The above picture is of my patient Emmanuel. He was discharged today. He came last week for a cleft lip and palate repair. The entire upper roof of his mouth the palate was split into two pieces. The repair was intense and in the process made his airway about half the size that it was before. We didn't cut out his airway we just made it the size and shape that it should have been. He woke up with two nasal airways/trumpets in his nose a mouthful of stitches and a huge pack of ether gauze stitched to the top of his mouth. Above that he had forgotten where he was what had happened to him and there was this white nurse, blond haired blue eyed in his face asking him if he had pain as if that is even a fair question.
I don't think I realized how intense these surgeries were . We call them Maxillo-Facial surgeries because Dr. Parker the main surgeon on board mainly repairs jaws and faces and whatnot. These patients come back swollen and huge and with blood and spit in their mouth and they spit for the next 48 hours. I cannot imagine the pain and the feelin that your sinuses and your entire face has been adjusted. It's like a major major facelift.
Anyway back to Emmanuel, I got him on his postoperative ICU stay. He was terrified didn't understand any english therefore he fought me in everything I did. He needed saline nebulizers to keep the nasal trumpets from clotting off, after that he needed to be suctioned every two hours, and to keep him from pulling it all out he was on a morphine drip that because these patients never get morphine it makes them crazy!! On top of all of this his brother was there and just would yell at him, his brother didn't want to offend us so naturally he would just scream at him to calm down. as if a screaming 4 year old would offend us, like a four year old screaming would offend me anyhow so it was pure pandemonium for 10 hours. By the end he had turned the corner and was on the road to recovery, most of these max-fac patients if we can get them through the first twelve hours they will just soar! As Emmanuel was leaving today he gave me a big hug and a huge HI-FIVE his new perfect smile shone as he climbed the stairs the same stairs that he came down a week ago in hopes that he would be changed and he was not only physically but emotionally he was new. He is now allowed to attend school and public functions that before because of his deformed mouth he was banned from. As he left I was again reminded of why I do this, why I am here. I decided that for anyone reading this, no matter what you believe, religious or not God shows up on this boat. He shows up to repair this spirits and the broken hearts of these people. They come in and are so hopeless they are so dejected and so alone. I am reminded that Jesus again and again told his followers to love his sheep to love his children and to give them all that we could. I cannot imagine that doesn't at least affect some of us in the way that you can't look at these people and not want to give them something. They are the slums of societly they are the rejects. I wish I could say that we live in world where all of humanity is accepting regardless of color, race, religion, physical attributes but until then I have decided to be a part of the human race that chooses to give hope where there is none to give mercy where there is pain to bring joy and light and warmth to people that are crying out for anything and everything I have to give. That is the part of humanity that I want to be a part of. It is only then that my joy is complete.