Flora's Umbilical Hernia Surgery!

Well like everything else here, things happen "polle polle"... slowly! At times I am even amazed that anything at all gets done! The truth of the matter is time is taken so lightly that you can only plan one appointment a day because that meeting might take all day! Or might not happen at all.



This being said, after much confusion about meeting times to speak with the head of the orphanage about possible surgery and if they had a preference of surgeons or hospitals...we finally set something up for thursday morning (so I had been told). Then that was pushed to 3pm Thursday (which messed up my whole day of plans, but I would be flexible) At 10am I was about to leave to start my new plans for the day when my phone rings and I am told that the little girl, Flora, and someone from the orphanage are AT St Elizabeth's waiting for me?!?!?! So suddenly my plans changed AGAIN, and now I was off to the hospital for a pre-op consult. This was not the order of events I had imagined in this "polle polle" culture in which I currently live.

I met them at the hospital and take them to the OR for their pre-op exam. Once there I find out that Dr Mosha is doing the same surgery on a little boy right then (10:30) so if we get her chart she might be able to have surgery after him! Wow this was all happening so fast I was impressed yet surprised! I make sure that the orphanage was prepared for surgery today and Mama Vera said they were and they would be happy to have it today. We were sent to get Flora a chart and then return to the OR. I was told they were just finishing up the first (and only)scheduled surgery, but I see Dr Mosha walking around outside. So I think this is a touch strange.

We wait and wait and wait. Finally the other boy is taken out and put in the male surgical ward. At nearly 12, we are told that Dr Mosha has left for the day! So I try to stay optimistic and think this is a good thing because now Dr Ngyza can do the surgery instead! (And if I needed surgery I would want him to do it) He is still on morning rounds, so we wait some more!

Finally around 1pm, Dr Ngyza comes and evaluates her, calling it a 3cm hole in the abdominal wall...and set up everything for next week, as he does not do umbilical hernia repairs!



So in the end, she is to arrive Monday the 22nd at 4pm for admission. Then surgery will be first thing Tuesday morning. My flight leaves Monday night, so I will not be able to stay but have arranged payment and have told the other volunteers to keep and eye on her for me! Fingers crossed all will go well for her!

UPDATE: (3/9/10) I have gotten updates on both of the little girls who underwent hernia repair surgery. (I never posted about the second little girl, but we arranged for another little girl around the same age to have the same surgery on the same day as Flora. Thanks to the volunteers at her orphanage the cost was also covered!)

Janet: It sounds like Janet recovered exactly as expected in Africa. She spent 3 nights in the hospital and went back to the orphanage where she was allowed to sleep in the volunteer's quarters as to not have to share a bed with another little girl while her wounds healed. The volunteers did a wonderful job caring for her and even home schooled her from the orphanage while she was recovering. To my knowledge she is back at school and eating and drinking normally with no complications!

Flora: Unfortunately Flora, who did have the larger repair, did not fair as well as Janet. She was in the hospital for nearly 10 days. I have not heard exactly why but my assumption is the extended stay was due to infection. She was released on Thursday March 4th and returned to the orphanage. A volunteer there, told me that she was a bit slower and a little more shy than the volunteer had remembered. But once the older children returned from school, she perked up and seemed to act like her old self again. I have seen an after picture of her repair, and with the amount of skin she had due to the large hernia her abdomen does not look normal. But in time, as she grows the skin should stretch out, but likely she will never have a "normal" appearing belly button area. On the other hand, she will never have a life or death emergency related to the hernia and for that I am thankful!

In the end both surgeries were a success!