The story behind the faces

Deepa Bharath

Kathleen Fodor has the fear of flying.

The operation room nurse from Hoag Hospital, who stares straight

into bloody wounds and exposed tissues almost every day, covered her

ears with her hands and closed her eyes tight for takeoff.

“But I love to travel,” the feisty nurse said with a big smile.

It was Fodor’s first trip with Plasticos.

“I really, really wanted to go,” said the 47-year-old mom, who

almost single-handedly raised her son and daughter. “I’ve lived most

of my life for my children. It’s now time for me.”

Fodor is a poster child for compassion. And she doesn’t hesitate

to show it.

“I’m emotional,” she said. “I cry a lot. It’s just the way I am.”

Even as surgeons Larry Nichter and Robert Burns were screening

patients, Fodor and Virginia “Ginny” Burns, no relation to Robert

Burns, an operation room nurse at Hoag for 36 years, got busy setting

up their own “O.R.” in a hospital far away -- both in terms of

distance and resources.

It was Burns’ second time with Plasticos to the Amazon. The team’s

maiden journey to Macas was last November when the Costa Mesa

resident remembers having to go to the bathroom without the toilet

seat. During the rainy season in the Amazon, poisonous vipers like to

crawl under the toilet seats, Burns said, shuddering.

But she can learn to forget the snakes and those spiders the size

of hub caps. She focuses on her mission -- helping people.

That is something Robert and his wife Ruth Ann Burns believe in.

The Laguna Beach couple has spent years traveling to several Third

World nations including Tibet, Cambodia and Bhutan.

They do a lot of the spade work -- from buying luggage and having

it embroidered with the Plasticos logo and getting official white

coats for each team member to putting the team together, making

flight and hotel reservations and handling last-minute hiccups.

Ruth Ann managed her husband’s medical office in Newport Beach for

more than 20 years. She knows the drill.

“It’s what we do,” she said. “This is our life.”

Last November was the couple’s first time at Macas.

“After that, I could hardly wait to come back,” Ruth Ann said.

“It’s a home away from home and the people here really, really need

our help.”

She gushed when the locals hugged her or shook her hand as she

tried to acknowledge or reply to greetings of “buenos dias” and

“gracias” with what little Spanish she knew.

Ruth Ann’s job was that of a coordinator, to be a floater and help

where needed.

For Jane Collins, a recovery room nurse at Hoag with 30 years of

experience, it was her first time outside of the United States.

“I can see that we’re going to have to improvise and do things

differently than we would at home,” she said.

Collins, who is fluent in Spanish, also served as one of the

team’s interpreters. Gentle, caring and always ready to throw her

arms around the ailing, she never hesitated to wrinkle her nose at

operation room procedures.

“My first time in the O.R., I fainted,” she said. “I can’t take

all that blood and gore. It’s why I work in recovery.”

The team’s official interpreter was Denise Cucurny, professor of

anthropology at Cal State Long Beach.

“I just keep coming back to Ecuador,” she said. “It’s wonderful.

And every time is a different experience.”

Nichter was the man who headed the mission. He was the one people

looked to for orders and decisions about what’s possible and what’s

not.

Nichter didn’t waste much time. He was quick, efficient and even

blunt when he had to be -- yet sensitive and understanding.

This was the surgeon’s 35th mission, although only his third with

Plasticos.

“There’s nothing that quite matches this feeling -- when you help

someone,” he said. “It becomes kind of addictive.”