Down For the Count

I am continuing to work with Dr. Kohls, but before I have a chance to beat around the bush, I have something that I have to get off my chest. I fainted outside the operating room. It was perhaps the most embarrassing experience I’ve had in a while, but I was assured I was not the first person who this had happened to. Earlier in the day I saw some very sick patients and scrubbed in for a whole cesarean section. I found these cases all interesting and wasn’t getting uneasy in the least bit as usual, but when I got in the OR to help tie the tubes of a 26 year old with 6 kids, I slowly walked out of the room, sat down, and then a minute later I was on my back with my feet propped up by one of the nurses. I was only out for a second or two and I hear this happens to a lot of medical students, but still! Here is how I justify this occurrence to myself: I had been on my feet for a while, I didn’t eat much for breakfast, and I was fairly warm in the OR. However, I still fainted 5 minutes into surgery and now I feel like a sucker. I offered to stay on call tonight so I can redeem myself, I’m still nervous though.
On a better note, I returned from seeing the mountain gorillas today and it was a great experience. I saw the Susa group with 7 other people who were visiting Rwanda from a variety of home countries. After an hour and a half of strenuous hiking up to the Volcanoes National Park, our guides radioed the trackers and we had only another 15-minute walk to see almost 20 gorillas eating, playing, and socializing. It is hard to put into words how sweet this was. They paid very little attention to us and I was able to take many photos and a couple movies of them jovially interacting with each other and occasionally beating their chest to display their high spirits. The silver back leader of their group did not intend on staying in one place for two long, so during our hour-long encounter we were obliged to slowly follow them through the dense forest of the steep volcano. We had two armed guards with us at all times protecting us not from the Rwandan Mountain Gorillas, but from the Congolese Rebel Guerrillas. The volcano is on the Congo, Rwanda boarder and there is a lot of political unrest at the moment, which has greatly affected the Gorillas living on the Congo side. The whole experience of the mountain gorillas was exactly what I hoped for, and I would recommend it to anyone coming to Central Africa. I plan on staying in Shyira for a bit now and am looking forward to a little R & R.