Tuesday October 21

The case that I thought would take a long time wasn't as long as expected. we were removing several lumps which we thought were probably benign (non cancerous) from the left side of the mouth in a fifteen year old boy. As with the previous days case in which we had removed a neurofibroma - again a non cancerous growth in the left cheek, these sort of things are dealt with quickly in the UK but because of the lack of doctors in liberia and the expense they are left to grow. In both situations had they been left then the boys would have had a slow death since they would have developed breathing difficulties as the tumours grew.

The remaining cases yesterday were generally smaller. One was the removal of a large amount of keloid scar tissue in a young girl aged 18 years, who had had a previous injury to her ear lobe. The scar was bigger than her ear and hanging almost like an earring from the lower edge of her ear. Operations like this are reasonably simple but make a huge difference, especially to a young girl like her. Incidentally she brought her 2 month old daughter in with her as she is still nursing her.

We also have a paediatric surgeon currently with us and whilst I was busy in my OR he was performing a nephrectomy on a very small person. I only saw from the outside of the door but certainly under one year. Again and again it is amazing to see exactly what work is acheived here.

But we do have the opportunity to relax and the OR team went out for dinner last night. The food was good and the company excellent even if the service was a little slow. It just gave us time to chat with each other and get to know one another a little better. The journey to the restaurant took over 30 minutes as the only bridge is single lane and causes bottlenecks. thankfully it took only 15 minutes to arrive back at the ship. We had to leave some behind on the ship as 2 OR STaff have to be on call along with anaesthetists etc but other staff were very kind in swopping on-call duties so that others could go.

Just a small aside to say hello to the housegroup members. I have a few photos but not narly as many as last time partly because I have worked in the same areas but I will see what I can pull off the pictures in the ships database which is available to us here. Just remember that Liberia is one hour behind UK.