Dominican Republic Five

February 20, 2008

Last night we did a little bit of karaoke after dinner. By the way the food is a little interesting as you would expect being in a foreign country. I may have lost 5 to 10 pounds since we landed, but hey I am trying to lose weight. Dominican food baby yeah! Anyway, after dinner we did karaoke and bless their little hurts the "dj's" were doing their best trying to accommodate us with their hits from the 90s and the early 2000s. They had the songs that were overplayed and underplayed during that time frame. For example, someone told me to sing "Livin' la vida loca," they might as well had told me to go gouge out my eyes. No me gusta este cancion. Well, after looking at the book for 30 minutes and seeing everyone having fun. I finally decided to sing "Fallin" by Alicia Keys after one group got done singing "Like a Virgin." Yeah, I know right. Anyway, I started the intro and that's when the cheers began. You know I love to sing, so I was having a good time. All I can say is . . . I shut the house down!

Then the next day the house shut me down. Well, you know I did my usual routine for breakfast, but I had to leave early because this time I got the chance to go with the hospital group. You know usually I go to the Bateys, but today . . . today I got to go to the hospital. The hospital is not too bad, it just looks like an old hospital from the early 90s maybe or late 80s . . . yeah, somewhere in there. I had a lot of fun learning new things, but as my wise Uncle told me . . . it is no fun being the Surgeon's Assistant, but the Surgeon. I don't think he could have been more accurate in his assessment. I got to do two hysterectomies and one biopsy, if you will. I learned a lot, you know I learned about Samson's artery that runs posterior, I believe, to the uterus and I learned how to take out a uterus. I mean think how helpful I will be with one of my friends and she needs her uterus removed because a snake bit it. Don't ask me how this venomous snake got to that area, but hey I will be able to remove the thing. So I am very grateful for working with the surgeons. I also got to learn how to cut the string that makes stitches . . . there is a more scientific word for this process but it escapes me at the moment . . . and I got to cut some fascia which was a lot of fun.

Had to use tap to hold my gown on!

Then that was the highlight of my experiences at the hospital. I will just end this hospital segment and say it is not as crazy as the Bateys, which I missed. I am the type of person that needs to be occupied or I get into to trouble. I didn't get into trouble, but I put my head down and went to sleep once. Yeah, Go Deacs!!!

This uterus produced 7 babies.

Tour of the OR.

Tonight was funny. A guy at the hospital has a crush on a member of our group who is married. Very interesting, we made fun of her of course and she talked to him for a while. Somehow she found a way to get away from her beaux . . . I think she had a phone call to make. I had fun laughing at the table with my friends. They are composed of the married couple from Greensboro and the wife, whose husband reads this blog, from Clemmons. All the names are kept private for the protection of the families . . . not really . . . I just did not feel like putting them in. Cheese! Anyway, the four of us together is so much fun and I am so happy that I have made some new friends for life on this little trip to the Dominican.

Just finished hysterectomy #2.

Johnette's third stand up performance.

Mmm . . . dessert hour in the DR.