Rekong Peo Medical Camp

Sorry it has taken me so long to post another blog but i get so busy and very little internet connection. We left Monday at 5 AM from shimla to rekong peo and meet up with dr. lagi and his group of med students from New Zeland. We traveled for 12 hrs on twisty mountain roads with boulders in the road still from the land slides and made it safely and than set up the eye and general OT (instead of OR operating room its OT operating theater in India). I asissted dr. viraj he is the opthamologist. In the morning we would run the OPD and screen all the patients. I took the blood pressure for all of the eye surgeries, i took more manual BP during this week than ever in my life, and it was a very old fashioned mercury device boy it was fun. I got to learn how to scrub in basically you wash your hands and arms twice really well untill all of the layers of your skin are off. And i assisted dr. viraj with the surgery giving him the instaments and so fourth, the key is to touch the eye as short as possible to have recovery faster. Than after surgery i would go help out in the ward with all the post op patients from the general surgery. They would do histerectomy, hemroidectomy, choleysistectomy, etc. I learned how to take care of fresh post op and take care of there IV, as well as i gave my first butt shot. In the states we dont usually give them in the but usually the arm because of the siatic nerve but here in india they only give IM injections in the upper portion of the bumm. So i got to give quite alot of them, the poor patients knew the drill and would roll over for me. In this type of situation you become very close with the other nurses and dr i really had a great time with nurseing and bonding. Indian people are so thankful thats something that i love about this country they could be in so much pain from a procedure you did to them and they still pour blessings on you. We worked at the hospital for 6 days straight and completed 60 general surgeries and 61 opthalmic surgeries. So i really know how to asisst in catorac surgeries now since i helped in 61 over 6 days. i have made long time friends at this place. i hope to get a chance to visit again some day.