TRAVELS WITH JULIA JONES - (or "INDIANA JONES, YOU'VE GOT NOTHING ON JULIA!"

One of the most amazing aspects of watching Team Heart is how, from the moment they hit the ground, the individual members of the group, all from different hospitals, different programs, different parts of the country, immediately transform into an integrated, cooperative, well-oiled machine. I've been watching Julia Jones with awe. On our first day, we all walked into two large, empty rooms of the King Faisal Hospital with huge trunks and pallets lining the walls. Twenty four hours later, I returned and found Julia scrubbed in a fully equiped heart room, accompanied by a heart ICU, and across the hall from a cardiac step-down unit. Magically, Julia and the team transformed the place into a beautiful heart unit. And immediately went to work.

The fourth case of the week was particularly difficult. Julia was scrubbed from about 8 in the morning, until close to midnight. But I got a call around 11:45 p.m. - "Let's go shopping tomorrow - I don't have to scrub until the afternoon! See you at 7:30 a.m. I don't want to waste a whole lot of time in case I'm needed again!" Wow! I had selected a nearby and relatively "tame" market to take Julia to - we had no time to waste, after all. As the cab driver started off, I explained my choice to avoid the "traditional market" to make things easy. Well, Julia's eyes widened and she said "No! Let's turn the cab around and go to the REAL market!" And so we went where few tourists dare to tread. And we had a blast! Hopping out among rows of plantains, bags of rice and beans, crowds of women with pineapples on their heads - Julia was in heaven! We wound our ways through the stalls, bought yards of fabric and negotiated with a seamstress to make and deliver skirts, bags later that day to the hotel. We ogled jewelry, baskets, carvings. Women were amused by the sight of a Muzonga (white girl!) outside the tourists' usual haunts. But Julia's easy going style of adventure suited everyone! How did the morning end? We were laden with wares, had an appointment to see our newest friend that evening, and the phone rang to call Julia back to the OR. I don't know how she does it - and most of all, I don't know how she makes it so much darn fun!

Dayna Matthew