Darlene

A group of American doctors (the Geheraty Medical Mission) recently came to Santo Domingo to perform free plastic surgeries on both kids and adults. The patients had problems ranging from cleft lips to extra digits to burn scars. These amazing doctors come every year to the Dominican Republic to stay two weeks helping those who are less fortunate.

Darlene is a 7-year-old girl in my site who has an extra finger and a extra toe. The extra finger doesn’t bother her. But the extra toe makes it difficult and painful for her to wear tennis shoes (which are required as part of the school uniform). When I heard about the medical mission, I thought that she would be a perfect candidate.

I found out about the medical mission when I was in the capital on Friday. Patient registration was the following Sunday. So I rushed back to Baoba to talk to Darlene’s mom. Darlene’s mom is a single mother who has two jobs: cleaning and cooking for a private home and working in a nail salon. When she heard about the opportunity, she told me that she would love for Darlene to have the surgery but unfortunately with the short notice, she couldn’t afford the trip or get off work. So I volunteered to take Darlene by myself.

We had to be at the hospital at 7 am on Sunday, so Darlene and I left Baoba on Saturday night. There was no way we could arrive on time if we left Sunday morning. This was only Darlene’s second trip to the capital, and she clung to me every second of the way. I traveled prepared for anything. I brought Dramamine, band-aids, Tylenol, mosquito repellent and anything else I could think of that she might need. Luckily she needed none of that. What she did enjoy however were my various forms of entertainment. I brought with us a deck of playing cards, a coloring book and crayons, the story Curious George and my ipod full of Dominican music. We got to the capital around 6 pm and went straight to dinner. I took her out for pizza because she had never eaten it before and she loved it! Afterwards, we just went back to the hostel and went to bed.

We woke up early on Sunday. I brushed and braided her hair, and we headed to the hospital. We arrived at 6:30, were given a ticket (number 68) and sent to stand in a line outside. I found the doctors, told them I was a Peace Corps volunteer, and they quickly changed my ticket to number 1 and moved us to a more comfortable waiting room. The doctors confirmed that they could perform the surgery on Darlene and scheduled us to return on Thursday.

We left Baoba early on Thursday morning (6:30 am) and arrived at the hospital around 11. For this trip, Darlene’s mom, Alexandra, also came with us. Once they put Darlene in the hospital gown, she became to cry because she was so nervous. So I went and put on hospital scrubs and told Darlene that I would go with her in the operating room and not leave her side until it was over. This seemed to calm her down.

We walked into the operating room and everything was going well. About two minutes after she received the anesthesia and fell asleep, I started feeling woozy (did you all see this coming?) so I tried to leave the operating room. But on my way out a nurse stopped me and asked me to open up a packet of gauze for her. This seemed to push me over the edge. My vision narrowed, I started sweating…and BOOM! I passed out on the operating room floor. So instead of taking care of Darlene, the doctors now had to worry about me. I woke up about 15 seconds later, lying on a hospital bed with a doctor holding my legs up in the air. Once everyone saw that I was ok and that I didn’t hit my head during the fall, the surgeons went back to the operating room. The Dominican nurses however stayed around me, offering me candy and Gatorade, and telling me that I was dumb for skipping breakfast that morning.

I stayed on my own little hospital bed until Darlene’s surgery was done and she was coming out of the anesthesia. Because I was at her side when she fell asleep and when she woke up, she thinks I stayed right there the whole time. She stayed in the recovery room for about 30 minutes, played with all of her gifts that the doctors gave her (a Barbie doll, 2 stuffed animals, stickers, coloring book, ball, jewelry), and then we returned to Baoba. Everyone keeps asking me how Darlene did in the surgery, and I can only reply “she did better than I.”