In the Unit today

Both of these pictures are the apt where we stayed.

This is a little girl who when we first got there was just so friendly and wanted to hold everyones hand. As you can see just a sweet girl. I think we later found out that she was still at Tenwek until she could finish paying her hospital bill.

These are pictures of two of the native nurses who were providing us with Chai, otherwise known as "Chai time" This was a favored time for many of our staff.

The picture on the left is in the OR and is a picture of the bypass machine.

The picture on the right is us retrieving our first cardiac patient. It was only a matter of a few feet to the OR.

As we were setting up, and organized our recovery area, they had brought a patient for our team to help with. She was 80 year old.

I am actually sitting in the unit where we will be recovering the heart patients, they are still in surgery. Things just take a little longer sometimes, but all things considering everything is going well. I am working today and going to assist in recovering our first heart patient (valve repair), the surgery is just really starting. I think they were just in the chest and I don't think they have starting exploring to see what is going on.

Our accommodations are wonderful, here in the Tenwek compound. Everyone has been so nice we have met a lot of children and kids. We are really blessed to have what we do in the US, even to have access to the things we need. We have seen zebra's, ostriages (not sure how to spell), and monkeys. It has been sooooo cool.
surgically we plan to do two surgeries everyday until Sat. Without surgery these people would otherwise die. Dr. White the md that runs the hospital said there are hundreds kids that have rheumatic heart disease, that die due the lack of resources.
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.