Surgery Day 1

Monday was an amazing first day of surgery! We only had one surgeon for Monday, but 5 surgeries were completed, all celft lips. The ages of all the patients were older than average, but it was a great day :) Below are some pictures of patients! 

Chiyedza (3 years old) 

Is this not the most beautiful girl you have ever seen? She was so enthralled with seeing herself in the pictures after we took them, it was adorable. 

Winnet (8 years old) 

And this is what I get to witness...little girls seeing their beautiful new faces for the first time :) 

Winnet and I. 

Winnet and her SISTER Constance who BOTH got their cleft lips fixed, and their proud mama. The guys on the right are nurses here in Zimbabwe that have been helping us in PACU! 

This is Sakhile (27 years old) who used to wear a bandana around her cleft lip because she was embarrassed. She has never gotten a B in schooling and has not been able to get a job because of her facial deformity. With this new smile, she has a whole world of opportunities awaiting her! (Before photo to follow-someone else got that on their camera). 

The craziest thing about working PACU is getting to see the before and getting to see the immediate results when they come out after surgery...they look like a brand new person :) 

* These are nothing near the amount of photos I took, but internet is off/on so it's hard to upload...I will eventually upload more once I am in the States! 

Screening Day

Sorry for not posting yesterday, it was a busy day full of screening! We got to the hospital at 8 am and started screening families in the waiting area (over 70 people were screened). It was interesting trying to spell names, to say the least. Haha. It required a lot of help and patience from them. The kids are SO incredibly adorable and have such personality! Everyone there was so grateful to be able to have the chance at surgery...some families traveled for 2 days in order to get there! Many of them had incredible stories, which I'll elaborate on once they have surgery and I can show you their pictures...for now, here's a few:

This was one of the moms outside of the hospital during screening day

Here some of us are taking a quick break in between patient's and managing to sneak some lunch. 

(R to L: Me, Yvonne- RN from North Carolina, Lisa- CRNA , Kristie-RN from North Carolina, Martha- Nurse from Zimbabwe) 

Wish I could upload more pics, but the internet is super slow and it's getting late here, so I'm off to bed! Hopefully I can post tomorrow about what we did today :)

arrived.

After 4 countries, 3 planes, 6 in flight meals, and a whole lot of movies and naps, I am finally in Zim! I'm not quite sure if I can tell you what day it is, but I'm here :) Thankfully, even with all of the connections not a single one of my flights were delayed, and when I arrived in Zim 2 other Operation of Hope volunteers were on my flight so we drove back with rotary volunteers together. We are staying at a lodge in Harare that has different little bungalows on the property and all 12 rooms are Op Hope people, so we have the whole place to ourselves! I got in around 4:20 pm and took a quick nap and then we had a team meeting where we met everyone and then we all had dinner in the dining room. For dinner we had pea soup, fresh bread, salad, chicken curry, rice, veggies, mashed potatoes, and a pineapple cobbler for dessert! The team seems great and there are people from all over; North Carolina, San Diego, Idaho, and Sacramento. Tomorrow is screening day where all of the patients travel to Harare to get evaluated for treatment. I'll be sure to bring back some good stories, and hopefully pictures! Now, I'm off to bed!