Day three in Antigua is day one of surgeries, and this year it started for our team at 5am with coffee, breakfast, and a devotional, which for some meant getting up at 4:30am without an alarm…simply from the anticipation. In addition to some readings from Phillipians reminding us that our mission is to be humble in our service to others, we took some time to close our eyes, breathe, and clear our minds and hearts as we headed out to the Obras, where staff and patients were waiting for us.
We had a very busy day three…one that included nearly 40 soon-to-be changed lives. In five operating rooms, the teams performed surgeries ranging from tonsils to gall bladders to hernias…with a handful of gynecological procedures mixed in.
It didn’t take long to get into a groove, and with the help of Obras’ great staff, the mid afternoon had us very close to completion of all our scheduled surgeries. You would have a hard time differentiating the old timers from the first timers, even on the first day, because with all the training and a common goal, the mission wasn’t ever a question.
It was a bit later dinner because we had a special case at the end of the day requiring all hands on deck to help our new friend Zoila. The team completed a gall bladder removal for her that a hospital in Guatemala City was not prepared to complete months before. With her previous surgery not complete, there were new complications that required both of our general surgeons and double the normal staff to successfully complete.
Hard to explain, and maybe never able to be comprehended, nearly half of our group was in or looking through the windows of the operating room for the last surgery. Almost that same half stayed until Ziola was taken to the recovery ward. That meant that twenty people didn’t want to leave until they knew they did everything they were sent down here to do…for her.
Stay tuned, because there is a lot more to Zoila’s story that we’re preparing ourselves to tell, not because it’s longer, but because there are no words in any language that can adequately describe it.
Erin Joseph Machac, Blogger
