Oral Surgery - Uganda Style!

When we came back from the internet cafe, and blogging, we got a phone call from Ben saying that our bags had FINALLY arrived! WAHOOOO! We ran down to the local grocery store (the designated meeting place), and waited eagerly as our driver opened his trunk to reveal our long awaited luggage......one bag. And it happened to be one with NONE of our clothes in it. -_-

After we finally recovered from our dissapointment, Ben took us, Ellie and Deria (the "white girls") out to a traditional Ugandan meal.  We had beef in a peanut sauce and chicken both slow-cooked in banana leaves since 5AM.  Ben made sure to get us "all the food" (arrow root, plantains, sweet potatoes, casa root, and rice) and even pineapple sodas to go along with.  It was very good but way too much food, we haven't developed an "african appetite" quite yet.

Us wondering WHAT we he was going to unwrap.

Chicken with all the foods.

The next morning we started the day with rounds in the hospital's oral surgery ward.  We checked on several patients recovering from surgery with Dr. Gonzaga and surgical interns.  We got to see some really intense injuries from gun shots, hammers, and dental abcesses as well as some incredibly progressed ameloblastomas and cysts related to dental infection.  When rounds were finished we grabbed coffee and bananas at the medical student Cantina and then headed to the oral surgery clinic. 



Katie drinking TONS of water.





Dan and Marc enjoying sugary Mt. Dew and Coffee



In the clinic, we worked with surgical interns and Dr. Gonzaga to extract teeth and biopsy several lesions. The clinic was very intense for us as it was most of our first encounters with trauma repair, and the lesions that we encountered were severely progressed.  Dr. Gonzaga made sure to explain things very thoroughly to us and let us examine each patient ourselves.  Dan even got to snip some sutures! The one case that stood out for us all, among all of the crazy things we got to see, was a four year old with a golf ball size cell carcinoma lesion on his cheek.  Since this is an invasive condition, they were planning to remove only the external growth and then move onto chemotherapy treatment. We also saw a 15 year old ameloblastoma on an elderly man that was about the size of pineapple!!!



Katie examining the15 y/o ameloblastoma



Marc examining an inflammed saliva gland

Dan & Katie attempting to come up with a diagnosis.

After grabbing fried "Ugandan meatloaf" (as described by the Ugandan dental students) for a quick lunch - not our favorite meal - we got to go to the computer lab and check out facebook while our hosts studied a little bit. We headed home to relax, stopping by the grocery store for some milk and oreos first, and then enjoyed the last night with out "house family" - we even got to see the Ugandan version of karaoke....which was a really awesome M.C,/lip syncing/performance contest and went to sleep....dreaming about the clean laundry in our luggage.

Marc homesick for WING STOP!

Nothing like oreos and a bag o' milk!!