A bizarre nightclub, cool surgery, an acromegalic and some expats

Since my last post I’ve basically seen/done what the title says…

On Friday night I went out to a nightclub with Tuan (the doctor I met at Ba Vi hospital) and three of his friends. It was a really bizarre club… (I think Hanoi nightclubs have had some problems recently with drugs, so they have all had to become very strict or risk being shut down). When we arrived, it was still early, and pretty quiet. There were at least 70 waiters/waitresses milling around though, so the small club looked full despite having no customers there (bizarre thing number one). Despite being empty, the DJ was already playing some pretty loud, full-on music! I then looked around for the dancefloor and realised that there wasn’t one, (bizarre aspect number two). We were immediately ushered to a table, which was stacked with soft drinks, water, a fruit platter etc… Tuan then purchased a bottle of JD and 5-6 waitresses came over to pour our drinks and wait on us. I would take a sip, and the glass would immediately be topped up, it seemed like a crime if they allowed an ice-cube to melt without replacing it with a new one (bizarre thing number three). After a while, I got out my camera to take a photo of everyone, but two security men came running over and shouted at me ‘no photo, no photo’ (bizarre thing number four). The place started to get busier. Me and the other girls decided to dance. There was no dancefloor, but there was a big walkway between tables, so we went to dance there. The security men were over in no time shouting ‘no dance here, no dance here, only dance at table’ and ushered us back to our table (bizarre thing number five). What a bizarre evening!

The next day, I went into the hospital because Dr Ha was on-call. I didn’t stay for his whole shift, because I was going to a party that evening. But during my time at the hospital, we received a trauma patient who had severe head injuries (extradural haematoma), and cervical spine injuries (fractured C5, paralysed). Watching the surgery was pretty incredible. The electric drill was broken, so Dr Ha had to use a handheld drill to make the burr holes, and a piece of wire as a saw to open the skull. I’ve never seen anything like it! As for the c-spine, he cut away C5, removed the disc between C4-5 and C5-6, took a bone graft from the patient’s pelvis, moulded it into shape to replace C5, and then used a metal plate to fuse the bone-graft between C4-6. It was so sad to see what a state the patient was in, but really good learning for me. It’s hard writing about this in my blog, because I don’t want to make it sound as if I was happy to see someone with so many injuries, but at the same time, I was glad to see such interesting surgery. Does that make sense?

Anyway, that night, I shut out the horrible thought of what a motorbike accident can do to you, and got onto a Xe Om (motorbike taxi) to go to Annett’s housewarming party. Her house was lovely (it overlooks West Lake… where all the expats live), and I had a great time meeting her friends. One couple were teachers at the Hanoi International School. The International Schools around the world are quite incestuous, and within a few minutes we’d managed to find a common link (they knew Mr Towers, an IT teacher at UWC, because he had taught at the same school as them in the Bahama’s). I also met lots of Annett’s PriceWaterhouseCoopers expat colleagues, one of which was a Londoner who used to work at the Embankment office (which is where Will works). Such a small world… I had a really nice evening with all of them.

The only other thing I wanted to mention from my blog title was that today I saw a patient with Acromegaly!! This isn’t going to mean much to all you non-medics (thus all my blog readers)… but it’s seriously cool. It’s very rare, and I’ve never seen a patient with Acromegaly before. Basically, a tumour in the pituitary (in the brain) secretes growth hormone, which causes bone and soft tissue growth. In adults, their long bones are already fused, so they can’t grow in height, but their face, hands, feet all change shape. Spade-like hands, protruding jaw and forehead, big feet…

That’s all for now! I don’t have any photo’s to add… I haven’t been taking many photo’s I’m afraid. I’ll try to remember to take more photo’s. It’s just that I’m not really doing touristy things, so there isn’t much for me to photograph.

I’m really starting to feel at home here. I don’t have very long left though, which makes me feel sad. I’m very fond of Hanoi, and the longer I spend here, the more I like it. There are times when I’ve felt lonely or homesick, but I’ve always liked my own company, and when I’m out and about, Hanoi does a good job of keeping me company (and when I’m in my room, my good friends Meredith and Derek on Grey’s Anatomy ensure I never feel alone). Plus I’ve met so many great (non-TV series) people along the way too… I’m never going to forget my time out here.