Life is Good

2009-03-12T12:09:00.002-04:00

Let's talk medicine.

My experience in the hospital really has been very great so far. As I think I may have mentionned before, what I was hoping to gain from working here more than anything, was how to work with less. And boy am I learning quickly! We are in a teaching hospital here, and we have an xray and an ultrasound machine. That's it for imaging folks! I never realized how GREAT a CT scan was, let alone MRIs! And bloodwork is severly limited as well...sometime we cannot even get a CBC. So it really feels like you're working in the dark sometimes, which can be scary. But the docs do what they can with what they have and what they know, and generally the patients do well, which is comforting, and something to learn from as well.

We see tons of osteomyelitis here. It's incredible. For a long time I couldn't figure out why we were seeing SO much of it. Then it was explained to me that a lot of the kids we were seeing were malnourished, and thus predisposed to infection, which unfortunately seems to seed in their bones. We saw one boy who's hip had been dislocated for weeks, without anyone having noticed (even though he was in the hospital setting!) and the other hip had been completely eaten away by his infection. When this case was presented in the morning it was hardly even discussed. There is nothing we can do for this boy in Rwanda. He is about 12 years old and need to have both hips completely cleaned out, needs systemic antibiotics and needs bilateral hip replacement. That was depressing.

I'll write about one more depressing case then I'll try and come up with a positive one to end the story with, ok??

We had a child come in last week with an acute abdomen. He was about 1.5 years old and was pretty much comatose on arrival. We realized very quickly that he had an ileus (absolutely silent distended abdomen-so scary) and when we were placing lines (in his scalp) he didn't budge (also a very scary sign in a young child). Afterwards we discussed his case and we figured that he was already in heart and lung failure and that his kidneys had shut down. He had had a history of diarrhea for about a week and had been vomiting prior to presentation as well. What happened was that his electrolytes were completely out of whack and his bowel stopped working, which basically poisoned his blood and eventually killed him. When we were doing CPR on this tiny body it just felt wrong. They tried surgery but honestly, I think no matter what we would have done for him, he had presented too late. Like many of our patients, unfortunately.

So happy time! A lot of the kids who come to hospital present us with happy times! They may be around for awhile (with burns or osteomyelitis) but that means we get shrieks and smiles and giggles, especially as the white girl! One child had a seizure and fell into a fire (from what I understood) and though he'll be permanently disfigured, some plastic surgeons worked on him last week and he can now close his eyes again. And though he lost both his hands to amputations, he has prostheses available to him. And he always comes running to place his stumps in my hands and to receive a hug...which is just great! The kids in the hospital do not treat him any differently and we can only hope that these friendships will help him through what will certainly be a challenging life.

I will stop by saying thank you to everyone for their support and positive wishes over these past several months! I got my first choice for residency programs, and will be starting family medicine on July 1rst in the Greater Vancouver program run through UBC. I am so incredibly excited, but am trying not to let that affect my last several days here in Butare. I've got a great weekend planned and can't wait to tell you all about it, next week! Big hugs!!

2009-03-08T03:31:00.002-04:00

I am having such a fabulous weekend - which is exactly what I needed considering we are now less than 36 hours away from determining where I shall be training these next couple of years!

I started my adventure Friday when I met a Rwandan friend at the bus station and rode into Kigali. There the German medical student I was traveling with and I each hopped on the back of a motorcycle taxi to make our way to a suburb to meet friends. Reminiscent of my Cambodian days, I had a backpack on, the girls' wheelie suitcase balanced on my lap, and my phone rang (which I of course had to answer!) Still got it!

We met the American that I had met in the airport three weeks ago (the coach for the National Rwandan Cycling Team) at this lovely, expat restaurant. A little bit of culture shock, I have to admit, but the latte I had was just out of this world! Shortly after arriving the German girl got a lift to Ruhengeri with the American's new mechanic, and I got on the back of the American's motorcycle and we rode the 1.5 hours through the rolling mountains to Ruhengeri. It was such an amazing experience - exhilarating and quite the adventure. We got stopped twice by the police...one time to tell us to slow down, but really they just wanted to stop us and find out what two muzungus were doing on a motorcycle in Rwanda! Once in Ruhengeri, I decided to join Jock (the American) on his venture to Gisenyi, where he was meeting with possible donors. We drove to the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and stopped in a fancy hotel where we met with the investors. There I met many many Canadian-Rwandans, one of whom lives about a 2 minute walk from my apartment in Toronto! What a small world - and hopefully my schmoozing helped the team out a little :) We drove back to Ruhengeri in the rain - which was really quite beautiful, with lightening in the distance over Goma. And you could see the active volcano as well, glowing red in the mist across the border.

The next morning I woke up early, hopped on the back of the motorcycle and made my way to Kinigi where I met up with a group to go trekking for gorillas. This is a ridiculously expensive venture, but I've heard the cost is going to double in the next year - so I took the opportunity to get out and see these lovely animals. And I did it by the cheapest means possible, which I am pretty proud of! We hiked for about 1.5-2 hours up the side of a volcano that borders with the DRC and then bushwacked our way down a slope until we were meters away from the animals. At one point, one of the guys was yelling my name, but I wasn't paying attention until I felt something brush against my leg - a gorilla! haha! Our group was the Amohoro (Peace) group and consisted of 16 individuals. Two fluffy little babies, a ton of teenagers and one silverback. We bushwacked with the group for about one hour before we decided to take a different trail back to the vehicles. This required more bushwacking and was like no hiking experience I've ever had! Aside from a whiny mother-daughter duo from Europe/UN, we had a great great time, and watching them literally summersault over one another as they fell down a portion of the hill kind of made up for their poor company!

I was going to hike another volcano today, but everything is so muddy in the rainy season, and the views would have been similar to what I saw yesterday, so I decided to save myself the hefty hiking fees. Instead I'm going to borrow a mountainbike from Jock and a small group of us are going to try and bike a 40 km route to where we should get a lookout over two lakes up closer to the Ugandan border. The weather looks great so hopefully it will hold out!

I've been thoroughly spoiled these last couple of days. I have this gynormous bed, access to a HOT shower and dynamic wonderful people who are doing some pretty great work in this part of the world. Last night we had a big dinner and we had an 18 year old kid from America over who is teaching 5 year old children in the local school (no teaching education, thought he was coming here to assist!) we also had two CEOs for different African NGOs over...as well as Jock, who is running at least two to three NGOs that I am aware of, Suzanne who is building a prayer shelter for a school and has just finished building a library for another school, myself and another medical student and the brand new American mechanic for the National Rwandan Cycling Team.

I could not ask for a better life.

2009-03-04T08:11:00.003-05:00

The Weekend (continued from below)

This memorial was created in the location of an old school, where 50,000 people had come for shelter when the killings had begun. The killers came and tried to kill people but the 50,000 were strong enough to keep them at bay. Then the interahamwe came with grenades and machetes and they managed to kill nearly everyone at this site. 48,000 people were buried in mass graves, and 2,000 bodies were placed on display, to remind people that there was a genocide in Rwanda and that it should never be allowed to happen again. What I didn't realize was that the bodies had been preserved - so in each of the 20 rooms we had to walk into, you were greeted with a stench as well as the atrocity of seeing bodies in very unnatural positions. David had visited this site before, and still walked with me from room to room, though we didn't say a word throughout the whole visit. The French, when they eventually came, used this as one of their homebase sites, and had unknowingly built a volleyball court over a mass grave. I have to say that I was a little disappointed that I was the only tourist at this site. If you go to any of the Jewish death camps in Germany or Poland you'll find busloads of tourists paying their respects. But here it was just David and myself, and the survivor who took us on our tour.

After finishing at the site (and leaving a 2000 Rfr donation - food was going to be tight!) David and I slowly walked back to Gikongoro. While walking he talked to me a little about his own experience and together we tried to understand, as a younger generation, how people could hate so strongly as to conduct mass murder. It truly is incomprehensible.

The rest of the day was very pleasant. I couldn't go out dancing with David because I had so little money (and nowhere to stay post-midnight!) but he invited me to his place for dinner (score!) and we spent the evening chatting, comparing cultures and looking at photographs.

Sunday I made my way into Kigali where I secured a gorilla trekking permit for this coming weekend (woot!) Getting this permit was a pain in the ass and is a story in itself. Then I walked to the official Genocide Memorial Museum (to complete the Genocide weekend!) where 250,000 bodies have been buried. This Memorial was very well put together and I was happy to see that there were more tourists visiting it. I spent two hours walking around and reading and found it interesting in that there was very little information surrounding the events that led up to the Genocide, but there was tons of info about when and how the victims were killed. Is this because we just don't have the details? It was pretty striking.

Oh and just to keep the food story going...that morning I had leftover popcorn and water for breakfast. I then ate a chocolate bar that I had bought a week ago for lunch - but it was so disgusting! The chocolate had turned white and powdery, but I needed to eat something! Then, happily, I was able to find some guys on the street who gave me an excellent exchange rate (better than the bank!) and I then headed directly to a restaurant where I got myself the requisite plate of carbs :) The things we take for granted! haha!

Ok. I should probably get back to the research I came here to do. One of the interns has asked me to teach him about abnormal heart sounds and I need to refresh myself so as to avoid confusing them, and myself!

2009-03-02T12:00:00.002-05:00

The Weekend

I had a great great weekend, and it all pretty much started on Friday afternoon, when I decided to stick around the hospital in the afternoon, because some of my favourite interns were working, and I can provide them with comic amusement and the occasional tidbit of relevant medical information. Sometime mid-afternoon when it was a bit slow I ended up chatting with a fifth year medical student I hadn't met before. When he asked me what my plans for the night were, well I didn't really have any - so I got invited out to some party he was planning on going to! Random but that's the way things seem to work for me here. Then (very fortunately) I found out from the interns that on the last Saturday of every month ALL businesses in Rwanda close down for the morning. So the banking I had been planning on doing the following morning, I now had 45 min to do. I literally ran out of the hospital to my room and then 'downtown' to get to the bank before it closed. Because I was in such a hurry, I didn't count how many Rwandan francs I had left - which becomes important later in my story.

So I met up with Jeado, this 5th yr med student and we had an awesome cheap dinner of carbs and Fanta. Then we met up with some of his other friends and walked about 35 minutes into a part of the city I had never been to before. There we found the house of these two Danish girls who were hosting the party. It was great! We danced, drank Primus and ate birthday cakes (it was no one's birthday - but who cared!) We decided to bring the party to the dance club around 1 am and it was only then that it dawned on me - there's only one rule at the place I'm living in and it's this: doors close at midnight. And they don't open again until 7 am. Crap! I had completely forgotten. So I ended up having to rent out a room that night in a small local hotel. This is where the money side of things starts to kick in - I had enough to pay for the room but it would leave me with very little to get me through the rest of the weekend!

The next morning, as the city lay silent until noon, I wrote postcards and tallied that I had just about 3000 Rwandan francs for food for the next 48 hours. That is just under 6 US dollars. Not too too bad. In the early afternoon I met up with one of the interns and he and I hopped into a matatu and made our way to Gikongoro, a city about 35 min from Butare. There we decided to hop on the back of two bicycles to make the 2 km trip down to Murambi. What a ride! The scenery was absolutely spectacular and I decided to focus my attention on that, because we were riding fast and I've seen some of the injuries that result from bicycle crashes in this country! When we got off, my friend David even commented on how fast we had been riding! woot!

So I wanted to visit Murambi because it was supposed to have quite a striking Genocide Memorial. David was incredibly kind to have volunteered to come with me, especially once I realized what we had gotten ourselves into. (to be continued...)

2009-02-23T09:42:00.002-05:00

A day in the life of...

So the typical day would have me wake up around 0640. I then sort of stumble around getting out of the mosquito net, washed and changed so that I can run across the road in time for "staff" which starts at 0715. Basically these are morning rounds, where the interns (final year med students) who were on call the night before present the interesting/challenging cases from their 24 hour shift. They get *grilled* and I'm happy to just sit back and ask questions ;) These rounds are done in English, which actually slows things down considerably. The old official languages of Rwanda are Kinyarwanda and French but in recent years the government has introduced English as the mandatory language of training so these poor chaps have had to learn a new language in the past 3-4 years.

At 0830 I'm allowed to leave and I run to the hospital restaurant (I believe the name is: Yuppie is Yummy) where I grab a meal of bread and tea. The tea here is flavoured with copious amounts of sugar and powdered milk. The first sip is always a pleasant jolt.

Then I usually find an intern who can tell me what is going on. I either join them in "duties" which is basically a kind of emergency room or I do the "consultations", which can often be quite good. What I've gathered more than anything so far, is the doctors' abilities to diagnose by clinical suspicion. They have an xray here. And an ultrasound. No CT scan - if they want this, the patient must be sent to Kigali - 2.5 hours away. And I don't think there's a MRI in the country, though I'm not sure. So when the head injuries come in you have to do everything you can to get the information from history, physical and xray. It can be quite impressive. There is one intern that I work very well with and we will work up patients together. Last week we diagnosed a patient with Brown-Sequard Syndrome as well as an Anterior Cord Syndrome! The patient had been in a car accident 4 days previous.

I generally finish work sometime around 1600 and then make my way to "downtown" Butare - basically the main road, about a 15 min walk from the hospital. Here I can find supermarkets, restaurants, banks and internet cafes. And the entire population of Butare! I have been told that with the surrounding areas, the population is about 500,000. I'm not convinced, but it's certainly larger than the 75,000 I initially read about! I usually hang around downtown either with another medical student or on my own, writing in my journal, reading my book about the genocide or starting today, my new project: learning Kinyarwanda. I learned a new word this morning: mwaramutse, and boy did it make a huge difference! It means good morning...but everyone reacted so positively that I feel just a bit more effort will make a things that much easier for me...and if I could bargain in Kinyarwanda...the world would be my oyster! Though I did just buy 5 passion fruit and 12 bananas for about 50 cents...

Other than working, last weekend I made it up to Nyungwe Forest, which is only about 100 km from here but that meant about a 2-4 hour bus ride, depending on your vehicle. Plus the roads get bad about halfway through the park. We did a trek on the Saturday that brought us through amazing primary forest, complete with all the sounds of a rainforest. And at the end of the path, an enormous 40 m waterfall! And on our way back, we happened upon a group of baboons! The next day we hitched into the park to a path that would bring us to a troup of colobus monkeys. We then stood there for at least an hour just watching. There were at least 200 of them, and probably more. I wondered if they could fall from a tree and then watched as a mother with her baby misjudged a jump! I think she was ok but she probably fell 20 m at least!

Everyone here is incredibly nice. I feel like I have a massive group of brothers at the hospital now, watching out for me. One of them even made me call when we had arrived to the forest and when we had arrived back in Butare! Speaking French makes a huge difference as well, and I can often speak with the people on the street, which is great. So yah, I think that is pretty much it for me at the moment. One funny image: a patient came in with a hydrocele, and the doctor wanted to show the med students how you could differentiate between a hydrocele and a scrotal hernia by shining a light into the scrotum. Unfortunately none of us had a flashlight with us...so he pulled out his mobile, turned on the torch on the mobile, and held it against this kid's scrotum! Resourceful!!

2009-02-16T12:37:00.002-05:00

Wow - it's been awhile since I've posted something on this site. But my friend Jenn was asking whether I would be updating people, and after spending the last 20 minutes trying to remember passwords and such, it would seem that yes, I will be able to update those who wish to check in!

I'm in London right now, working on three nights of poor sleep, about to embark on one last overnighter flight...to Nairobi. Got to go into the city for a couple of hours and see all the necessary sites and visited with two British friends I met last summer diving in Egypt. So far, so good, as far as trips go.

Will update this as regularly as possible - maybe with photos as well. Two more flights...just two more flights...

2006-09-11T22:45:00.000-04:00

Well, I have been back in Canada for nearly a month now...wait, it's been exactly a month. Don't really know if I'll be checking back to this site very often, but I thought I'd put up a note for anyone still checking back. You'll notice that in some places I refer to a child or patient but there is no accompanying picture. It would seem that U of T has specific guidelines, regardless of whether the patient has agreed or not, and so I've had to go through what I've posted and delete any pictures where you could see the patients face.

Still dreaming of Cambodia :)

2006-08-03T05:15:00.000-04:00

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

2006-07-24T03:40:00.000-04:00

I'm going to work on the photo situation in a short while, but for now I'll give a brief rundown on what I've been up to over the last little while. I scrubbed in on some surgeries last week, the most interesting of which was a woman who had a broken elbow, where the piece had then been dislocated such that her arm was unable to bend or to properly pronate and suppinate. We worked on her on Friday afternoon and she was looking pretty good this morning when they changed her dressings. Actually, probably the most interesting thing that I did last week was to sit in on consultations on Monday morning. We had 38 patients come in over the course of 3 hours...it was great! Unfortunately, that afternoon I decided that I hadn't been properly sick yet while in Cambodia (everyone else I've been traveling with has been sick at least once) so I got sick, and well! I had to go home with nausea, diarrhea a fever and general achiness. The next day I was feeling better, except for the diarrhea, so I went to a clinic, where I (embarassingly) ran into our chief surgeon (who woulda thought it possible?!) and got Cipro, which was a godsend. I was better within hours. Then I caught a cold. But that's almost gone now, and life is pretty good.

On Saturday I decided to walk over to the Independence Monument from our apartment but was being hassled by anyone with any mode of transportation to use them! to go anywhere! Lady!! My patience for these guys has been dropping exponentially. I'm not a tourist!! So I placed myself in the middle of a throng of monks and lost the moto drivers. The monks and I started chatting and it turned out that they were headed towards a Wat right by the photo shop I was headed for, so they walked me to my destination. Then they invited me into their apartments, where we had tea and a nice chat, before one of them took me on a tour of the Wat ;) A very random morning, but very nice nonetheless. I think there are a couple of pics below on the blog from this Wat.

Then I drove around with a friend taking photos of the city. I now know my limit is about 2 hours sitting side-saddle on a moto. We both got off at this point and stood stretching...bunch of old farts that we are! :)

Yesterday Geni and I decided that it was long overdo that we run the Hash, a run that is held once a week outside of the city. Supposedely this is a worldwide phenomenom, but it was the first I had heard of it. This week's hash ended up being relatively close to the hospital, but it was still good fun. We ran through Wats, people's yards, piles of sand, markets, fields and along roads and the river. There is a trail marked out and you have to find the right way...sometimes there are false trails. Oh, and at the end there is unlimited beer made available. Geni and I got good and drunk (think 30+ degrees, dehydrated and needing to drink at least 4-5 beers to get your money's worth, as the run costs 5$) Plus we were virgins to the run, so we had to be brought into the centre of the circle, introduce ourselves and then chug beer. And they found all kinds of other excuses to get us to chug beer...so by sunset we were sloshed. We left the group at this point and went to a favourite, quiet restaurant to end our evening (drinking mango-passionfruit shakes....drooooool.)

2006-07-23T02:55:00.000-04:00

Some stupas that lined Wat Langka.
A jackfruit tree in the grounds of Wat Langka. I met up with some monks and there are some fabulous pictures from this, but the internet connection is being quite awful right now, and I have a run to get to, so I am going to leave the blog as it is for now, wish you all my best and get the heck out of this café!!! Gah!!!!

2006-07-23T02:27:00.000-04:00

A garden in the temple I was visiting.
This is a picture taken from the alley that leads to our apartment. If you turn right where the blue garbage pail is you'll be on the main floor of our building.
Cyclo drivers. These guys have it pretty rough. Generally they leave their families, who live in the provinces, and come into the city to try and make a living pedaling people around. They live and sleep in their cyclo when they aren't using it during the day. Some will try and make it back to see their family over the weekend, but they can't always afford it. They don't always make enough to even eat every day. There are NGOs set up in the city who specifically cater to this population.

A more modern looking shopping mall right near the central market in Phnom Penh. Tony wants to go here sometime to try their pizza.
This is a peace monument that I pass by every day as it is relatively close to the hospital. For the longest time I didn't understand why it was a peace monument if it was a gun. It took me about a month to notice the knot in the barrel of the gun and then it all made a bit more sense ;)
What they ended up doing was have as many guns as possible be brought together and melted to actually make the monument. These are photos depicting the making of the monument, which is in the centre of a roundabout.
Squish the guns!
Yesterday a friend of mine picked me up on his moto and drove me around the city so that I could get pictures of Phnom Penh. This was taken from the Olympic Stadium, where children were flying kites in the wind. The area was being well used with many soccer and volleyball games going on, as well as people running around the track.
A little further out of the city I noticed the trees had funny nest-like things hanging in them, and I wondered about them. Turns out these trees are Dragon Eye trees (a type of fruit) and the "nests" that I was noticing were actually there to protect the fruit from various animals and bats.
My obliging friend stopped and let me get a better picture. You can see some of the fruit that is uncovered in the tree as well.

2006-07-16T10:02:00.000-04:00

World Cup fever!! One week ago! I have never watched so much football (aka soccer) in my life, and by that I mean I watched maybe 3 whole games over the last month! Whoo! I find it quite boring compared to hockey and will let anyone who is watching but willing to listen to me, know. But I actually enjoyed this game! It was pretty exciting, though I really wish France had won.
This was when France scored their first goal against Italy.
Um, right. So the game started at 1 am our time. What happened was I went to a wedding celebration for dinner, ate lots of food and had a lovely time, then crawled into bed around 9:30. The alarm went at 11:45 and I crawled downstairs to Geni's room where she dutifully poured me a beer and woke me up. Then we headed off to the bar down the street to watch the entire game. This is to prove that we were indeed up to watch the game at the actual time it was being broadcast in Phnom Penh. I know the picture is blurry, but you can read it! Oh, and I made it to work for 8 am the next morning...and then left at lunch to go get some sleep!!! :)
I know it's a bit blurry, but I don't have a tripod (yet) and it was taken without a flash. Still pretty, if I do say so myself.
Xray of a dislocated arm in a 4 year old boy. He had fallen out of bed 8 months ago. It was decided to let him be for now, as fixing the dislocation might cause more damage than good, as it might compromise the growth of his bones. He had a slight reduction in range of motion but no real pain.

Cutie pie with a dislocated arm. I was told that it is most likely that he actually fractured the ulna bone and dislocated the head of the radial bone (I think) but we couldn't really see the fracture on the xray. He giggled so hard when he saw these pics.
He could actually hold out his arm for me and it would look like this, but as soon as I broke out the camera he just couldn't hold his arm the same way for me!
Some of the school children I visited with on Thursday afternoon. One of the girls and I had a nice chat. It went something like this:
Meghan: What is your name? (in broken Khmer)
Girl: My name is X. What is your name? (in good English)
Meghan: My name is Meghan.
Girl: Are you married? (with much giggling from the surrounding girls)
And then they followed me around to the next two classrooms. I got 85 children on Thursday afternoon...props to me!
Geni after a long surgery on a cleft lip on Friday afternoon, that didn't go as well as planned. Everyone was exhausted by the end of it. People have gotten used to me on Fridays. I go around the hospital and yell "It's Friday" to anyone who will listen to me... ;)

2006-07-16T09:15:00.000-04:00

So the next several pictures are taken from a surgery I assisted with on Saturday afternoon at the clinic. This picture is taken from the rooftop of the clinic, where I arrived (after being woken up at 8 am) at 8:45 am for a quick breakfast before scrubbing in on a cleft lip surgery. Now several things might strike you as strange with that sentence. Saturday morning? Clinic? Surgery? Add to that my having gone out dancing the night before and having only got to bed around 3 am, my being woken up by the neighbour's dog at 6:30 am (I could kill that dog!) and you're starting to get the whole picture. When my phone rang at 8 I thought Hey, I'm awake, why not? When I got there, ate and scrubbed in I thought What am I doing? I should be at home drinking water and sleeping, not making light conversation over a bloody lip (literally)! After we finished the cleft lip I sat outside, drank some much needed water and contemplated the meaning of life...then 20 minutes later, without any time for lunch (who am I kidding...I couldn't eat lunch!) we were back in the OR working on the fractured arm. The following pictures, as per usual, are graphic. This was the coolest surgery I helped out with this week, but honestly, they are not for the weak-stomached. And you'll be happy to know that everyone's moods were much better during this second operation ;)
Two fractures in one arm, between the wrist and the elbow. This is us trying to free up the two ends of the radius. Notice how white our gloves are at this point...
Working on the ulnar fracture.
This is our second surgery of the day. I left at 5 pm, after two people had separately commented on how tired I looked (hey, I got 3 hours sleep!). Dr. Ngiep scrubbed in for a third surgery after I left, which had him at the clinic for about 13 hours on his Saturday.
This is not normal.
Pretty in....purple? The top was purple too...it was a lot to look at when I wasn't scrubbed in. This surgery occurred at the clinic, because the patient could afford it. Most of the profits are turned around and invested into the Children's Surgical Centre, where I normally work.
Xray of the fracture we were working on. Dr. Ngiep was saying it was like a new joint had formed in the arm where the fracture had occurred (the fracture happened about 4 years ago). Certainly when we saw the patient in the consultation room I described his arm as having two wrists...
Notice how we've drilled aaaalll the way through! This brought back fond memories of breaking my own elbow, once upon a time. Wonder if they did something like this to me? Definetely had two pins in my elbow for a couple of weeks...
We used a drill to make a hole for the pin that would keep the ulna bone straight. Dr. Sy, the anaesthetist, in the background with his adorable shirt!
Plate being placed to keep the radius bone in place.
That's the radial nerve you can see over the plate. We were being sooo careful to this nerve, trying to keep it from being damaged, hopefully that effort paid off.
Harvesting bone from the hip to be used in a bone graft to fix this man's arm.
Pieces of bone to be used for the graft.
Taking the piece of bone and putting it in the arm, between the fractured ends of the bone.
Suturing it up, after four and a half hours of surgery. Afterwards, I gave Geni (our star photographer, who also had been out dancing but was smart enough to sleep!) a tour of the clinic and then we walked home, had a very-much-needed dinner and then I was off to my hammack (which needs repairs...again...sigh).

Two of you have asked whether I have some kind of permission to be posting pictures of the patients, the way I have been, and I thank you. In fact, I'm surprised more haven't voiced a similar concern. Anywho, the answer is yes, the patients consent to our taking pictures before, during and after the operations, and to having them published, so dontcha worry...Meghan isn't all bad. ;)

2006-07-08T06:31:00.000-04:00

I was eating some delicious Indian food on my balcony with Danica when I looked over and saw this sky. Rainy season hasn't been too bad so far but I hear it's going to pick up soon!
Isn't this a crazy picture? I found it etched into the wall of a friend's house.
Pros with his smile! And this guy has the nerve to call ME smiley! Geni in the background getting ready to enter the OR.
Anaesthetist chatting with Tony in the OR. He speaks excellent French and we've had some really great chats while waiting for the surgeons to show up in the morning (!)

She had a burn contracture and I think I posted pics of when we placed the pins in her fingers. What a gorgeous girl. She belongs to the ethnic minority of Muslims known as the Cham.

My boyfriend. He's actually been discharged, which is a shame (only for me!) as I could always count on him being around when I wanted to escape the office or the OR. He actually squished himself between me and the wall the other day so that his mother woudn't take him away. So cute!

This girl has a sad story, but we're hoping that she is on the road to recovery and a better life. She was born with a meningoencephalocele (MEC) and her mother sold her to a begging ring in Thailand for something like 10 US dollars. She was rescued sometime this year, at the age of six, and she's the size of a normal three year old. She was operated on for the MEC but it was found that she had severe ulceration of her right eye and it had to be removed. Here she is sitting one day after she had surgery for the placement of an artificial eye. She and I hung out for a bit while I was on rounds but I couldn't get much from her, even with my superbly stunted Khmer! But right before leaving that night, she was out walking about, and she found me and sat down beside me and I got a killer smile when I told her her necklace was beautiful (sa'an). I'm looking forward to seeing her Monday.

Here I am taking out the stitches of this boy who had a burn contracture, if I remember right. It was SO much easier then the last time I removed sutures :) This kid and I were counting in Khmer, and I helped Geni with the scabby ones that are a bit harder to get at. And Mr. Yinna helped me with my technique ;)
Working hard at a young age. Look at the concentration!
Adorable! We took a picture of her with a survey plunked down beside her too. She was so excited to use the pen.

Bilateral cleft lip (and palate, but that's another surgery!) before the surgery....
And afterwards! Little drugged up but looking better.
Today we left Phnom Penh for the relative peace and quiet of Oudong, one of the old capitals of Cambodia. There are two "mountains" here and we decided that the best time of the day to see all the structures would be at noon. Silliness. It was an enjoyable experience but it was so hot! I drank a litre of water at the bottom of the hill in less than ten minutes. Dehydrated...whoops!
You know it's laundry time when the orange "Pop Cowboys Mood in Love" tshirt gets broken out. I won this tshirt earlier this summer. Not high quality and absolutely huge on me, but it does the job :)
These kids were gambling and really wanted me to join them. I spent most of the time trying to remember how to say "I don't understand" in Khmer (Kniom muhn yuhl te). I actually couldn't figure out the game but they kept patting my pockets to get money out and have me join in.
Pretty.
A king was buried here, awhile ago. I know, I suck, but there were a lot of structures and a lot of kings and it was really really hot!
This area was hit pretty hard during the war and hasn't been completely restored yet....
Though they're working on it! This Buddha was absolutely gigantic!!
You could see it from the next hill (phnom).
And at the bottom look what awaited us...
Hammack in one piece! Imagine that! Yeah, sense the sarcasm? My hammack broke AGAIN this morning...that's the third and last time! I'm going shopping tomorrow!!!
Geni and some friends she made at the base of Oudong mountain. These guys started hanging out with us because they wanted our water bottles. By the time we left they were shaking and kissing our hands and yelling out "ch-koo-ut" and giggling histerically. The next couple of pictures below are quite graphic from some "ch-koo-ut" (craaazy!) surgeries we did this past week.

2006-07-08T05:49:00.000-04:00

This was the result of the first "crazy" surgery I did this week. I went to the clinic for what we thought was going to be the removal of a couple of lipomas in this young guy but after opening up his neck we found out that we weren't dealing with lipomas. Instead, after bursting the abscess, we found out that our patient had TB. Not only that, he was coughing a lot (he was awake throughout the surgery) and likely has respiratory TB. So when we went for the second abcess near his shoulder, we were expecting the same kind of growth. But once we got in there, it didn't look the same. This time it looked more like a normal lipoma! Then the doctor thought it might be a tumourous thymus, then he was worried it might be the lung. Finally, it popped and boy did it ooze (see picture above, this is the gunk removed from the shoulder abcess). After Dr. Ngiep had cleaned it out (making faces throughout) I was able to put my finger inside it and feel how big it was from within. Nasty!!
This was a man with what we thought was a mandibular cyst, but there turned out to be many cysts, and it was a bloody one. One of the cysts squirted out at me, which made me jump back, and got Dr. Bonvath laughing.
Working away at the mandible. The cyst was the result of the roots of his teeth having gotten infected. The cyst also made the infection worse, which meant that many of his teeth were completely rotten and had to be removed.
The cysts were so big and the infection so bad that his mandible was no longer attached together in the middle. I could place my fingers from the outside in the cleft between the bones. Here you can see inside where we've formed a cavity where all the cysts used to be.
Here you can see 5 teeth that we pulled out. A sixth one came shortly thereafter. Who woulda thought I'd be pulling teeth in Cambodia? Well, I wasn't...but Dentist Bonvath was...
Friday morning I scrubbed in with Geni, Dr. Ngiep and Dr. Khemara for what we thought was a case of osteomyelitis. Earlier in the week there was an orthopedics conference and Dr. Ngiep presented this patient as he really didn't know what to do. The patient presented with an ulceration on the lower leg due to an infection as well as this marked osteomyelitis on the xray. What to treat first? How to immobilize the leg? Well from the picture above, you can see the tibia of this poor man, and how infected it is. We ended up removing the top portion, scraping away the inside (I got to do a bit of this!) and it stank. Man it was gross. Then we knew it wasn't osteomyelitis because that shouldn't smell. Once the infected inner bone was removed we irrigated the wound and then immobilized it from the outside and then sutured him closed. It was a long surgery and it was difficult, but the doctors are optimistic that he might not need a bone graft or a crossed leg flap (which I really wanted to see, but would have been awful for the patient!)

2006-07-03T10:07:00.000-04:00

Proof to those who needed it that yes I am working on my project. I hit up two international schools last week and I tried to get to a Khmer school, but the children were too young to read my survey, so Danica will be going in my stead this coming Thursday, while I am in Battambang.
They all wanted a chance to read! So cute!
Ok, this was definetely one of the coolest surgeries I've been able to help out with. I'm holding open the wound so that you can see one end of the fractured radius of this poor guy. He had broken both the radius and the ulna but only the ulna was fixed originally, for some reason. So when we saw him one month later, his arm was completely useless and deformed. We opened up the arm and found it to be infected, with pus oozing out (that was kind of gross). Then we poured in something to kill off the infection, but that meant that all the tissues were stained the same colour, making it virtually impossible to identify anything. There was a pin in the arm from the previous surgery and it was looking at one point like we might have to remove that one to get the two ends that were still fractured to meet. There was also a bit of bone floating around and we were able to remove that.
Finally! Over an hour later we got the bones to meet. At this point we took a pin and hammered it into the center of the bone, starting from the wrist until it got to about the elbow joint. It was so cool at that point because the arm looked a little more normal and you could move it around normally. Very rewarding.
And I got to suture it up, and finally! Dr. Ngiep says I've done a good job (he'd laugh so hard if he read this!) ;)
Cutey pie. One of my friends that I get to play with after work. He's the son of one of the women who helps to clean the hospital.
More kids, from the Khmer school this time.
Since they were too young to read we decided to get right in there and help the eye doctors with their work. They checked each of the kids eyes and then sent them to us where we gave them multivitamin drops.
Geni, a British gal who started up at ROSE about a week and a half ago. She and I will be heading over to Battambang on Wednesday for a short visit with another NGO. Very much looking forward to the experience.
This is the woman who's son I play with after work. She's all dressed up (and I'm some sad excuse). We went to a wedding party of a guy from work and it was such a blast. It was held just outside of PP and we got totally lost. We were three vehicles and everyone was just roaring with laughter as we turned around on these itty-bitty roads. But finally we got there and we were served an 8 course meal (most of which I couldn't eat) and drinks drinks drinks. Some of the guys got so drunk, and it was hilarious. Danica was fed way too much food while Jenny and I were served too much booze. They put a bottle of whisky on the table and one guy, my size, easily polished off a bottle to himself. At one point he came by, picked up my glass of beer, poured it on the ground and then poured me a shot of whisky and wouldn't leave me alone until it was gone. I think I impressed some of the hospital staff that night. And there's another wedding this coming weekend...
Another school that we visited last week. I'll be going back tomorrow to see if they remember anything from these books!

2006-07-03T09:26:00.000-04:00

Teehee! I took advantage of the blank wipe board in the office to wish everyone a Happy Canada Day. I'll have to get pictures from Tony to show you guys how we spent the night of the thirtieth, and I'll describe it in more detail with the pictures but a short synopsis = met a Mountie, the Canadian ambassador to Phnom Penh, drank champagne and ice wine (and normal wine) and saw an inukshuk carved from ice. It's the biggest Canada Day party to have happened yet in Phnom Penh. Very enjoyable :)
Piseth, Tony, Danica and Dr. Ngiep. Piseth and Dr. Ngiep were super nice and volunteered to take us on a tour of Phnom Penh on Canada Day! We started off at Wat Phnom, which you can see up in the background. It's in the middle of a roundabout, which makes it a bit of a challenge to get to. It's really popular on the Khmer New Year and supposedely it's impossible to move around cuz there are so many people.
At the top there were some pretty decorations. This Wat was pretty modest and there's a larger more elaborate one in the old capital of Cambodia, which I'm hoping to get to next weekend.
Buddhas lined up with donations of money and lotus flowers.
Recruiting more Canadians for Canada Day! Tony had brought some stickers from back home and the kids (and Meghan) were going nuts over them!
There are these cages full of birds all over the touristy parts of the city and the story goes that for a small fee the tourist can set a bird free. However, the birds have been trained to come back to the cages, which I think is hilarious!
Meet Sambo the elephant. He's often down by the river when I go jogging in the morning and then he'll make his way over to Wat Phnom to take the tourists for a ride.
Piseth and Tony having a chat while they wait for....
Mr Popular.
And again, in true Meghan-style, why have a normal hammack when you could have a broken hammack that needs duct tape?! This is the photo of my second attempt to keep the damn thing together. I've fallen twice so far but I'm hopeful that this one's a keeper :)
Shrimp vendor taking a snooze at Central Market.
Crickets. Deep fried crickets. Tony and Danica, upon the suggestion from Dr. Ngiep gave these a try and found them to be quite good (though Danica was still chewing 5 min later, as there were wings stuck in her teeth!)
An example of one of the older colonial-style buildings around the city.
Eggs at the Old Market. I love how they're in baggies.
I went to a Wat near my apartment with a friend and it was all closed up, being mid-Sunday afternoon and all...but then this guy saw us and beckoned us over to a smaller building which he unlocked and brought us into. Within a small room was this Buddha, which he lit up for us, and then gave us each an incense and we knealt down. The room was really smoky, from all the incense that had burned there over the days as there was no ventilation. But it was a nice smell and a cool atmosphere. Then the guy started chanting and sprinkling us with lotus water. It was such a neat experience but then I started to giggle. So much water was being splashed on me that it was getting in my ear and I could see my friend wiping his face in the corner of my eye and I lost it. Embarassing, but I couldn't stop once I'd started. Sigh.

2006-06-25T04:35:00.000-04:00

I went through some of Tony's pictures and found this one of us at lunch. This is before all the food's been laid out...we do not starve here :)
This gives you a better idea of just how much rain we received a week ago!

The girl in white had been at the hospital since we arrived, to have her fingers separated (notice she only has two on each hand). The pigtails say it all...this kid had character! She would give these huge waves with a big smile, then hide behind her mother. She was discharged the day this photo was taken.
Speaking of character....meet Dr. Ngiep! This was right before we started to release a burn contracture that was ten years old.
Adding the finishing touches. This was our first ridiculously cool surgery of the week. We decided to use pins to keep the fingers straight, which involved driving them into the girls fingertips. You could literally hear the bone creak as the pins were pushed through them. I sewed up this girls inguinal area after we removed skin for the skin graft. Dr. Ngiep thinks I need practice since the last time I did it in front of him, my hands shook. I did 22 for this girl, probably a bit excessive, but good practice! The pins were left uncut because then they can be used again for another patient. But they're going to be in her hand for 3 weeks, so the corks were put on to keep her from hurting herself, or anyone else! Kind of horror-movie-like, hunh?
K, wicked surgery number two! This is the beginning of a below-the-knee amputation that I assisted with. I now know for sure that blood and I are aok. The patient was given an epidural, so he was actually awake while we sawed off his leg, which was a bit weird. Also weird to have him hold up his thigh for us, while we were cutting out nerves and tying off arteries. When it was off, another doctor walked by and told me I should disect the lower limb, when the patient left, which would have been excellent practice, but unfortunately the surgery ran late, and we had a party to throw...so no disection for this girl! The only time I felt slightly nauseous was when I was chatting with Dr. Ngiep while we removed some of the patient's lymph nodes and he made some comment about bbqing them for our party...then got really concerned that I would pass out...only because one of the other students here DID pass out, about a week ago. But fortunately I was able to catch her before she fell (this involved me running around the operating table, not tripping on any wires and getting her down to the floor.) Good times in the OR!
Beer fridge before the party...
Party at our place!
Some of the hospital staff enjoying some good food, good company and a nice view!
My last beer of the evening.
There was one thing missing from the apartment...well two, but there isn't much I can do about the bbq. But a hammock I could locate and bargain for! 3$ later and a little humming and hahhing, and look! Life is amazing! How can I set this up for Toronto as well....

2006-06-21T09:33:00.000-04:00

Danica digging into a pineapple full of fried rice with an egg to top it off. This was our first day in Sihanoukville, in Southern Cambodia. We had a long weekend because it was the Queen's birthday on the Sunday. Yeah!
This was the view as we approached the beach. It wasn't Thailand, but it was nice to get out of the city and this picture captures one of the moments when it was trying to be sunny!
At night on the beach. The second night we were there there was a major thunder storm and it was incredible to walk along the beach with it periodically being lit up bright white by the lightning, with the sound of the waves on your side.
The boys decided to try out a day of snorkeling while Danica and I decided to wait out the rain by going to Psar Leu, a Khmer market. Then we checked out a backpacker beach that I put my toe in then begged Danica to bring me back to the other beach near our guesthouse which was so much nicer. By that point the sun was out and I was in heaven swimming in the ocean.

2006-06-21T09:05:00.000-04:00

Occheuteal Beach, Sihanoukville. a) notice the sky. It rained most of the time we were there. b) I would estimate that 95% of the people you see in the water in this picture are Khmer. It's definetely down-season in Cambodia right now, which is kind of nice. The water was gorgeous (at this beach).
The point of this picture is that I had a craving for fish and chips. Two days before this photo, I realized that everything (literally) that I have been eating since I got here has come in contact with some kind of meat, and since the fish is supposed to be so good in Cambodia, why am I even trying? So I dug into a full fish at lunch, much to the surprise and amusement of my Khmer hosts and Canadian friends.
We came home from Sihanoukville to some serious rain. So serious in fact that we were told to turn around when we got to a street near our apartment, and we were in a landcruiser! So this is a picture (that does no justice to the circumstances) of the water that I was wading through to get home that was up to my thighs. Nasty water. I have videos as well that I may or may not try to load up onto this page. Suffice to say, it was an experience :) We're having a party on Friday night and everyone is keeping their fingers crossed that the weather will hold up.
Dr. Ly at lunch. He was chatting with us and then he wasn't. 15 minutes later he opened his eyes, muttered operation! and got up, groggily and stumbled to his car. When I got back to the hospital he was scrubbed in and cutting away :)
K, this was my contribution to the Edmonton Oilers game the other day. I had the folks in the hospital in stitches as I tried to explain what hockey was (how do you say blade in French?), why I had a sticker on my face (Canada!) and why I was so nervous, running upstairs every 5 minutes to check the score. Then I was told by the doctor I was doing surgery with that losing 3-1 was bad. Thanks.
Dr. Ngiep, an American named Brian and myself doing surgery on a partial cleft lip. I think I might use these sessions to start improving my Khmer.
Tony and Dr. Bonvath repairing a leaky MEC patient. Poor kid has been absolutely traumatized by his whole hospital experience. Every time he sees someone dressed in blue he starts to cry. :(
Edmonton lost and we went to the lake to try and find dressy clothes for a wedding we have been invited to for the end of next week. Why oh why did I not bring a skirt and nice top? No skirts to be found, but I ordered a glass of beer, was served a pitcher (for 2$) and proceeded to get pissed. Getting ready to drink the doctors under the table Friday night (good luck to me...)

2006-06-14T09:47:00.000-04:00

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.

2006-06-12T10:38:00.000-04:00

On our way to the hospital one morning I took this picture over the Japanese Bridge. You'll notice that there is a raised sidewalk on the side and then an even smaller one by the railing. The one closest to the railing is for pedestrians and the next one is for the motos. Motos pass each other on this bridge, as do trucks and cars. We went to Kampot for the weekend and Armin (in light blue) kindly offered to drive us down. He is Kanya's nephew and has been living in Phnom Penh for about 5 months now. Super super helpful and an excellent Khmer driver. The car was white when we left but because of traffic being the way it was we were forced to go to the side of the road on the opposite side of the road where the dirt was wet and there happened to be a bump and the truck got filthy.
Bicycle outside a village.
Danica, Tony, Meg and Armin. After a long (and sometimes scary) 35 km drive up a ridiculously bumpy road, this is the view we came to in Bokor National Park, just outside Kampot.
This is the real reason we came up the mountain, to see the ghost town, or all of the abandonned buildings that had been built by the French at the beginning of the century. Scattered about, there are about a dozen structures to be seen. This area was the scene of much fighting over the last thirty years, with the Khmer Rouge being the last to hold it and having given it up only 13 years ago. There are doctors in my hospital who refuse to travel south of Phnom Penh even now because the South has traditionally been a Khmer Rouge stronghold. Remember that all but 8 doctors were killed by the Khmer Rouge during their period of power from 1975-1979.

The next couple of entries follow this one as I'm still learning the ways of this website and am dealing with an internet cafe computer. Enjoy the pictures :)

2006-06-12T10:18:00.000-04:00

From inside the hotel on top of the mountain of Bokor National Park. They said in the guide book that you couldn't help but shiver when you entered this building. I scoffed. Then I found this corner and I had to peek inside and then I got a chill, a shiver and I ran. ;)
From on top of the French hotel. This place would of had a killer view.
It was really windy. I'm surprised the guy who took this didn't catch me grabbing at my hat. Beautiful waters behind me...scuba diving? Maybe next weekend...
The church. The red comes from a moss that can be found growing on many of these buildings. Supposedely it's even more vivid after it has rained for a month or so. Funny, the French built about a dozen buildings on top of this mountain. Two of which are the church seen above...and a casino.
Khmer boy petting a blind monkey. I pet it too! It's fur was so thick.
And what trip would be complete without a blown tire?
In true Meghan-style, we got a blown tire about 5 km down the 35 km road down the hill. Here you see us trying to get the tire down from where it was secured under the truck. That took about 45 min, and 2 phone calls to the hospital fix-it guy. But between the 6 of us (+ phone guy) we got the tire down and then attached to the truck well enough to drive us the next 4.5 hours to Phnom Penh. So now I know how to change a tire :)
One of these monks did the whole Joey "How you doin'? wink wink" thing to me. It was hilarious cause he was a monk! And this is to prove to anyone who might doubt me that a dog I was staying with ate mangoes. I went mango picking in the front yard (ok, I climbed a tree and shook a branch but the damn fruit wouldn't fall, so then I climbed down and chucked my flipflop at the tree until they fell). Then I had to fight Tippy the dog for my share. In the end she got the cores.

2006-06-12T09:54:00.000-04:00

This is the balcony I have been raving to some of you about. Isn't it fantabulous?
This is the main view we have from the balcony. You're looking at the Royal Palace, where the King and Queen hang out, at least at times. This square is usually full of people and dogs and on Sundays the kids are out playing football (soccer). And when the lights go out it's still very pretty!
Meg, Tony and Danica. We had to get dressed up pretty for the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding for Kanya's NGO called the Cambodian Acid Survivor Charity. Notice that Danica and I have matching shoes. We went shopping the day before in the Russian Market (an amazing place) for heels. Who woulda thought I'd come to Cambodia for my first pair of heels in 6 years?
This girl has a congenital deformity on her left leg that needed surgery. I can send a close up for hose who want it ;) One week later she's looking great and the swelling has gone down markedly.

2006-06-08T21:20:00.000-04:00

So we arrived in Cambodia just about a week ago and have settled in rather nicely, finely being on the right timezone and all. On our first day we were in the operating room watching a team of French doctors reconstruct the head of a young child who had something called a meningoencephalocele (MEC). They are relatively common in this part of the world but rare everywhere else.

So over the last week we've been each working on getting our respective projects set up, scrubbing in to various surgeries and touring around with the chief financial officer of the hospital (Kanya) while she wrapped up all the details before leaving for a well-deserved 1.5 month vacation (to Alaska). We've been living with her and her nephew for the last week, but have found some wicked apartments that we will be moving into within the hour :) Yeah! Please see pics.

Yesterday was quite an exciting day. We were supposed to attend a meeting with Kanya to officially have her new NGO recognized by the Cambodian government and the meeting was scheduled for 5 pm. Around 10:50 am we were told to run downstairs for the meeting time had been switched to 11:30 and we had to go back home, get dressed up and be downtown in time. Frantic. But we made it. Not quite what any of us were expecting, but we went up with Kanya and while she signed the documents with the minister of Foreign Affairs we smiled politely for all the cameras. There was champagne afterwards and much congratulation. The NGO she is forming is for survivors of Acid Burn attacks. I'm sure I'll be telling you all much more about this as the summer progresses, but basically acid is really easy to come by in developing countries and if you are ever angry with someone, throwing acid on them is a quick and easy way to get your revenge. The results are devastating, and as such, a new NGO catering solely to the needs of these survivors has been set up.

Kanya also has a private medical clinic, which she uses to generate funds to support the non-profit hospital that we are volunteering at and possibly also the Acid Burn Survivor NGO. Not sure. But it's working. Within 6 months she had broken even on the for-profit clinic (which is spectacular, by the way) and now the funds can be funneled over to the hospital for the people who cannot afford to pay.

Alright, I think that's enough for now. I'll try and put up pictures soon. I'm heading down to Kampot tomorrow to meet with my translator and then hopefully do a bit of sightseeing. Hope all is well with each of you. :)

2006-05-26T18:22:00.000-04:00

Heather, Celeste, Jane and moi!

One more exam down! This one involved us going from room to room and either interviewing standardized patients (aka actors) regarding their various ailments (you see doc, I've had this diarrhea for the last month...) or doing different physical maneuvers, while a doctor sat in the corner, watched us, grilled us and graded us. After finishing up, I had another reunion, but this time it was grade school, grade 7 and 8 to be precise. This involved a yummy vegetarian buffet, a tour of Celeste's amazing apartment, and free clothing (for me!) I love it when I have friends who get sick of their clothing :)

So then Jane, Celeste and I continued down to Queen St W where we did a bit of window shopping. Then Jane took off to go meet up with her brother and Celeste and I slowly made our way home. We stumbled across this shopping cart which caught our attention. Random.
So now it's back to one last weekend of studying before doing the last minute packing, the moving, the partying and the flying. Can't wait!

2006-05-22T20:53:00.000-04:00

So even though I had to study a lot this weekend, it turned out to be a total blast because all my Ottawa girls (minus a couple of key members) ended up in town, including the elusive Jane Maxwell, who flew in last minute from Vancouver! We ended up spending lovely evenings eating well, drinking too much wine and getting caught up. It was fabulous and we got D-runk (Thompson better be reading this!) Check out the salad rolls prepared by Jenn.

Oh, and Corrie, my roommate was really bored while we were studying for DOCH, and found peeling the floor to be much more amusing and a better use of her time. The things we'll do to procrastinate...

2006-05-12T08:13:00.000-04:00

It's that time of the year we have all been dreading. Brains, exams, packing (x2) and gorgeous weather. We're literally counting down the minutes now. Highlights of the week have included listening to Roberta Bondar lecture our class on eye movements in space and doing the eye exam on ourselves, which involved dilating peoples pupils and making them look funny. Roberta was pretty amazing, a great speaker and funny. My eye is still dilated (big) and so my vision is a bit off right now. But I got to see inside other people's eyes, and that was cool, so no complaints. You can actually see the nerve head at the back of the eye with all the blood vessels coursing around. The picture above is of me looking at the front (cornea, iris and pupil) of Joanna's eye.

Look closely at the eye on the left compared to that on the right.

So in the next two and a half weeks I have to:
-study for three exams
-write three exams
-pack up my apartment
-move into my new apartment
-set up the new apartment for the subletters
-pack for 10 weeks in Cambodia
-design a survey for my research project in Cambodia (background reading would ideally be completed before this was written, it ain't going to happen)
-throw a kick-ass party

Last, but certainly not least, it's time for those of us who knew Timmy (aka TimBit) to say goodbye. My poor diabetic cat took a turn for the worse and had to be put down earlier this week. For those of you who truly knew him, you will be happy to know he went out purring. Poor cat never knew who to trust.

2006-05-08T12:15:00.000-04:00

Going to be heading out to Phnom Penh in just about three weeks and need to learn the ways of this site before leaving. Wish me luck in my endeavour! :)