Elder Lopez

The BEST thing about cataract surgery here is the morning after; when Dr. LaGreca examines the eyes of our patients after we take off their bandages.

They can see much clearer as the tape comes off, and it is simply awesome to see them smile and laugh! My standing joke with them is to point to myself and say, "¿Muy guapo, si? (I use that over and over to great effect ;-)

Tuesday night I worked with David and Brian in the dingy operating room here at Pina Plamera until about 10:15. This was a day that started at about 7 am.

We had many patients this day.

Before a patient is operated on, their eyes must be measured and checked for other internal damage to see if they are a candidate for cataract surgery.

Sometimes, a cataract is so cloudy or thick that it is difficult to see what is behind it. Our last surgery was really tough on all of us.

Most of the candidates are older, anywhere from 60 to 95, but we get a few who are younger. Our last patient was Elder Lopez, a 14 year old boy from the nearby village of Puerto Angel, who was completely blind in both eyes. He arrived with his family and his father was especially hopeful that, due to the lack of good medical care available, that my brother might be able to restore some sight to his son.

You could see that everyone wanted this surgery to go well.

As his father brought him into the operating room, I could tell that his son was very scared. Many members of the family had eye problems, but Elder´s were the most difficult.

We worked on him for a very long time, and up until this point all the surgeries we had done had been successful. But on this one, I could tell something was different. It was taking longer and there was some sort of difficulty. David, became very, very focused.

Brian as always, was the epitome of calm.

The surgery went on, I could tell that Brian had run into some sort of unexpected challenge and was slowly, diligently, progressing through it.

At his point, Elder began to fidget and freak out a bit, I patted his arm and told him to stay calm, "Tranquilete." Anistethic is applied locally in this type of procedure, so the patient is awake and as you can imagine, its important for them to keep their heads still during surgery. There was some tension hanging in the air, and Elder kept fidgeting and making noise. I honestly didn´t know what to do, I was SO out of my element, so I just started singing to him.

I couldn´t even remember all the words, but the lyrics go something like this,

"You will be meek when I am able

You’ll be the salt upon the table

When all is said and done could you

Somehow be sons of Abraham"

Well, nobody threw up* and that actually SEEMED to help a bit- he calmed down and after another twenty to thirty minutes, we were finished.

Normally, in cataract surgery, the patient receives an implant lens and I realized that we did not give one to Elder. As we helped him out of the room, it became apparent to me that the procedure was not so successful.

It was weird. I was VERY emotional about this incident! There was this turbulent tempest smashing about inside of me. I was managing to hold it together, but underneath I was experiencing these swirling waves vacillating between anger and grief! Why wasn´t anyone else experiencing this??!

I learned from Brian later on that Elder just had too much damage to his retina and removing the cataract did nothing to help this. It was then that my older brother, whom I admire so much, and is somewhat softspoken, said to me. "That was a VERY emotional surgery."

He said this very calmly and matter of factly, with a slight smile on his face. David said something similar to me later on back at Cerro Largo.

It kind of hit me then. Of course, it is emotional, that is why we are all here. But whereas, I work in the arts field on a day to day basis where we paint, illustrate, display and sculpt with emotion. In this field, it is important to work PAST those emotions. They are there, but it is not like you see on some hospital television drama. And that´s good. Because they can do their jobs well. And that is why you can trust these two men so much.

*Actually, David threw up the next day, but I don´t think that was because of my singing...

This is an awesome sunset over Mazunte, I am grateful to be able to see it!