Medical Mission in Vietnam: Day 2 Surgeries

The medical team completed surgery for seven patients on our second day of surgery. Many were complex, bony cases. Whether their deformities are the result of birth defects, illness, or injury, our patients have often lived with damaged limbs for years — even decades. We occasionally encounter patients who were injured during the war, including one of today's patients wounded by a grenade in 1969. 

Wednesday's patients included:

• 37-year-old female: bony and soft-tissue procedures for post-polio deformities
• 40-year-old female: soft-tissue procedure for return patient
• 50-year-old male: bony procedure to address deformity following a stroke
• 51-year-old male: bony procedure
• 53-year-old male: bony and soft-tissue procedures to address complications from an injury that occurred 17 years ago
• 59-year-old female: bony procedure to address complications from an injury sustained in 2013
• 71-year-old male: bony procedure to repair grenade injury suffered in 1969

Although some soft-tissue cases can take less than an hour, the more complex cases exceed two hours. This makes cleaning and setting up the operating rooms with sterile equipment more quickly essential to complete the scheduled procedures. 

All the equipment we have donated to this hospital over our 25 years of visits is used so frequently that much of it is no longer usable, having been worn out from overuse. As a result, it takes a lot of work to piece together all the necessary equipment and instruments.

Beyond the operating rooms, Madison did rounds to visit our first-day surgical patients. She checked on their dressings and initial recovery progress. Everyone was doing well. A few needed adjustments to their casting to release pressure, but the patients and families expressed their happiness and gratitude for what the team has done for them.