FEB-A-1

LAUNCH THE “MISSION TO MINDANAO”

  1. Index to 2002 Feb –A-series
  2. My launch of a medical mission at the same counter in Ronald Reagan DCA airport as the last, under different circumstances, on September 11, departing after arranging for some students for India, and pleading the case of another Malawi traveler, and posting the last minute items of urgent business to be conducted in my absence.
  3. Arrival in monsoon Manila, bag arrives---without handle or tags—transfer it forward to GES for tomorrow’s flight, ride to the Shalom Center, where I hope to email in a nearby cybercafe and takeoff for a rainy day tour of the National Museum and a welcome roundup dinner of our team for Mindanao.
  4. My very much foreshortened message from Manila and the Korean cybercafe, where I had to back-translate from Korean to type a message over an hour, and attach files from the transit written when I had computer battery power: as always, the long message went “Poof” when I tried to send so, this is the shortened message I tried to send out after the futility of the earlier complete effort which failed.
  5. Hit the South Cotabato ground running: arrival in Tboli land of Mindanao, short-handed but ready to start anyway.
  6. Our Sunday day of rest among the Tboli: a cultural immersion in music dance and hospitality.
  7. Let the presses roll! Ten cases lined up before breakfast, with a start as fresh as the crowing roosters.
  8. Another marathon lineup: no running the roads, but a marathon list of thyroids to one-up yesterday’s total: goiters “pop out” fast and furiously, as still more patients arrive hoping for surgery for relief of cleft lips, burn contractures, parotid tumors, and many long-neglected conditions, filling our work load.
  9. A new day in “thyroidectomy rodeos” with a group of gyn and general surgery cases added in for our further surgery schedules as all new patients are being turned away; the hostaged team of Allen and Alison arrive from Manila red tape, as I finish the 30th goiter thyroidectomy.
  10. Another “OR” rodeo, making for a lot of very happy people who have no access to surgical care until next year, since last year’s visit, and without charge from a rather unusual, yet compatible, team of volunteers; then, the day concludes with a “lechon” feast and program with the staff and patients after the roast pig--ending my all-day study of the t’nalak weaving of abaca art, with my wholesale purchase of all the authentic output of the Lake Cebu Tboli abaca weavers.
  11. Final operating day in the Tboli land of Edwards with all the surgical cases we can pack into the last minute along with a “walk-in” large goiter thyroidectomy as a “chaser”, before we pack up to fly out in a light twin the following day..
  12. Departure day from Edwards, Tboli land opening phase two of our Mindanao experience in the more developed Malaybalay..

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