Cleft Palate Clinic

Life got really busy with midterms, but I'm squeezing in some blog time.

The weekend before last I had the opportunity to go with my program to a two day cleft palate clinic in Mexicali. The clinic is put on by the Red Cross and is a full team approach type deal. There are surgeons, dentists, nurses, anesthesiologists, and us SLPs. People come from up to several hours away to have surgeries and receive free therapy. It's a pretty awesome program they have going.

My Friday started very, VERY early. I met up with the other SDSU people at 7:30 at the old clinic and from there we carpooled to the Calexico/Mexicali border. I rode with Christine and Jessie (a first year, who I found out is a Christian). It's always such a wonderful thing meeting other believers, I know I get just this sense of safety and peace. Jessie's really sweet, I've really enjoyed seeing her around the building over the last couple weeks.

We all arrived in Calexico at 10 am, and it was already in the 90's. Definitely NOT my favorite weather, but we made the most of it. I was fortunate to end up in one of the cars heading across the border, rather than having to walk. I rode with Dr. Allen, the retired SDSU faculty who leads the trips for us students. A lot of people had complained about her not being personable, but I liked her just fine. She reminds me of one of my grandmothers.

Anyway, we arrived at the Red Cross building and set up for a full day of diagnostics. The clients came in and were checked out by the surgeons. If they needed surgery, they were scheduled and sent to talk to the anesthesiologist. All of the clients, whether having surgery or not, who had any sort of craniofacial abnormality came to see us for a speech screening. Dr. Allen did all of the talking, but as she speaks very limited Spanish, she had us translate. That part was really cool for me, I got lots of practice speaking both to clients and their parents.

The other really cool part was seeing all the variety in cases: cleft palates in all states of repair, teeth growing in places they shouldn't, different syndromes I'd heard of but never seen, etc. In the afternoon we had the opportunity to watch surgeries. I went in to the operating room, but really wasn't able to see much, so I didn't stay long.

Throughout the day we were certainly well fed. There was a giant table of food that everyone had brought to share, mostly snack stuff. They also had a hot meal catered. Friday lunch was rice, tomales, and mole. Once all the surgeries for the day were done at about 10, we went with the whole group to a taco shop. I was super tired, but it was fun chatting, and enjoying some delicious tacos and a beer (which I actually liked, amazing).

We stayed the night in a hotel in town. The property is gated, and it reminded me quite a bit of the hotel my family stayed at in Puerto Rico in January. It was kind of a bummer to have to pay for a hotel room that we were only spending about 8 hours in. I shared with Christine and Janie. We basically showered and then went to bed. We had all brought our own food fro breakfast, and waited for everyone else by the pool and watching a little stray cat, hehe

Back at the clinic it was therapy day. I got to do some more translating, but not as much as Friday. I was also having an awful time staying awake, there were a few times I fell asleep standing up. Tired as I was, it was good to get to see how to work with kids with clefts and repaired clefts. We finished up with the therapy at 4:00, got across the border at 5:30, and made it back to San Diego around 7:30. It was a long couple of days, but definitely worhtwhile. :)