getting caught up on our trip

OK, so I’m sitting at Cruz de Arenal waiting for our patients to arrive. It is Day 5 of our missions. Unfortunately, after spending over an hour writing on the computer last night – the computer crashed and all was lost. So today I’m writing on my laptop and hope to just download from here.

Day 3 LICTO
We set up clinic in a monastery. We saw at least 70 people at least 25 were female exams. This mission we are fortunate enough to have 2 doctors! Alicia has been a god-send to our group.
The students are doing a great job. They rotate through the different stations: height and weight, blood pressure and temp, one student w/each doctor, they dispense the meds from the farmacia (pharmacy), they brush teeth and give fluoride treatments, and assist the dentist when he is with us.
The students witnessed a seizure today. One of our patients with known seizure disorder, seized at the clinic. She’s on anti-seizure medicine, but the mother wasn’t sure when her last blood levels were drawn. Also her mother tells us that her daughter needs surgery – a shunt- to move fluid off the brain, but they have no money for the surgery. A lot of women have expressed interest in “family planning”. One woman, when asked if she wanted anymore children, said very solemnly “No, in this life there is no rest”. She was 28 yr old w/5children. We also saw a lot of arthritis in the older population due to their hard lives.

THE STUDENT TEAM:
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT BACK: CRAIG, TIM, JUAN, PAIGE AND KERRY
FRONT : JESS, AIMEE, SHANON, SARAH

This day seemed to touch each of us differently. But there was a theme of questioning our goals and what we can accomplish. Obviously a 2 week mission, spending only a day at a time – we can’t do a lot of “real” medicine. It often feels like band-aiding the issues. But fortunately we have local support (Blanca a previous patient and now a health promoter for MEDLIFE). Blanca has been honest with us about how the indigenous people receive us, and for the most part they are grateful for the attention. When their day to day life is working to gather food and develop safe shelter, it means a lot for a medical team to travel to them and validate their human rights, especially the right to access healthcare. It makes our long term goal of building a clinic to serve them year round - more pressing than ever!

DAY 4 CALSHI
This day’s visit we had Mercedes (an Ecuadorian doctor) helping ½ a day. Alicia made a house call on a patient who was too ill to come to the clinic.






These people were incredibly gracious and generous. They served us lunch: cuy (pronounced KWEE) – in American that would be guinea pig. Almost all the team tried it. Marcial (one of our interpreters) got the head!
Most of the patients blamed the volcano ash for most of their ailments.
One patient who suffers from severe degenerative joint disease – in obvious pain. When asked about his hip, he stated it used to be so bad, he saw a doctor in town that said he needed a hip replacement, but his bones were too thin for the surgery. Then he goes on to explain that a cousin contacted an old trusted doctor (telepathically, as he was dead). The doctor changed part of the hip bone to flesh, so he no longer experiences bone against bone and then the pain is significantly better.
Another pregnant woman was asked when her baby was due, and she replied: If the baby is a girl she will come in May, if the baby is a boy, he will come in June.
DAY 5 CRUZ DE ARENAL

Today’s mission took us the highest point yet. We passed Chimbarazo. We caught a glimpse of it before it snuck behind the clouds.
There was a communication break down, and the people of this village thought we were only examining children. We saw about 50 people, but about 80% were children. They were all very small for their age, only one or two looked significantly malnourished.
Below are the names of a few patients who were awing my laptop. So I asked them to type their names, and I would store it and never forget them. They smiled, and each one (some 7yr, some in their 40s) typed in their names, and then asked me when we will be back!
Cecilia
Angel
Segundo
Segundo
BlancaAnabel

Well - all the typing on my laptop was transferrable to the blog - but still fighting to get the pictures on board. hopefully tomorrow- I´m very sorrow- I´m sure you would all love the album of pictures we are collecting but technology has a mind of its own.

We are going to Banos tomorrow ! Yeah a day off!
Adios
Terry