Fistula Camp - Day Three

Another early morning with a quick breakfast and we were off again to the hospital. We did another quick ward round and the patients from the previous day were doing very well which was encouraging for the next round. It was always easy to tell the patients for that day because suddenly the "chosen ones" were dressing in green-striped hospital gowns assisted by the patients who had gone before and the patients yet to come. Watching this reminded me of women helping beloved brides into their wedding gowns which I know sounds strange but in some ways the anticipation had the same mix of anxiety and excitement.
The first patient we had that day was a woman about my age who probably suffered her injury from an emergency C-section by inexperienced hands. Her ureters (the tubes connecting the kidneys to the bladder) were draining directly into her vagina and that usually is a surgical injury rather than an obstetrical injury. We had to do a laparotomy (open her abdomen) to repair her and take her ureter disconnect it and reconnect it in a different place through the broad ligament of her uterus (for the medical people :)) it was incredible and unbelievable surgery.
We lost one of our operating theatres that day because General Surgery needed it for their emergency cases. As we were operating on one of our patients one of the nurses came in to say that the patient in the next room had died. No code called, no additional hubbub, just died on the table. I had to go into that theatre a few minutes later (as it housed the only scrub station) and they were sewing this man back up and on the radio playing eerily in the background was Kenny Rogers' "You've Got to Know When to Hold 'Em". It was one of those experiences when you feel like looking around because it can't possibly be actually happening.
We did five other cases that day including a woman who had been leaking for twenty-five years and finally got her repair after so much damage had already been done to her body (it wasn't even that difficult a repair which was so sad).
We left under the blanket of night again getting another two bottles of red wine this time toasting "To Kenyans in Kisii" and I went to bed at 830pm exhausted from the day.