The life of a 2 year old

Surgery must be one of the most amazing things to be witness to, let alone be able to assist in a procedure! I had my first opportunity to assist in a surgery today! There was a little girl who came to our clinic that was having problems breathing because of a tumor that was obstructing her airway. It was a very sad case. She is two years old, and she needed this surgery to remove the tumor, but her family did not have the money to pay for this surgery. It was vitally important because otherwise it would eventually close off her entire airway and she would die. Among the eight of us missionaries, we came up with the $300 dollars that it would cost for the surgery. The surgeon we found is a specialist in the head and neck area, and he agreed to do the surgery at a cheaper price. The only thing that we paid for was the anesthesia and the cost of using a room for surgery. Before the surgery, I was elected to be the surgeon’s assistant, which in and of itself was pretty cool but terrifying at the same time. They sedated Celeste a little bit before they brought her back to put her under the anesthesia. She had been in the hospital for 10 days previously, so she definitely had a healthy fear of anyone in the medical profession, and she fought pretty good when you came near her. When they brought her back into the room, I was the only person who she recognized and so I had the responsibility of keeping her calm while they tried to find a vein large enough for the IV. After she was asleep they used an instrument to spread her mouth wide and the doctor began the surgery. I didn’t do very much during the surgery, but I did hold the tongue back so that he could see, and I was holding the suction to keep the area as blood free as possible.  It was pretty cool to sit there and watch that. The hardest part came when Celeste started to wake up. She was very disoriented, confused, and scared. Her mom was looking in at her from outside the window, and she started crying because she didn’t know what was wrong and she couldn’t do anything for her baby. Celeste woke up crying strongly, and she threw up a little bit. When mom was finally allowed to come in, that helped a lot to calm Celeste down, and then after we were released we rushed the family to the clinic to administer medicine for the pain that Celeste would soon feel from the surgery. The surgeon pulled out a lot of tumor from that poor child´s neck. There was still a lot more to pull out, but he stopped because he thought it was cancerous, possibly lymphoma, and she really needed to go to Lima to get it taken care of. He took out enough for us to get it analyzed to see what it really is, but he´s pretty sure whatever he took out will grow back and she´ll have to go to Lima. For now, though, she can breathe better and mom doesn´t have to wake her up when she´s sleeping to make sure that she is breathing. We should get the results back today. Life seems so unfair to give a two-year-old a problem so difficult as this. She hasn´t been on this earth for very long and she´s already fighting for her life. We´re praying that everything turns out, and hopefully she doesn´t have to go to Lima because I don´t know where the family would get the money for all of that care.