Better late than never right?

It's been a while since we've last updated our blog. Computer access is very limited and writing on the blog from either Erica or my iTouch just does not sound appealing. But here we are! We're currently in Zalau after spending 4 great days in Cluj.

The last day in Sighisoara we spent with an elderly club and a couple kids clubs. We played games like Rummikub and card matching games with the elderly club until we gave them a short presentation on exercise, hygiene, and not smoking. We had an elderly man who had been smoking 2 packs a day for the last 60 years that we attempted to give suggestions to about how to quit. He ended up offering his daughter to Ryan hoping that he would accept the marriage proposal so his daughter could come live in the States. He respectfully declined. With the kids' clubs, we again did hygiene, nutrition, exercise, and no smoking presentations. The second club had predominantly girls in it so we did an extra little session about "girl hygiene." We learned some very interesting things about Romanian superstitions. Girls who are on their period are apparently not allowed to go into the Orthodox church nor are they supposed to touch the hair of anyone else (or their hair would fall out!). It was very informative for both us and them.

We arrived in Cluj after a few hours by train from Sighisoara. The first day in Cluj we went to a cardiac hospital in Cluj. After spending a couple hours waiting for the hospital manager, we met with Dr. Simonescu and he gave us a little tour of the hospital. During our day there we ended up following around a cardiologist and a resident. We were able to see multiple patients that had very interesting murmurs, stenoses, regurgitations, prosthetics, and more. Dr. Catalina taught us how to read EKGs as well (though I'm not sure how much I would be able to remember...). It was super exciting to hear some of the malformations and heart sounds in real people when we had only previously read about them. Following that, we were able to also see a couple angiograms and echos. It was REALLY cool. We even saw the echo of one of the men that we saw earlier that had a mitral valve defect.

During this time of hanging out with the cardiologists, Leslie and Nick were able to see a surgery. (There wasn't room for all of us...:( ) They witnessed an atrial septal defect repair. They both enjoyed that opportunity immensely.

The second full day in Cluj, Annie and Lindsey were able to see a bypass of the left coronary artery. Their surgeon apparently decided to take a break to smoke half way through. Interesting that so many doctors smoke don't you think? So strange. The rest of us saw a few more cardiac patients and headed over to the pediatric hospital of Cluj. There a very eccentric, jittery doc showed us around the hospital. We were able to see a endoscopy of this 12? year old girl while we were there. It was SO crazy b/c in the States this procedure would be done under general anesthesia. Not here. She was wide awake gagging and all. It was really interesting as they pulled a few pieces of duodenal tissue and stomach tissue to biopsy.

We ended our visit to the pediatric hospital with a visit to the oncology department. There we met Patrick, an 11 month old boy that was diagnosed with leukemia in December. His mother spoke English so she was able to convey to us a little bit about her experience with him. It was very moving and very sad. We also saw a boy, briefly, that had BOTH osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle or glass bone disease) AND leukemia. He also currently had pneumonia. Rough life. :(

On Sunday, we traveled here to Zalau. We checked into our really terribly smelling hotel that had no shower curtains and walked into town for some food. In the evening we met up with our Peace Corps host, Rob, and they showed us around town. The next day after moving to a MUCH better hotel, we went to a private hospital called the Ciobanca Hospital. It was QUITE the experience. It was incredibly crowded and pretty much like a labyrinth. We were QUICKLY shown around the place. It was so interesting when we would find a CT machine in a random corner or an MRI machine in another corner. The hospital's owner (Mr. Ciobanca) sped around poking and prodding all the patients. It was almost comical. He, at one point, grabbed NIck's hand and jabbed an alcoholic patient that had pitting edema. So funny.

Later we split up and had a more in depth look at some of the departments. We went to the Ultrasound area and because of the lack of patients at that moment, I became the guinea pig for an ultrasound. I'm happy to report I was normal! And the movies are right...the gel is VERY cold. Not the most comfortable feeling.

We ended the day yesterday with a birthday party for Rob. His coworkers BBQed for him and made us the Romanian dish of "meatz." It was super yummy. We were all STUFFED!

Ok that's all for now...we're heading off to the Roman ruins right now after visiting the Prader-Willi foundation of Romania (which we'll have to write about later). La revedere!