Metaphors & Medicine

What happens when you go on a trip that you've dreaming about for a long time and you say you'll blog about it every day? You get carried away with the trip and forget to blog! In reality though, every day has just been SO BUSY this week. The past four days were all PCRF surgeries and since today was the last day of surgeries, I thought I'd finally get down to telling you about how AMAZING they all were. I spent the past four days watching nerves getting transfered from feet to hands, seeing camtodactyly fingers (bent fingers) get straightened, many skin grafts, and even shrapnel get removed from a finger. Although PCRF primarily does surgeries on children, often times adults are also cared for depending on the severity of their issue. The patients this week ranged from 8 months old to 36 years old. It was interesting to see post-op care in this hospital versus the hospitals in the U.S., as well as the difference in staffing. There is less of a system in the Palestinia...

"What happens in an OR, stays in an OR." Actually NO because the OR is so much fun that you should tell everyone about it! Today was the first day of surgeries after yesterday's long screening process to pick the best cases to work on for the rest of this week. Three surgeries were done today. I was there for two of them, a grueling 9 hours for TWO surgeries. Since I'm still a pre-med student, I couldn't do any actual work during the surgery except assist in handing over equipment, organizing, serving as a communicator/translator between the American doctors and the Arab doctors, and passing information on to families. Yes, I spoke to the families. I smiled at a mother who cried as nurses wheeled her six year old son with Erb's Palsy away to the OR. I then saw her on my way out of the hospital after his surgery, rubbed her arm comfortingly and gave her my well wishes for him. I joked with the 4 year old boy who was waiting for his turn in the OR and made ...

BIG RECAP, I KNOW! The truth is, no, I did not get lazy. Technical issues made it difficult to get my laptop to function with a full battery. But here I am, ready to give you a QUICK rundown of this past week! Most important days: Day 4 --> Visited another Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan and visited 21 families!! Yes, 21. I know a refugee camp is an incredibly unhappy place, but I found myself thinking back to the experience and feeling happy. Not about the way the people I saw were living their lives, but because I finally made it again. The trip of my dreams was literally making my dreams come true. Day 5--> Finally left Jordan and crossed to Palestine! The borders took us 4.5 hours to cross. The distance is actually about 1 hour, but the crowds of sweaty, unhappy, frustrated, angry people/border control officers/ Israeli soldiers made the trip longer. Surprisingly, this was one of the fastest times I ever made it across. It usually takes us an average of 6+ hours. ...

I am typing this as I am experiencing a level of exhaustion I haven't felt in ages. It's not exhaustion from studying or working too much or anything like that; it's even better. I'm exhausted because of all the life I've been experiencing, and I've only been on this journey for 2 days. Today I began the first part of the "work" I've been hoping to do while I'm here. I woke up at 8 AM, drank a quick cup of hot Nescafe (basically instant coffee if you've never had it) despite the 90 degree summer heat, and rode the car that was to take me to my destination: a Palestinian refugee camp. History time! Palestine was Palestine until May 14th, 1948, in which the nation of Israel was established post WWII. On May 15th, the 1948 war also known as Al-Nakba , or "the Catastrophe". During this war, more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes (basically the population of Austin, Texas!) and were forced to flee to other ar...

Two years ago, I visited Jordan and Palestine for two months with my family and only managed to share two of those days on this blog. This year's journey is a little different though. I am going on this month-long journey on my own, and I intend to share every day with you all. I have one expectation for this trip: to leave after 30 days with people's stories. Everyone's stories. To see life. To see the difficulties of life. I have 30 days to allow people to take a difference in my life as much as I hope to make in theirs one day. However, everyone knows that to affect and change people's lives, you have to understand their lives first. That is what I want this trip to be about. After 11 hours and 45 minutes sitting on a plane, I arrived at my uncle's house in Amman, Jordan. Since I am a Palestinian citizen, I am unable to fly directly into the Tel Aviv airport into what is considered "Israel" and instead must land in Jordan and make my way across the P...