Big day in the Theatre (Operating Room), Friday, Feb 13

Kyle here. I started the morning helping the hospital engineering staff to diagnose and repair some of their large, bright, movable operating room lights. These were donated by the IU med center long ago (used) and need some overdue maintenance. We worked in a couple of the OR's, one of which had a patient getting prepped for surgery. Somehow it was ok for us to be working above during the prep work... We also were in the attic above the OR's chasing down wires and testing transformers that power the lights. When my work slowed down, I decided to check on Susan in her OR. Today was the day that she and Dr. Cohen, and a local ENT and a local Plastic surgeon removed what must have been the worlds largest parotid tumor. (For non-medical people like me, a parotid gland is a salivary gland. This tumor was between the size of a supersized grapefruit and a small volleyball. This is a benign type of tumor, but this one had been growing for 8 years! I don't want to get into too much detail... But the case was interesting and I watched most of it in the OR. The surgery took about 6 hours. There were complications along the way including a question as to whether they could get enough blood for the patient and one time the breathing tube (endotracheal) came out during surgery causing a controlled panic (if that makes sense - maybe I should say controlled urgency) but they quickly got the patient re-intubated. Anyway, I'm only showing "before" and "after" pictures to save you all from the actual surgery pictures. I'm sure Susan will be happy to share additional photos if you want. Incidentally, the "after" picture includes a medical drain coming out of the suture line in case you're wondering what you see.

Tomorrow we will start with a quick post-op check of this patient. Then our group heads to Lake Baringo for the weekend. We expect to see hippos, crocodiles, and many species of birds. We hope to post again on Sunday.