We got to meet the surgical team when they came through on rounds and trade contact info with them. We'll be sending them some 'after' pictures of the kids. Normally, they ask the patients to come back in on Friday for a check-up, but since our families are from so far away and because Heidi will be looking after them at ASELSI, they agreed to let us skip that. So the five families went home today and will come see us in clinic a week from tomorrow (already January 18!!! - where has this year gone already?)
Otto got his surgery this morning. It felt like a 20 hour wait, even for us - we had books to read - but Regina and Ana Maria were unbelievably patient. Heidi and I decided that we would not make good Guatemalans. These people have a seemingly unlimited ability to WAIT for things to happen!
Anyway, Otto came through okay. Regina is going to stay with him tonight at the hospital, so we walked Ana Maria and Carolina back to the Casa de Fe where they're staying (it's about 12 blocks and Ana Maria is only 14 and has a lot of stuff to carry and has never been in a city this big and..... you see where this is going).
More pics today. The first is exciting for a couple of reasons. Since we threw a couple of bucks the families' way (and we mean a couple - we handed out somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 to each family for "meals and stuff"), most of the families used at least some of their money to buy a toy and a new outfit for the baby. Normally, kids here will never have a new toy in their entire life. This sounds made up but it really isn't. Think about what was under your Christmas tree. The Fischer-Price train you see in the first picture is likely the only NEW toy, out of the box, that this family will ever purchase, no matter how many kids they have. We were also very excited to see some of the dads tearing tags off of new outfits. New face, new clothes. How exciting!!!
The Mayan women, especially, tend to be very stoic. You don't see too many smiles from most of them (Regina being the clear exception!). But today, we saw a smile on even the most stoic of all the moms. She commented to us that her baby looked very different and smiled a real smile!
Not that it's all been wine and roses. These kids have just undergone what must be a relatively painful surgery and are not allowed a bottle for a few days. They can be fed with a syringe, but it's just not the same. And you parents know what that means - the moms probably didn't get much sleep last night. The second pic is of one of the moms demonstrating a little exhaustion!
The third pic is Otto, post-op. The palate surgeries aren't as spectacular, but just as important. You can see the stitch they put through his tongue and taped to his cheek. They'll remove that in the morning. One of the nurses explained to us that that's to save his life in case of some swelling that might start to impede his airway. They can use the stitch to pull his tongue out of the way and help him breathe. I never would have thought of that....
The fourth pic is of Ana Maria carrying Carolina out of the hospital, on our way back to Casa de Fe. She looks quite a bit shorter than me. The perspective in the picture is a little misleading. She's actually quite a bit shorter than she looks - she's in front of me by probably six feet! But never complains and is always helpful, patient, and cheerful - just like any other teenager, right?
Well, we go back tomorrow morning to get Otto's post-op instructions and to set Regina and her family up for a "free day". More later!
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