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Published: April 22nd 2011
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Friday, March 18th
In Operating Room 2, the surgeon prepares to remove a gallbladder. He stands there, like a priest before the altar, as the scrub nurse unfolds her tray. She arranges the sterile drapes to expose a perfect rectangle. An antiseptic odor fills the room. The surgeon steadies his scalpel against the patient's Betadine-stained belly, which glistens under the lights. He makes a decisive incision, then dabs and clamps the tiny bleeding vessels. The surgical assistant adjusts the overhead lamp and a set of masked faces lean in to get a better look. The gall bladder, like a plugged drain pipe, swims into view. With a cauterizing tool, the surgeon teases the gall bladder away from the overhang of the liver and fishes it out through a slight opening near the umbilicus. It is a grub of a thing, but contains rare treasure: five bile-green gallstones, knocking together like marbles.
"Don't go to Guatemala," I was told. "It is one of the most dangerous places on the planet."
I had heard this before, all my travelling life. Thankfully, it was a piece of advice I rarely heeded. If I had, it would have been a pity. I
would have missed out on a trip to Spain with billboards of Franco plastered across the countryside. And I would have been nowhere near Athens while students protested the Papadopoulos regime. Israel, anytime, would have been out of the question. Rural Yugoslavia coarsened by Communism? New York City right after 9/11? Mexico City during the hysteria over Swine Flu? Forget it.
Instead, I have been witness to dramatic political and social change, attended while a whole city mourned, and felt the sheltering arms of communities in crisis. In all these instances, no harm has befallen me; I have come home enlightened and, in retrospect, enriched.
This doesn't mean I'll be flying into a Libyan war zone any day soon. Or exposing myself to radioactive strontium at Japan's Fukushima power plant. There are certain places that lack the reward to justify the risk. But despite the travel advisories posted for Guatemala, Ron and I decided that by taking reasonable precautions we could keep ourselves safe. Sure, there is always a degree of lawlessness associated with poverty, especially in a country where the police force is young and under-funded, and the judicial system is inefficient and corrupt. Sure, dengue fever
and malaria are a risk, but our shots are up to date and the likelihood is low in the places we are visiting.
In eight days, the Project Hands team will have performed fifty-seven surgeries: hernias, hydroceles, teratomas and melanomas. It occurs to me that life is full of unknowns, geographically as well as anatomically, and that danger is often unanticipated, more ordinary than exotic.
Saturday, March 19th
We snap photos. Lug suitcases to the curb. Exchange hugs and scraps of paper, with promises to stay in touch. Out of scrubs, looking more like strangers and less like ourselves, we linger by the bus. The driver leans on his horn. Are we missing anybody? In a scene more reminiscent of summer camp than a medical mission, we take our leave of San Juan Sacatapequez.
Perhaps because a tall anesthesiologist and a tall surgeon are crammed into seats on either side of me, and because we are lurching around on these rotten springs like a boat at sea, it starts me thinking about - well - our dignity, and that starts me thinking about the overall professionalism of this team. Aside from an impromptu
soccer match between surgeries, in mismatched srubs and with masks dangling, the doctors have conducted themselves with absolute aplomb. The highest standards of western medicine have been upheld and every patient who has walked through the door has felt cared for. I believe we should consider it a basic human right.
For me, a special moment occurred early in the week, as I watched Dr. G cup the elbow of a tiny, gowned woman and accompany her to the examining table. It was a trifling detail, but it moved me greatly to see him treating her as tenderly as if she was his own dear auntie. Considering the inaccessibility of quality healthcare in Guatemala, this one woman might seem like a drop in the bucket. But drops fill buckets. And how we treat the poorest of any country is the measure of our humanity.
Barreling across Guatemala, baggage bouncing on the roof of the bus, the snouts of our cameras poking out of open windows, we are a rolling yahoo circus. The bus that has carried us into this unaccountable adventure is carrying us out again. A puff of smoke emerges from a distant volcano and hangs suspended in a perfectly blue sky.
Impossible not to feel altered after that.
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carolyn
non-member comment
" Do something every day that scares you.", it says on the Lululemon bag along with other advise. Well, you've done that. Not that you sound in the least bit scared. I can imagine, and I do mean imagine, from the immediate security of my own environment, that you've had what is called a worthwhile experience, while helping other people,and I'm pleased to have read about it. Carolyn