Warning. This post is not warm and fuzzy. I saw so many different things this year than I saw last year. Our patients this year had a completely different set of challenges than last year's patients.
You know I love the surgeries. We started on Monday, but it was Tuesday before I could find a place in the bukol (small surgeries) room. On day one, we were missing most of our supplies that had been shipped over in November, but we did what we could. I just have to tell you about the most unusual things I saw this trip.
Last year, we saw so many cleft palates. This year, I remember seeing one. We had to ask him to come back in two weeks when there would be a plastic surgeon and better opportunity for follow up.
But this year, this year, I saw devastating cancer. I saw it every day. I saw it over and over. This was undiagnosed, untreated cancer. It can only be described as raw and unforgettable. First, I saw it as breast cancer. Unbelievable. I have pictures, but they are not at all appropriate to share here. Cancer looks like nothing I have ever seen before. It looked permanent. It looked incurable. It looked painful. There was usually swelling, puffiness, lumps, bumps, lots of different colors. Sometimes it looked like a very serious fungal infection. I'll never forget the look of those cancers. Never. Some of the other places I saw it were on faces, I saw it on feet, and I saw it on shoulders and backs.
After losing loved ones to cancer, important people in your life, it weighs on you.
I couldn't help but wonder if there was something in their environment that caused that amount of cancer. Last year, I was unaware of any cancer cases.
We saw tons of cysts, usually sebaceous cysts. There wasn't a part of the body that we didn't see one. They were on the head, in people's hair; on the nose; behind an ear; on an upper cheek; on the lower cheek, near the chin; on necks; on shoulders and backs; on the chest; on the arm, elbow, hand, finger; on the abdomen; on the side of the body; on the torso; on the upper leg, hip, lower leg, knee, ankle, foot and toe. To my knowledge, they were able to remove nearly all of them.
These people wanted these lumps and bumps (cysts) removed. In the operating room I was in, we only had access to local anesthetic. At times, the patients were stiffening their bodies as not to move. They squinted their eyes hard and they pursed their lips. No one complained. No one whimpered. They wanted these procedures done. They waited in very long lines for their turn. They were very tough, and they were always very grateful.
One other thing I wanted to share. There was one case that I observed that defied any expectations that I thought we would see on this trip. Since I really and truly have no medical training, I had never heard of this condition. A child was brought in, and I think he was about 6 months old. Maybe a year. The first diagnosis was in the form of a question -- Ambiguous Genitalia? Those words are pretty easy to understand if you say them slowly. But how did they come to that conclusion? Well, I got to see all the evidence, and it was simple to understand when you saw the inconsistency. This child had the genitalia of both a boy and a girl. The doctors decided to send him for genetic testing to see what chromosomes he/she carried. We had to leave the Philippines without knowing. Wow.
