1 year ago.

1 year ago I had no idea what poverty was actually like. 

1 year ago I had never eaten meat without knowing exactly what kind of meat it was. 

1 year ago I had never bought snacks off the top of someone's head. 

1 year ago I had no idea mothers could throw away their babies for a simple deformity. 

1 year ago I had no idea there were places in the world without adequate healthcare. 

1 year ago I had never seen a man carry a refrigerator on his head. 

1 year ago I didn't know where all the used clothes, cars and toys go when no one else wants them.  

1 year ago I thought I knew who I was and what the world was about. 

1 year ago I had never been to Africa.

Supermodel Baby

Here is one of the babies who has already gotten surgery for her cleft lip. My friend Melissa nicknamed her "Supermodel" (read her blog post about it) and other nurses nicknamed her "FluffyHead". Seriously I don't think she could get any cuter! I'm following her for a short time after her surgery to make sure she's gaining weight and doing well. She'll also have a follow-up procedure in 6 weeks. After that she is going to be hard to say goodbye to!

We have to do what?

A hospital on a ship has to think about all kinds of things. Like how to evacuate the entire hospital in case of an emergency. A couple of weeks ago we had a hospital evacuation drill. Using crew members posing as patients they evacuated everyone from the 3rd deck of the ship to the 5th and then down onto the dock! The crazy thing is we have to take people UP the stairs to take them out of the hospital. Here are some photos of practicing before the drill. 

Al Donald's

There are no McDonald's restaurants in Togo but we did run across some golden arches, or at least half of them!  

Starting in Togo

The field service in Togo has started. There has been one week of surgery so far. Patients are already filling the wards. We have started maxillofacial surgeries and plastic surgery starts on Monday.  There are 7 babies in the Infant Feeding Program so far!

Patient line at screening day

Measuring babies at screening day

Staff photo for the hospital, I'm somewhere in the middle!

Baby Amie

Baby Amie has been in our Infant Feeding  Program since she was 2 weeks old. When she was born she weighed 3.7 pounds. We followed her in our feeding program to make sure she was gaining enough weight for surgery. She had to make it to 8.8 pounds in order to qualify and by May 30th she was 9 pounds! She had a sucessful surgery and went home with her mom a few days later.

Some days working in Africa is frustrating and discouraging but then seeing sucessful surgeries like Amie's makes the sweat, tears and long hours worth it!

Blood!

Today I gave blood! And not just to anyone, but someone actually in surgery at the time. A few weeks ago I signed up to be a blood donor. They don't take your blood right away and store it. Instead if you are cross-matched with a patient, they notify you if and when they need it.

The patient I gave blood for had a large facial tumor and they had started to need blood during the surgery. The operating room notified the lab, who then called me to see if I was available, and within the next few minutes I was lying in a bed next to the ICU ready to get my blood sucked out. Maggie, the phlebotomist, or vampire as she calls herself, stuck a giant needle in my arm and sat holding the bag while the blood drained into it. A little more informal than a usual blood bank.

My favorite part was that afterwards I got free Coke and Oreos. The only thing better would have been if they were fried Oreos, I miss those.