The last couple weeks, a lady with a large mass in her leg has been coming in. We were finally able to remove it last week. It was pretty amazing. I got to assist in the two hour surgery that we performed in our little clinic.
First, we injected her leg with a local anesthetic. Next, we opened up her leg and injected more anesthesia as we cut deeper into her leg. Then, we ran out of it. Then, the doctor told her that she needed to be brave, because we didn’t have anymore anesthetic. That’s when I started to worry. The patient, however, took it in stride and we continued with the surgery. The patient was rather overweight and the mass was embedded in the muscle so we had to stick our hands way down in her leg. We took out two masses, one fairly small and the other about 11 cm long. While closing her up, it was a little difficult to stop the bleeding, so almost an hour was spent just stitching. As usual, the doctor told the patient that she had to run and left me to clean the wound and bandage it. I’m glad that she trusts me to do this. It’s exciting to receive more and more responsibility while helping her.
It was pretty amazing that she was awake the whole time. Guatemalans are super tough. Even just the sound of us digging around in her leg would be enough to make most people squirm. The next week we received the biopsy results and, praise the Lord, it is not cancer.
After 1 hour and 5 or 6 levels of stitches
The larger of the two masses
Also, earlier that day, a woman came in who had fallen a month earlier. She has a wound in her leg that goes down to the bone and fractured her femur. To treat her, the doctor filled her wound with honey and put a slice of apple over the top. She came in a few days later and surprisingly it was much better. The doctor continues to do this every few days.
the white part is bone
Words of the Day:
Punto- stitches (also means spot, point, mark, etc.)
Masa- mass (also means dough)
Tejido- tissue (also means cloth)
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