A Day in ROSE Hospital:This is the OR at ROSE. I am the (only) girl in the pink hat. I'm helping Dr. Ly in a heel reconstruction. I apologize in advance for the quality of some of these pictures. We can't have the flash going off during surgeries, so some of these are a bit blurry. Also a warning, a couple of these pictures are relatively graphic. So glance over them quickly, but the last three are quite nice!
This is near the beginning of the three hour surgery. The heel had to be reconstructed due to a moto accident. This happens quite often in Cambodia and a fascia-subcutaneous flap is constructed to form a new heel for the patient. Skin and fat and fascia are taken from the calf area and twisted and placed where the heel would normally be.
Up to three surgeries can be performed in the same room, so while I was busy with the heel, Danica and the pediatric surgeon, Dr. Ngiep were busy taking care of a baby with a cleft lip.
So this is the beginning of the suturing of the new heel. To the right you can see muscle. Not quite the same as my decaying body from S&F...
Where the tissue was taken to form a new heel, a skin graft had to be used to protect the underlying muscle. This was taken from the girls thigh and then sutured into place by myself and Dr. Ly. Happily getting better at this new skill. Today it was more like sewing than anything. ;)
We're actually getting a second skin graft here because the first one wasn't quite big enough. Two of us are pulling at the skin to make it as flat as possible while Dr. Ly cuts away. Skin is so resiliant, it's really quite impressive.
Ok, no more blood, for now. After spending the day in the OR it's always nice to try out new foods. This is something called (and please forgive me if I'm wrong) nome a gow. It's wrapped in banana leaf and is sweet and kinda slimey. Today I came out of the OR around lunchtime absolutely famished and there was a bag full of something called neem. I thought this was all we were going to be eating so I smiled, broke off what looked like a miniature present (honestly, it ended up being a piece of food wrapped in three banana leaves, tied up with a piece of string) and popped in the food, knowing it almost certainly was not vegetarian. Well, to add to the surprise, there was a chilli pepper in the middle too! It was very chewy (whatever it was) and I ate quite a few (taking out the chilli peppers from then on) and it was probably fish. Then we went across the road for lunch. Meh! Part of the experience. :)

Can you say cutie pie?! This kid is the bomb. He's always got this grin and his grandma obviously adores him. He is one of the patients that the French team operated on for the meningoencephalocele (MEC). Google image a MEC and you'll see what he looked like before the operation.

Here I am removing the staples of another MEC patient. 12 days after the surgery the staples can be removed and she's feeling fine.