Wednesday September 12

    Another big day for the HEARTT Surgery team ! We (Jonathan and I) started with Francis, the young man with schwannomas involving his left axilla and arm. The plan was attempt to remove as much as we could without doing damage, and I think we were successful. We had consulted with the Nigerian orthopedic surgeon who is part of the surgery faculty, and he stayed thru the case. We had told Francis that we might find it necessary to amputate his arm, and he was willing to accept that if it would provide him with some pain relief; fortunately we didn't feel that was necessary. I think they will turn out to be benign schwannomas, but its weird that they grew all along the axillary and brachial nerve from axilla to elbow. We took out 13 of them, ranging in size from 8 cm to 1 cm; some will be examined back home by the pathologists. At the end of the operation he was able to grasp with his hand; further evaluation will have to wait till his operative pain subsides.
       After than we did thyroids and hernias and a variety of lumps and bumps; we did a total of 12 cases, which is particularly impressive when we take into account that Professor Golakai had a room for much of the day, and the Nigerian orthopedic surgeon took a room to do an emergent amputation. We finally finished around 8 pm.
       With the 12 cases done today, by Ama's count we are at 97, and we will almost certainly break the century mark tomorrow when we have 8 cases scheduled including 2 thyroids we weren't able to do today and 3 mastectomies. It will be another busy day, but satisfying knowing that we are helping a lot of people. One of the downsides to being so busy on this trip is that I'm too tired to write a lot a night on this blog, though I suppose for some people that might be a blessing in disguise! It's amazing how quickly the time has passed !