good challenge, days 10 and 13 and 14

So I lasted a week before I fell behind on my GOOD Challenge.  It's okay though, because even though the "No one's perfect" lesson is rearing its ugly head, I'm pressing on with it.  Unfortunately though, the past few days will be somewhat out of order as I try to catch up.  Bear with me, and by the end of the month, I can assure you there will be a whole collection of the 30 assignments.

DAY 10: Document your Coffee Break

In the OR office, our afternoon coffee break (and sometimes the morning one too) has evolved into more of a childcare hour, for lack of a better term.  Needless to say, I love every minute of it.  Right now, there are still a few plastics kids hanging around, waiting for there surgery sites to completely heal, along with some orthopaedic kids from earlier in the outreach, having returned to have hardware removed.  Around 2pm each day, I walk down to A ward and return to the office with a gaggle of kids, mainly wanting to play with "da feesh," also known as Billy the Bass, the singing fish.  Other activities include making phone calls, using my camera, dressing up in goggles and scrub caps, and playing with Guy, our stuffed mannequin.

Lesha, holding her favorite crooning big-mouth.

Mohamed, fireman-carrying Guy down to A-ward.  

The remainder of today's post can be called "teeth, part 2."  Back in July, I spent a day at the Mercy Ships Dental Clinic (read about it HERE).  Today, I went back.

DAY 13: Document Hopefulness

The Dental clinic was busy today, with the staff seeing over 60 patients.  I'm comfortable guesstimating that at least a third of these patients were screamers.  Including this little guy, pictured above.  When I asked his mom if I could "snap" him, she insisted that he put his school uniform shirt back on.  Despite having just had a few teeth pulled, and with tears running down his face, I feel this photo represents hopefulness.  After a short, simple procedure like teeth extraction, this little boy will avoid a potentially disfiguring, painful, or life-threatening oral infection.  By simply removing a tooth, he can regain hope.  As of last Friday, the Dental Team has extracted over 33,000 teeth on over 10,000 patients here in Sierra Leone.  Yes, that was the sound of your jaw hitting the floor. 

DAY 14: Document a Friend

While at the Dental Clinic, I got to spend time with several great friends, including Gina (the dental coordinator) and Sieh (the assistant dental coordinator and my roommate!), and pictured above are Melissa (dental assistant) and Ali (dentist).  I met Ali back in March, during my overnight stay in Brussels on the way to Freetown (read about it HERE).  Ali was here for the first two weeks of the outreach and decided to return for the final two weeks.  It has been great having another member of "Team Brussels" back on board and I had fun time today shadowing and assisting him.  I pulled not one, but TWO teeth and even did a few more sutures.  If you are reading this, Taylor, somethings just never change!