Well hello there!

I know, long time, no blog, but time here is quickly running short and I've thought that my time could be better spent doing anything but sitting in front of a computer. That said, I just finished watching 6 hours of surgery on one patient, and I'm exhausted. So I can sit down and write ;)

I had a wicked birthday celebration. My birthday happened to fall on a Friday this year (yeah!) but we took out the entire hospital staff on the Thursday night to say thank you for having us, as Danica was leaving early Friday morning. SO many people showed up, it was amazing! We ended up having to order more food (and beer!) and filled up every seat, even though we were sure we'd overestimated. It was great. And then a Western birthday cake was broken out and I was given a card signed by most of the hospital staff, wishing me a very happy birthday (and get married soon!!!) Hilarious and very thoughtful. Then a smaller group of us (but still 15 people!) went to a nearby hotel to sing some good ol' karaoke. Anyone who's traveled to this part of the world knows that the experience is not complete without karaoke. It was absolutely hilarious, and a really great time. Bit of a culture shock...but a good experience.

The next day (my actual birthday) I scrubbed in on three separate surgeries, got to do a full skin graft (well, harvest) on my own (didn't use enough adrenaline, so it bled...and I took a bit too much fat, but I think I got the hang of it now...and supposedely I can suture pretty fast!) Then I went home, rested up a bit and then hung out with a Khmer doctor before meeting up with a bunch of Western friends (well, one Indonesian and a bunch of foreigners) to have Thai food over bring-your-own alcohol. Very nice atmosphere, good food and good company. Then we started the bar hopping, which involved many a drink, another Khmer doctor meeting up with us for dancing (HILARIOUS pictures) and ended with us at the infamous Heart of Darkness...which was great! The music was awesome, there were Khmer and foreigners and we got up on the stage and literally danced the night away. I got home only to find out that Geni had ordered in two amazing types of cakes, which we ate over glasses of water and we only crawled into bed around 5! And of course, I woke up at 6:30, but was able to get back to sleep around 9:30 for another much needed hour of sleep ;)

Surgery has been pretty dull lately, only because we seemed to have seen and done it all, that and we have a doctor visiting from Hong Kong so all of the doctors are scrubbing in with him to learn what they can while he is here. That said, I did get to take a skin graft yesterday using a powermachine (!) and it went really really well (if I say so myself) and I also removed a pin from a girls tibia or fibula. And today we watched as 3 doctors removed half of a woman's jaw and the surrounding muscles over the course of 6 hours. It was an incredible surgery to watch, and at the end I got to hold the piece that was removed (crazy!) and also removed a mole on the woman's other cheek. Meghan has to learn to bite her tongue a little more in the OR with the Western doctors...a bit too much attitude, me thinks. The doctor from Hong Kong just laughs at me (as do the Khmer doctors) but the doctor I'm giving the attitude to is relatively quiet...

Bon, there you go. No pictures I know, but if you saw the ones from today's surgery (we didn't replace the missing half of her jaw) none of you would speak to me again. And as for my birthday, think: Geni putting her beer can on my head and telling me how angry she'd be if I spilt it (and then taking a photo). Not to mention how angry I'd be to spill beer all over myself.... :D