doctors and residents speak English but they are scattered about. Thank goodness we have Google Translate so that we can ask questions. I have traveled to places like Morocco where Arabic is spoken but here the stakes are not simply travel talk. We need to ask for help waking a patient, if in fact they can hear since many are functionally deaf as well. We get lots of help.
One big glitch tonight is that the person in charge of supplies locked the room where we change into scrubs. He didn’t ask if anyone needed access when he left the hospital. So my clothes and shoes were locked up. The residents decided to call a GRAB motorcycle messenger to pick up the key from him at our hotel and deliver it back to the hospital. What a crazy problem. Once the key arrived, it took a minute or two for me to change into street clothes and leave to meet the rest of the recovery room nurses for Ramen for dinner. It was a funny spot with a big menu but most of the things on the menu were not available. We ate what they had and it was tasty. The walk back to the hotel took about 7 minutes. Tomorrow should be pretty easy but you never know.
The Adventures of Anne 