Amman Jordan Riley Heart Mission #37 – Arrived

We had an uneventful trip here from Indianapolis and arrived in Amman yesterday afternoon around 4 PM. Traffic was busy and took us quite a while to get to the hospital to drop off our trunks and then head to the hotel.

After getting to our hotel, we learned that one of our patients, Rouh Tanbakji (5 month old from Syria) scheduled for Saturday, was in town with her parents. The plan for her is somewhat uncertain until we know more about her atrial septum and pulmonary artery sizes. We decided to go back to the hospital and get some echo images to see if this could clarify these details. However due to fussiness, we ended up thinking that a CT angiogram would be more beneficial. We planned on doing that the next morning. But that would require an IV which up to this point has been quite challenging.

Friday morning, Riad, Tim, and Mark were all scheduled to give presentations at the 18th Annual Pediatric Review Conference that is hosted and run by Dr. Khal. In between his talks, Riad went to the hospital to get an IV started for our Saturday patient to get the CT angiogram. The meeting was very well attended, and the audience very warm and appreciative.

Riad at the conference

and Riad getting an IV on Rouh

Tomorrow we start our first regular day of surgeries and are looking forward to getting well rested before starting in this busy week.

The team for this trip – Dr. T, Sheila, Maha, Dr. Riad, Becca and Dr. Tim (not pictured)

The Riley team for this 37th mission to Amman, consist of:

Mark Turrentine

Tim Cordes

Riad Lutfi

Maha Al Khuziem

Sheila Rocchio

Rebecca Baute

Joining us from Chain Of Hope will be our good friend, Oroyo Eubanks.

And of course our Amman, Jordan good friends and huge support from Rami Sha’ban (GOL Amman), and Dr. Khalid Al-Salaymeh.