Cambodiyeet: Now I am doctor.

What am I doing in this country? Living out my Grey's Anatomy dreams AHHHHH

fuarrrr look at that photoshop job looks real af XDDDD

So in Khmer class they taught us how to say, "I'm not a doctor" in in case people saw us in our scrubs and wanted to ask for help. I guess, "ey-leu-nih knom jia gru-bpeet"

lets start from the very beginning.

Yesterday

had another really boring day at the hospital. I had to figure out what to do for my secondary project (seeing as the official hospital part of the program is ending in less than a week lmfao). I decided to make a new inventory and maintenance system for my BMET which I hope he uses. Took me forever to figure out how to do it on google sheets and its still a work in progress.

Then Jess, my other coordinator rocked up at my hospital at around lunch time!! She's super chatty so its like never awkward AHHAHA. She met me outside the hospital and we went to Ly Hout for a pretty exxxxy lunch but whatever it was her shout. 

Grabbed some coffee on the way back to my homestay and played with the kiddos for a lil bit. We decided that Jess was going to stay at my homestay for the night since Amy was in Siem Reap. Went back to work and continued to do nothin but with Jess this time! Took her on a lil tour of the hospital then returned to my workshop to show her what I was up to. 

We tried to fix the oxygen concentrator for a while but no progress was made. Then moved onto the centrifuge and again, no progress was made. Then had a look at the ESU because Jess brought replacement fuses for it!! But when we called the doctor to turn it on and test it, the fuses blew again

After work we hung out at the coffee shop again and talked about life and uni. Figured that we should go somewhere special to eat since Jess was here so I messaged the friendly doctor (Thy) and the friendly dentist (Borerwat) to take us outtttt.

We had a couple of beers each and good chats over A SHITLOAD OF FOOD HOLY. It was sosososo good. Had to pee twice in a disgusting squat toilet still traumatised like when I was peeing a giant locust just flew across the cubicle and I yelled, "AIYAH".

At dinner, the doctor was like, you both can observe and help with the surgeries tomorrow!! and Jess thought it was too good of an opportunity to pass up so she decided to stay back another day in Preah Vihear to watch HAHAHA. Also we both didn't know if he was joking or not about the helping bit (spoiler alert he wasnt).

Went home and had a long talk with Jess before falling asleep. Idk what we talked about I think mostly about our experiences this trip.

Today

ITS A BEAUTIFUL MOTHERFUCKING DAY TO SAVE LEGS

Jess and I woke up so early because the doctor said the surgery was going to start at 7:30 BUT NO BAITED. After rushing to get breakfast and coffee, we rocked up at 7:30 on the dot but the doctor was like yo surgery starts at 9 am SEE U THERE!! 

So I worked on troubleshooting the ESU until then while Jess was on her phone doing some EWH work. 

i suspect this toroidal transformer is shorting cus all the different coloured wires are connected together ?? not sure if thats supposed to happen lmfao.

At 9 am, we went downstairs to watch the first surgery of the day - another mole removal lmfaoooooooooooooooooooooooo. But as soon as they injected the girl with local anaesthetic, Jess was feeling super queasy and had to sit outside to stop herself from fainting.

Surgery #1

Then pretty much immediately after that surgery, they started doing the tibia fracture one. The tibia was broken quite cleanly in the middle of the bone but the patient had waited A MONTH to come into hospital cus he wanted to try traditional khmer medicine for it first... Apparently people from the rural areas really don't trust doctors because they have a reputation of always amputating legs BUT its only because the patients wait so so so long to get treatment so by that time the tissue is already too infected / dead so the doctors' only option is amputation.

The doctor showed me how to wash my hands properly and "scrub in" like holy fk I was literally FANGIRLING SO HARD INSIDE. Put my cap and my face mask on, then scrubbed in and had to keep my hands like this until the nurse put my surgery gown on for me. This is so the dirty hand washing water drains away from the hands and to your elbows i think??

Then they put your first pair of gloves for you OVER the gown so literally no part of your skin is in contact with anything during the surgery.

There was unfortunately no Bokhee ready to hand the surgeon the tools during the surgery lmfao. They kinda just rummage around the table until they find what they need, then dump it in the patient's lap after they've used it in case they need it again. 

During the surgery the nurses had to keep reminding me to keep my hands up when I wasn't doing anything so I didn't contaminate them. WAS SOSOSOSOS FUNNY.

So I started off just holding and pulling the leg for them which was actually hard cus it was so fkn heavy. This surgery took so bloodly long like around 3 hours? Because the tissue around the broken bone had already healed back so everything was really stiff and hard to get back in the right place. He shoved a giant rod from the patella tuberosity all the way down to the ankle to keep the two sections of the tibia in place. He then screwed some screws at the top of the rod to keep it in place. I helped them by wiping and suctioning blood out of the area :)

then towards the end as they were suturing, they let me cut the sutures

Then he sutures the last cut up but leaves a bit of space, hands me the clamp and goes, "now its your turn" AND IM LIKE WHAT THE FK KJASDFLASJ;DFKLASDF.

It was just like sewing but harder lmfao. had no idea what the pattern was supposed to be like with my hands so it took me a while to get it BUT it didn't turn out too bad in the end XD

Surgery #2

Jess went back to Siem Reap, I ate lunch at Ly Hout with two of the doctors then went back to watch the next surgery. This time it was like a compound fracture ?? so basically when the bone broke, it also broke the skin meaning the wound was FUCKING NASTYYYYYYYY bruh there were bits of bone everywhere and it looked hella infected, the skin was just hanging out, random tendons were just exposed omfg yuck YUCK/

I didn't do much for this one, just held the leg while the doctors did their shit. BUT BRUH it was so cool. A drill was used to drill through the bone and it was like so so so amazing. OMG I ALSO SAW THEM PUT A CATHETER UP THE PENIS AND HOLY FKKKKKKKK IT LOOKS SO PAINFUL YIKES

I feel so accomplished today AHAHAHAHAH

then had to rush to the coffee shop to have another PR meeting that was pretty quick. It was a good meeting we laughed for once LMFAO. Showed my fav cafe dude some photos from my trip and from Australia. He speaks literally 0 english so communicating with him is 100% reliant on my Khmer and lets just say ITS NOT THE BEST. he said he wanted to eat soup with me this Sunday but tbh idk where I'm gonna be on sunday so I just told him maybe. 

then back to homestay for a nice dinner hanging out the kiddos and Pia Sot's dad. 

this song is such a a temporary state of mind or feeling