Smiles are our reward!

Just off the operating rooms there is a small area about the size of the average kitchen where the instruments are soaked, washed, scrubbed, sorted, arranged in the instrument pans, wrapped and sterilized. Charlotte Edgar is here in Ecuador just to do the above. She is always smiling and always washing. Charlotte is tireless. Hats off to her for lightening everybody's day!

Here's the first hip patient of the day with her spinal anesthetic in and the surgery underway. Molly Moreau is from Montreal and although very Canadian is fluent in Spanish. Thus she can comfort the patients are reassure them. Imagine if you were in a hospital and couldn't understand the language being spoken!

The anesthesiologist for Fernanda was Saifee Rashiq. In his real life he treats chronic pain. But he sees no chronic pain here — it's the smiles of the patients as they receive a new opportunity to ambulate, work and contribute again to their families.

Out of the operating room and into the recovery room. Here are recovery room nurses Pauline Worsfold and Dorothy Latimer caring for Silvano. In her other life, Pauline is an executive member of a national nursing organization in Canada and is always very busy. But this is her third year participating in the CAMTA Missions to Ecuador.

Here's Adam Petriw who's down in Ecuador with his father Boris. Adam observed Luis Aguirre's surgery and is now seeing him ambulate. Already he (against rules) has walked without a walker or crutches!!!!!

Here's how the patient is supposed to ambulate! Janet Roberts is participating for the first time from Bonnyville Alberta and she is a physiotherapist.

Janet and her colleagues in Bonnyville collected crutches to serve the needs of our patients. The adults are short. The crutches all have to be cut down and new holes drilled so they work for our patients. We are trying to have the crutches returned by the patients each year to the Tierra Nueva so that we don't have as much work to collect and modify them. Do you have crutches that you don't need? Send them to CAMTA!

Mary Hurlburt is a family doctor from Edmonton. She was down more than a week early to shadow a local family doctor at the foot of the erupting Volcan Tungurahua in Riobamba. Now she's up in Quito providing medical care during the recovery of our children and adults in the hospital.