Rotaplast Missions

A day of experiences

Sunday. DAY OFF for all of us! The doctor is OUT today and we are on the road. Without too much imagination its easy to envision us all truly being ON the road. We've been debating just exactly how to explain this experience of being in the bus, driven by a local driver, no English, on a two-lane road, where the name of the game is CHICKEN. I took a poll: hair-raising, E-Ticket ride, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, life threatening - these descriptors all come to various minds. Putting that aside, we visited a couple of Hindu temples, where we enjoyed the entire Ramayana - depicted in carved soapstone in monuments, centuries old. Juxtaposed to the gray towers, were dozens of Indians in their colorful saris, leaving a snapshot of India in our hearts (in the face of our short sightseeing experience). I will let your friends tell you more about this directly.

We enjoyed a wonderful lunch at a 3-star hotel along the way. And the ride back...OMG...the driver was heading for the barn, for 2.5 hours! It was unbelievable. There is a game on the road called who-can-get there-fastest, except that there is no finish line, no winners, just occasional losers. From the drivers' perspectives, the road is simply a race course and passing slow-pokes at any cost is a skill, a talent maybe, and surely an exercise in calculating risk. We knew we were gonna die. But several close calls later we made it to the 4 lane road and things calmed down some.

(how to ride on the bus)

Next stop...the ashram. We decided to drop in. Did I mention that we've been treated like dignitaries? We thought, lets just go up there, walk around, check out the sunset and see what's cooking. The minute the Sri Sri Sri's office got wind of our arrival, we were no longer tourists (we were actually the ONLY tourists there). His people caught up with us in the temple, where we were given a special blessing as honorary guests, then escorted to the inner sanctums. Tea served as we waited, as is customary. Then, sure enough, we are led to the Sri's receiving room and his 'first lieutenant' (we call him Sri Jr) gave us an hour of his time, taught us about their religion/philosophy, the school, the life of the sansee, his own life and personal journey. It was such an honor and a gift. As we were leaving, the sansee asked us to wait and enjoy the ceremony about to happen. We never heard the exact purpose of the ceremony, but there was fire, smoke, horns and drums, blessings, lots of novitiates (adorable little boys draped in orange saris), moving about, up and down the massive stairs and into the temple. Finally, someone made us get back onto the bus and go home. We looked at each, other stunned. Irena summed it up: you can't sign up for this kind of tour.

Happy Hour tonight was animated like no other!

   

 

The Mission Team

Below are the people on the medical and non medical teams who are making this mission possible on a daily basis her in Nagamangala, India.  With each person comes thier own individual resposnsibility as well as helping when and where needed.

 

Medical Director                 Surgeon                            Surgeon

Anne Delaney, MD             Sibrand Schepel, MD        James Hoyt, MD

                

 

Surgeon                                Surgeon                        Lead Anesthesiologist

Suni Richardson                    Devi Tantri, MD            Harmeet Bhullar,MD

 

Anesthesiologist                Anesthesiologist                Lead Pediatrician

William Sammis, MD        Ramesh Ramaiah, MD      Albert Goldberg, MD

Pediatrician                        Head Nurse                    OR Nurse

David Rosenberg, MD        Sharron Newton, RN       Leticia Misterio, RN

OR Nurse                            Or Nurse                        Speach Pathologist

Marilyn Santiago, RN           Irena Jasper, RN         Paul Fogle, PhD

Dentist                              Lead PACU Nurse           PACU Nurse

Mabel Mattos,DDS            Luisa Poquiz, RN            Mayuri Desai, RN

Mission Director                Medical Records            Medical Records Assistant

Brian Mcleran                    Deloras Jones                Christine Goodin

PACU Assistant                PACU Assistant                Patient Transporter

Jennifer Mattson              Karen Koster                    Diane Henderson

Photo Journalist                 Pre0-Op Assistant        Quartermaster

Trevor Henley                    Millie Anderson                Nathan Cobert

 

Sterilizer                            Ward Coordinator

Joe Stewart                        Martin Malkin

And a special thanks goes to David Rosenbergs patients at his practice at home for making Get well Cards which were handed out to our patients after Surgery.

 

 

 

Let the Surgeries begin...

 

Thursday, first day of surgery. Harmeet, the anesthesiologist from UC Davis Med Center, briefed the entire group on all the protocols to be followed for the next three weeks. By 8 am the three operating rooms were ready to go, and three patients were in pre-op, dressed in skimpy gauze wrap, and one by one mothers gave up their babies to OR nurses for surgery. Each child gets wrapped in a beautiful quilt made by ladies in Maine. These quilts go home with the children. Cleft lips, cleft palates, fistulas, and burns are being repaired in 1- 2 hours and today 13 children have been under the knife. Those of us that are new to this (mostly the Rotarians) are fumblers but we are eager and ready to do anything and everything we can do to help. Its quite an organized system. Tomorrow we will start earlier and probably get through more surgeries. Yesterdays heros were the medical records folks, and today we take our hats off to our medical leaders... 4 surgeons, 3 OR nurses, 2 anesthesiologists, and 2 post-op nurses. They have set the tone and are training the rest of us. Soon we will be a well-oiled machine!

 

Intake Clinic Day

(This is my little man, he had the biggest happiest smile.  When he was 4 months old, he came down with a disease that ate away at his face, in the process he lost most of his upper and lower lip before the disease stopped spreading.  He and his father were here last year for the first time and had his first surgery.  He is back again this year to have an upper lip made from skin from his cheek.)

Today was all about screening our potential patients. We routed 157 people through many stations to see what the needs are, who is eligible and who will have to come back another time. We created their medical record, measured, weighed, interviewed, and took blood samples. They met our doctors, anesthesiologists, dentist, speech pathologists, and photographer, Trevor Henley. Our experts conferred and made the tough decisions, triaging the group by severity and eligibility. We met India that day. Families have invested great hopes in this surgery 'camp', as they call it and we were called to perform. We began with a little chaos and confusion but we found our rhythm and got it done. These families traveled a long distance and showed up well-dressed, undernourished, anxious, expectant. And every single one overcame obstacles to be here and had the highest hopes of the perfect result for their child. Those who had to accept “no” for an answer, were encouraged to understand that it was the best decision for their child's health. Easier said than done! We ended up with over 100 “yeses”, knowing that the next day, many walk-ins would show up and be added to the surgery schedule. We enjoyed happy hour, dinner and a welcomed early-to-bed! Let the surgery begin!

 
  

   
  Let the surgeries begin...

We made it!!!

   

                                                                                           This is our group plus the locl Rotarians at Bengalore Airport at 4am

We made it!! After 21 hours of travel we arrived in Bangalore, rested, relaxed and ready to go! Almost, anyway. The three missing boxes of supplies that were waylaid en route held up ALL our boxes but our preserverant quartermaster, Nathan Cobert, stayed behind and wended his way through the chambers of commerce of both Bangalore and Dehli, overcame the technical difficulties of communications and got our supplies to the AIMS Hospital in Nagamangala in time for surgery. The rest of us went on to Nagamangala, and though we arrived at the airport at 1:30 am we didn't leave until 6 am (Customs!!) and therefore enjoyed the lovely rural scenery for the 2 hour drive to the hospital. We hit the ground running, getting settled in, tour of the hospital, getting acquainted with our hosts, making surgery schedules, enlisting local doctors, nurses, interns, anesthesiologists, and ending our first day with the beautiful ceremony our hosts created in our honor! We were honored by the local  political dignitary, the Rotary president, District Governor, a representative of the Sri Sri Sri xxxx Swami, the hospital administration, supervisor of surgery and a few other big shots. We all received the honorary shawl and plumaria lei, enjoyed many fascinating speeches, a lovely Indian song sung by a couple of beautiful girls, and a lot of 'namastes' were exchanged. And who came to this event? Our patients and their families!! We met many of them, as some of us meandered through the crowd and shook many hands.

(The official ceremony where we all were  welcomed as friends forever from the Sri Sri Sri, the local people, and the patients who traveled from long distances to have the opportunity of surgery)

Hey, I forgot the important stuff...the food and the weather! BOTH are GREAT! Surprisingly, we've enjoyed cool temps and low humidity! Its much like California coastal weather, without the fog. Warm in the day, cool at night. Just a few skeeters and no other bugs! Our accommodations are a step up from “barely adequate” as first described! At that point, after only catching naps on airplanes we were happy to fall into our bunks (3 per room) and pass out

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One final meeting to go over details before we leave

It's been a long time coming...

The Rotary Club of Terra Linda has been working to sponsor this trip to Nagamangala, India for over 2 years... and yes we have done it.    

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