Update from Monday/Tuesday morning

Monday was primarily a surgery day. It was also my (Kyle's) birthday. To celebrate, our group had dinner at the Chinese restaurant. Wednesday is Diana's birthday, and we will be celebrating at a "bush dinner" in Masai Mara on our safari. Back to yesterday... most of the scheduled surgeries were completed, but it was another late night with Susan and half of the team not getting to the restaurant until after 9:30pm. But I was glad they made it!

Today, Tuesday, is the last day of surgeries here. The list is long and there is no way to complete it, but there are a handful of cases that are more important than the others, so the team has a plan to make sure those important cases get completed. THE most important is a laryngectomy for a cancer patient. It will be an all-day surgery. The team has been operating primarily in one OR with two beds so that they can be doing two at a time all day. A couple of afternoons they've been given a third bed in another room to get even more done. I think that was the case yesterday. One thing that also needs to happen is that the surgeons need to instruct the ICU and recovery nurses on how to care for a laryngectomy patient. Some of the cases the team has completed are the "biggest" since other IU surgery teams came to do kidney transplants.

Susan has some OR pictures from yesterday, but I don't have that memory card with me at the moment. I may add an entry later if I get her card and have time.

We don't know if we will have any internet access once we leave IU House tomorrow morning. Hopefully we will make final updates once we get back home to the cold and snow!

Below is a picture from Lake Bogoria taken on Sunday with punda milia (zebras) in the foreground and heroe (flamingos) in the background.