More Firsts

These past several days have held yet more milestones for my trip. On Tuesday I got to observe my first surgeries, which was quite an experience. I scrubbed in with Dr. Huan, and watched as he prepared the anesthetics for two patients. Each operating room (OR) has two beds, and it’s standard for there to be two operations occurring simultaneously. The first was a woman who was having two large staples removed from her ankle. The second was a young boy, probably about 9, who was having two pins removed from his elbow. Both of them seemed like relatively simple and benign operations compared to what I’ve seen since.

The most intense surgery I’ve seen so far has been the removal of an approximately 16 inch rod from a man’s femur. They had to open his left hip using a cauterizing electric knife (which created a less than pleasant smell in the OR), and then literally use a mallet and chisel to get access to the top of the rod and pull it out. All the while, the man only has a spinal block and partial sedation, so he is aware of the hammering and shaking of his body, even if he can’t feel or see the operation. It’s pretty crazy to watch.

Watching my first nerve block, where anesthetic is injected around a major nerve to numb an extremity, definitely rekindled my old aversion to needles, but as I saw more, they quickly got easier to watch. The surgeries themselves though didn’t bother me at all. Between surgeries, Dr. Huan would explain to me more about the OR and the procedures, and I would help him learn the English medical terms for things by drawing and writing on the operating table covers. Despite the serious nature of the work, the doctors still manage to keep a warm sense of humor amidst the professional environment, telling jokes between procedures and helping put the patients at ease. I think my favorite part of their OR, however, has got to be the music. During all the surgeries so far, they’ve been playing one of Dr. Huan’s CDs that is basically full of the equivalent of Vietnamese Barry Manilow. I almost laughed out loud when they first started playing it, and it definitely gives a rather farcical character to the whole situation.

 On a somewhat related note, Dr. Huan also invited me to my first evening of karaoke this week. It was for his friend’s birthday, and so I got to meet several more locals, a couple of which even started attending my English class at the hospital. We spent the evening in the small acoustic prison of our modest karaoke room singing, eating cake, and bonding over our shared audacity to butcher such great classics as “Tiny Dancer” and even “We are the World”. It was fantastic. And considering the total fee was less than $2, I’d challenge anyone to find a more economic way to entertain eight people for three hours.

That said, we did give ourselves a run for our money today when we spent the day picnicking in the park. They’ve got a great park here surrounding a lake with the coolest playgrounds for kids I’ve ever seen, but which would never fly in the states out of liability concerns. (For instance, they have a not-quite-horizontal wheel about 8 ft. in diameter elevated a few feet off the ground, which seemed to have the express purpose of having kids spin it by running around on it until it was going fast enough that they would fall off. What could go wrong?) Anyway, several members of our karaoke group spent the day there hanging out, which definitely gave me some more perspective into Vietnamese culture. Some things, like a few of us taking shots at playing guitar, and Dr. Huan getting his palm read, could have been just like anywhere else. But then there were things I would never have expected to see, like our group of early to late twenty-somethings being enthralled by hangman for a good hour and a half, or learning how to Cha Cha and Tango lakeside to the downloaded ringtones on one of the guy’s cell phones. We also played (for lack of better title) pick-a-random-dare-out-of-a-hat. The dares—which were all found universally hilarious—consisted of such provocative commands as “pinch the person next to you”, “sing a song”, and, the one I chose, “put a leaf on your head”. The most baffling to me though had to be, “say what a bee would say when it comes home from work.” No, it was not a translation error; I inquired earnestly. Rather, it was more or less a challenge to come up with the best pun you could involving bees, work and a stereotypical domestic lifestyle. “Honey, I’m home,” was of course the obvious cop out response.  I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. We had a great time though, and I sincerely doubt this is the last you’ll be hearing of these guys.