Operation Smile - Paraguay

I had the amazing experience of going with Operation Smile to Asuncion Paraguay and working as a recovery room nurse. I didn't tell many people I was going so if you didn't know...Surprise!  I was able to work with an incredible group of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, medical records keepers, speech therapists, and all sorts of other volunteers.  We helped 117 kids with cleft lip repairs, cleft palate repairs, and other lip and palate related revisions.  I was so lucky to be in the recovery room because I got to be the one to invite the parents back to see their kid for the first time. The parents were so grateful and excited about the transformation they saw in their child's face and what that would mean for their future. It was such a moving and meaningful experience.  Plus, I really got to practice up on my Spanish.  I loved everything about it and I can't wait to go again.            
We were so busy with surgery from about 7:30 in the morning until when we left the hospital around 8:30 or 9 each night that I don't have any lovely touristy photos of Paraguay. I was just there to work. It was beautiful there though. It was one of the cleanest South American cities I've been too. Here are some of the photos I do have though. I wish I could show you some of the cutest kids ever, but I can't so you'll have to put up with a few pictures of Asuncion and of my fellow Operation Smile Volunteers.

The hospital is actually an old military hospital that they don't use anymore.  They cleaned it up and opened it up for Operation Smile though. This was the beautiful courtyard.

This picture is with the nurses and doctors from the recovery room along with some of the plastic surgeons from Paraguay and Bolivia. Below are some pictures illustrating how resourceful we had to get at times.  If you don't have a mattress, turns out you can make one out of a number of blankets. If your room is freezing and the next room is hot and you don't have the ability to simply close a vent, you can still shunt the air with tape, cardboard, ventilator circuit tubing and a random wire.

Each day at the morning team meeting someone was crowned king and queen. One day I received it from a fellow recovery room nurse from Honduras and Walt (the lead plastic surgeon) received from a fellow surgeon from Ecuador. Throughout the day, we also added to our royal attire some Burger King crowns. Operation Smile king and queens are really classy. The next day we handed the throne over to a Paraguayan operating room nurse and an anesthesiologist. It is a fun little tradition Operation Smile has. 

This was our recovery room team. From left to right (not that you care so much but for my own remembering purposes). Vanessa, an RN from Virginia. Ortelia, and RN from Honduras. Me. Brantly, the pediatric intensivist from Hawaii. Zuni, an RN from Paraguay that would never smile for photos. Molly, a peds resident from UCLA. Bridgit was the other main nurse from Paraguay but she isn't in this photo. 

 I thought this picture was probably okay to use. By Wednesday I started venturing out of the recovery room for  a few minutes at a time and going over to the child life area where the kids wait to go into surgery. It was fun to see them before surgery when they were smiling and happy and then to recognize them when they came out of surgery.

 Also, by Wednesday, we realized we were missing the most beautiful Paraguayan days. We started taking a super short lunch break out in the courtyard.  Best decision we made the whole trip.

It takes a lot of people to make Operation Smile work and to do all those surgeries in one week! In addition to the team Operation Smile puts together there were tons of student volunteers who were integral in helping us with any number of things.

 Our last day of surgery was a half day so we got to go down to the center of Asuncion and look around and go to the market.  Below is the view from my hotel room. Classic South American look but so clean. Below that is Patricia and I, my roommate from Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

 And finally, my traveling companions for the trip home.  Fernando left us in Buenos Aires for Ecuador, but the rest of us stuck together to the U.S.A. and that made for a much better 6 hour lay over in Argentina than I had on the way down all by myself.  What a great time. Can't wait to go help out again.