Thank you for traveling with me on this important journey...

My name is Lisa Teske. On October 10, I will depart for Cebu City, Philippines on a 10-day medical mission with Rotaplast International. I will represent the Columbia Center Rotary Club and Rotary International District 5080 alongside of a team of 25 people (medical and non-medical volunteers) who work to correct more than 100 cleft palate conditions in local children. My primary function will be to manage the medical records, but I will also spend some of my time communicating the importance of our work and the impact on the lives of our patients.

While participating in this mission, I hope to improve myself through service, particularly in a challenging medical environment where I'm not naturally composed, and to learn more about Filipino culture. Each day is sure to teach me something new!

For more information about Rotaplast, I encourage you to visit their site at http://www.rotaplast.org/. And to learn more about Rotary International, contact me and I'll be happy to share more about this amazing organization.

Proud to be a Rotarian. Proud to serve. -- Lisa

Sunday, October 16, 2011

More patients, more progress -- Surgery Day 2


Surgery dualing -- due to losing a surgery room, one room becomes
home to two surgical teams. This is the scene from my front-row
seat in the OR.

Today (Saturday) was a continuation of yesterday. Ten more surgeries. One was cancelled at the last minute due to a developing cold. Today’s nine patients were up and about this morning in the ward. Walking in there, you felt like a rock star. The parents would stand up, nodding their thanks as their children sat up and toddled about. The transformation was really amazing to see a mere 24 hours later.
The scene in the hallway outside of the OR where
parents wait for the children's surgeries to finish.
Some sit here for up to four hours.
I had a goal today. No tears. And while I was successful, each crying child, the nurses taking them from their ORs to recovery, and the reunions with their parents really tested me. But I was strong and relished in the team’s success at changing lives.
I failed to mention yesterday that we hold informal, mini clinics similar to my first day on the job. That’s a time when we meet with more prospective patients in a quick turnaround process. Some make it to the schedule; some do not. But since the original clinic day we’ve added another 12 patients.
In fact, today we met with our 1000th clinic patient since Rotaplast started these missions 9 years ago in Cebu. This milestone patient was 7-year-old Christine, who was a patient back in 2002. Her mother heard the team was at the hospital and brought her by for a quick check-up. Every patient that shows up gets a new chart so I was able to meet them and get them checked in.
During the short lunch break we take, the local Rotarians bring in a home-cooked hot lunch for us. As I finished lunch, Christine’s mother, Marivic, asked if she could give me a massage. If filling in more than 800 forms by hands and entering them into the computer don’t make you candidate for a massage, nothing does. I enjoyed 15 minutes under her professional touch. She let me know she would back on Monday to work on anyone who wanted massage, a gesture of her deep appreciation.
Why yes, I’ll take two of those please. She was awesome!


Appreciation massage from a parent, while her daughter
(Christine), a patient looks on.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)