Friday March 11

Friday, March 11

The first news this morning was that the elevator was broken and therefore surgery was delayed; later in the day they got it working again. Then we learned that the woman with the breast cancer upon whom we operated yesterday did not survive the night. I can't say that it was a huge surprise, given her overall condition, but still it came as something of a shock. And I forgot to mention in yesterday's posting that one of the esophageal dilations from Tuesday had died. Little Marie was terribly malnourished; the feeling is that perhaps there was a perforation with the dilation, but who knows.

When we finally got to the OR, we started the day with me and Yuk doing a 12 year old boy with an inguinal hernia, and found that his appendix was stuck in the hernia sac. This has a name which escapes me at present, but I will look it up when I can. The next case was a boy with a 3 cm mass on his heel, which was advertised as a lipoma, but it wasn't; rather, I think it was some sort of hemangioma which one of us had ever seen before. I took some pieces of it for pathology, and perhaps that will help us figure out what it was and whether further surgery will be needed. Next I did an adult hernia with Dr. Cocola, and that went well; I think he is trainable, but he will need a good teacher.

Between cases I went to the Administration building to meet Mr. Ofora, whose wife has been organizing our meals here at the guest house. He had a neck operation locally many years ago, then more, the last being at Howard University several years ago. He has what appears to me to be a hemangioma in his lower right neck, but it also involves the right half of his tongue. He says his tongue is enlarging and it is starting to make it difficult to eat and talk. He said that with his last surgery he had a trach rather than endo tracheal or nasotracheal intubation. I'm not sure what ICANN do, but I told him that I would research it and see if something can be done with laser or other modern means. How it would get paid for if he had to go to the USA is another problem.

After that Santiago and I did the most massive hernia I have ever done ! We both thought it would be fun to operate together again like we did when he was a resident, and indeed it was a most enjoyable experience. It was a huge inguino-scrotal hernia containing small bowel and cecum, but it all appeared viable,so we reduced it and then repaired the hernia. We both remarked afterwards on how enjoyable it was and that such experiences are an added attraction for former residents who want to come to Liberia.

Tonight we had dinner at the Guest House, and since it is Eric's birthday, they put on a great dinner. There were 25 or 30 people here,and they served wine in addition to the usual beer along was a lovely dinner, and a birthday cake for Eric ! After dinner we went to Tides for a few drinks, and then to Deja Vu for some dancing. We came home around 2:30 AM as we have a hernia to do in the morning, and then the Gala tomorrow night.

The Gala is the first fundraiser for HEARTT held in Monrovia, and it will be a formal affair at City Hall tomorrow night. According to Wilfred, ticket sales were slow until this week when they went through the roof, and currently it is filled to the capacity of 250 with 100 people on a waiting list ! Adamah asked me a few weeks ago if I would say a few words, and I said that I would; now it seems somewhat more daunting a task, especially since it seems like others are interested in hearing what I will say. I'm pretty sure I can pull it off, but it is still a little nerve-wracking to know that I will ve speaking to l the President.