Today was an excellent day ! I think we have probably eradicated hernia as a problem in Liberia ! No, I'm just kidding, but there are a lot of people with hernias who are clamoring to get them fixed for free while we are here, so we did about 8 more today. At the end of the day we were told that there was a young man in the ED who had been stabbed in the abdomen. Fortunately for him, while the knife penetrated his abdominal wall and punctured his stomach, it was not a particularly serious injury and he should do well. The man who had surgery on Saturday evening and is in the ICU remains stable and has improving chances of survival.
When we were here in April, near the end of our visit, I was asked to see a 69 year old woman with locally advanced and metastatic breast cancer. A mastectomy was recommended, but my opinion was that she needed chemo rather than surgery. Her breast was filled with cancer, her axilla (armpit) was filled with malignant nodes, and her arm was swollen by the nodes which severely restricted her arm movement. She started chemo under the direction of Dr. Dehdeh Supuwood; the patient and I have frequently chatted on Facebook since I met her in April, At the end of last week she asked if she could come see me today, I was excited waiting to see her, not knowing what I would find. Today she came up to the Surgical Suite at JFK, and she looks fantastic! I was astounded to find that she has had a complete clinical response: her breast feels normal, there are no palpable axillary lymph nodes, her arm is no longer swollen, and she has full range of motion in the arm, She is very pleased, as am I, for a result that seemed like an impossible dream in a place like Liberia. She isn't out of the woods, and will require more treatment, but clearly the signs are good.
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