Buenas tardes amigos y amigas,

What a day it has been. After spending a frustating morning trying to connect the wrong cables to the wrong equipment and trying to locate other basic needs (like iv tubing), we started our surgical rotation by removing kidney stones with an open nephrolithotomy. By the grace of God, the patient survived (after a very difficult general anesthesia and losing about 800cc´s of blood). Oh, did I mention we had no idea what her hematocrit was pre-op and there was no type & cross done, so no blood available? We are comforted by the knowledge that she would not have had her stones removed at all had we not been there, and she is now stone-free. Hopefully, we will find her doing well when we round on her tomorrow. Our next patient was an 8 year old with an undescended testicle. How could we be so lucky? For our grand finale, we cystoscopically removed a very large bladder bladder stone from a 34 year old male. I could tell you so much more, but after working a twelve hour day and surviving a near death experience in a taxi on the way home, I just don´t have the energy. I hate to admit it, but we had dinner at Pizza Hut tonight (which is just down the block from our hotel) and it was delicious . . . Heineken and real Honduran pizza! We´ve been told that Honduras is ¨the land of Murphy´s Law¨ and we are now all true believers! Until manana.

Judy