Today was our last day of clinics and boy are we exhausted. We saw 97 people yesterday in medical alone and today we saw 52 before lunch! Thankfully, we only worked a half day today as we needed to pack up and the clinic nurse had a meeting. We are all lounging around this evening, checking e-mail, doing some shopping, taking much needed naps.
I can´t believe that my team is leaving in two days and then I´ll be on my own! I´ve had the final confirmation from the school and class starts monday. Ok, I´m off to find a card for one of the students.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Wednesday Evening
Well, I am back at the Internet Cafe again. No wireless thus far and no immediate plans to have any..so here I am. Hopefully, I will be able to have more wireless acess in Antigua so that I can blog at times other than in the evening when I am beat.
Today was our second day of clinics. It was slightly busier than yesterday, and rumor has it that it will be busier tomorrow as they announced on the local radio station that we were going to be there doing clinics. Hopefully is is a bit busier, but not swamped.
I was in lab and pharmacy again today. I did quite a few more blood draws and came back with several positive tests for TB. There was some question as to whether I was reading the tests right or if the tests were bad as they were outdated. No conclusion was made, and while it was possible I was reading the tests wrong, I kind of doubt it. I followed the directions and I have used these kind of tests before. They don´t have a history of TB in Cipresales, but it can spread pretty fast and 3 f them were in the same family. They are being sent for further testing and will get started on medication just in case, which is really what is important.
We also had a newborn baby in the clinic today, but not as a patient. The community health worker´s sister-in-law had an emergency c-section and then had a stroke. The outlook isn´t good, so Tomasita (the community worker) went and got the baby and brought it back so they could care for it. What a darling little thing. I wanted to get a picture, but Rolando said it wasn´t a good idea (culture and photos don´t always mix). Please keep her sister-in-law, the baby, and her 4 other children in your prayers.
Currently, I am stuffy and have a very nice cough going. It makes it very interesting to try and talk to patients...I get some pretty weird looks. The team is taking good care of me, which is totally a blessing.
Off to dinner! Buenos noches
Today was our second day of clinics. It was slightly busier than yesterday, and rumor has it that it will be busier tomorrow as they announced on the local radio station that we were going to be there doing clinics. Hopefully is is a bit busier, but not swamped.
I was in lab and pharmacy again today. I did quite a few more blood draws and came back with several positive tests for TB. There was some question as to whether I was reading the tests right or if the tests were bad as they were outdated. No conclusion was made, and while it was possible I was reading the tests wrong, I kind of doubt it. I followed the directions and I have used these kind of tests before. They don´t have a history of TB in Cipresales, but it can spread pretty fast and 3 f them were in the same family. They are being sent for further testing and will get started on medication just in case, which is really what is important.
We also had a newborn baby in the clinic today, but not as a patient. The community health worker´s sister-in-law had an emergency c-section and then had a stroke. The outlook isn´t good, so Tomasita (the community worker) went and got the baby and brought it back so they could care for it. What a darling little thing. I wanted to get a picture, but Rolando said it wasn´t a good idea (culture and photos don´t always mix). Please keep her sister-in-law, the baby, and her 4 other children in your prayers.
Currently, I am stuffy and have a very nice cough going. It makes it very interesting to try and talk to patients...I get some pretty weird looks. The team is taking good care of me, which is totally a blessing.
Off to dinner! Buenos noches
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Being sick is no fun
Sorry, I didn´t blog yesterday...we don´t have wireless at the place we are staying. At the moment I am writing this from an internet cafe in Pana. I blame any spelling or puncutation mistakes on the Spanish keyboard I am typing on.
Lets see...where did I leave off...
Sunday we went to church at Community of Faith, which is held at the house we are staying at. A nice short walk to church :-) The service was almost entirely in Spanish, although the message was translated for us gringos. After church, we went to Antigua (yep, where I am going to school). We went through the Capuchines convent again (always a fun time) and then wandered through the market for a while before spending some time around the Parque Central. Antigua is going to be a very interesting place to go to school. I have already found the Dominos Pizza, a bookstore, and several places to eat.
Monday I woke up with a bad cold, nausea, and extreame exhaustion (from not sleeping). This also was our travel day to Pana, so I got to spend all day in the car. After getting drugged up (in a good way), I crawled into the front seat and slept most of the trip. We started out by heading to Palencia (east of Guatemala City) and then backtracking through Guatemala City and out west to Pana/Lake Atitlan. That drive was about 5 hours, some of which was spent in traffic. We stopped for lunch at this resaurant that looks like it was taken right out of Leavensworth. Rolando (Tito´s assistant) ordered me some soup as I didn´t think the steak or chicken would been a good idea. I felt a bit better after eating and went and napped in the car while the group finished up. We dropped on clinic supplies in Ciprisales and then headed down to the place we were staying, a beautiful Christian retreat for missionaries. I got a bed by myself (due to being sick) and a roommate who is a doctor with all sorts of fabulous things to help me sleep. Went to bed early as we start clinics bright and early.
Tuesday
We had our first day in Cipresales. We saw about 55 patients in medical, which is really slow. Dental was very VERY slow. The community worker thinks it will be busier tomorrow, and I hope so. I worked betwen Pharmacy and Lab. We filled a lot of prescriptions and I had patients test positive for diabetes, H Pylori and a case of TB. I took a nap in the car after lunch and felt better as I had been running a temperature off/on during the day. We wrapped things up and headed back down to Pana and here I sit typing an update. Hopefully the wireless will be up and running so I can post some pictures (not that I took any yesterday or today as I was feeling so crummy). Oh, its also been increadebly windy and kind of cold the past few days. Last night I thought the roof of our house was going to come off in the wind!
Ok, well, I need to head off to dinner and then home to bed. Several things to pray for:
1) My health. Its tough being sick and trying to be a productive member of the team
2) More patients for tomorrow
3) Stamina and good will between team members
4) Safe travels
Lets see...where did I leave off...
Sunday we went to church at Community of Faith, which is held at the house we are staying at. A nice short walk to church :-) The service was almost entirely in Spanish, although the message was translated for us gringos. After church, we went to Antigua (yep, where I am going to school). We went through the Capuchines convent again (always a fun time) and then wandered through the market for a while before spending some time around the Parque Central. Antigua is going to be a very interesting place to go to school. I have already found the Dominos Pizza, a bookstore, and several places to eat.
Monday I woke up with a bad cold, nausea, and extreame exhaustion (from not sleeping). This also was our travel day to Pana, so I got to spend all day in the car. After getting drugged up (in a good way), I crawled into the front seat and slept most of the trip. We started out by heading to Palencia (east of Guatemala City) and then backtracking through Guatemala City and out west to Pana/Lake Atitlan. That drive was about 5 hours, some of which was spent in traffic. We stopped for lunch at this resaurant that looks like it was taken right out of Leavensworth. Rolando (Tito´s assistant) ordered me some soup as I didn´t think the steak or chicken would been a good idea. I felt a bit better after eating and went and napped in the car while the group finished up. We dropped on clinic supplies in Ciprisales and then headed down to the place we were staying, a beautiful Christian retreat for missionaries. I got a bed by myself (due to being sick) and a roommate who is a doctor with all sorts of fabulous things to help me sleep. Went to bed early as we start clinics bright and early.
Tuesday
We had our first day in Cipresales. We saw about 55 patients in medical, which is really slow. Dental was very VERY slow. The community worker thinks it will be busier tomorrow, and I hope so. I worked betwen Pharmacy and Lab. We filled a lot of prescriptions and I had patients test positive for diabetes, H Pylori and a case of TB. I took a nap in the car after lunch and felt better as I had been running a temperature off/on during the day. We wrapped things up and headed back down to Pana and here I sit typing an update. Hopefully the wireless will be up and running so I can post some pictures (not that I took any yesterday or today as I was feeling so crummy). Oh, its also been increadebly windy and kind of cold the past few days. Last night I thought the roof of our house was going to come off in the wind!
Ok, well, I need to head off to dinner and then home to bed. Several things to pray for:
1) My health. Its tough being sick and trying to be a productive member of the team
2) More patients for tomorrow
3) Stamina and good will between team members
4) Safe travels
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Feb 20th and 21st
Feb 20th
Finally arrived here in Guatemala! The flights went well and I have to say that Continental rocks! Not only did we have a movie on our way to Houston, we also were served lunch and they made 3 trips for beverages! The flight to Guatemala didn’t have a movie, but they did serve another meal. I guess Continental is one of the only airlines left that serves meals. Anyway…it was nice!
The only hitch was as we were taxing around the runways in Houston, one of our team members heard this strange noise. They had to stop the plane and check the overhead bins. She was sure it sounded like something was loose. Personally, I think it was this guy sitting in front of me. He was tapping his foot to the music he was listening to (even though I-Pods were supposed to be off at this point). After the flight attendant asking a bazillion questions about the noise, I stopped him and told him I thought it was the guy in front. He rolled his eyes because this guy had been giving the flight attendant a difficult time. Not in a mean way, just in an irritating “I’m a boy in my late teens” sort of way. Anyway, since we had to stop, we lost our place in line for take off and had to circle the runways for another 20 minutes. We got into Guatemala City pretty late 10:30 and didn’t get back to where we were staying until 12:00am. Can I say tired!
Feb 21st
First full day in Guatemala. Is sunny and in the mid 70’s. Tank top and capris type weather.
We had a pretty rough night last night and nobody got very much sleep. I think I took the record with only 2 hours of very fitful sleep (I‘m pretty much used to that anyway). We didn’t get to bed until around 1am and then had to get up at 6 so we could leave for our busy day with the kids from Community of Faith school. There was lot of groggy people this morning.
We had a blast with the kids and no one drowned, so that’s always a good thing. We divided 140 kids into teams and then the spent the morning going to several different games. I spent the morning manning the ball relay game. I was standing in one position so long I got a nice little burn on my shoulder and neck, despite sunblock! After game time, they opened up the pool for the kids.
They had a nice little shallow area which was probably only 1 foot deep and then a larger pool that went from 3 feet to 6. This totally helped the kids from getting in over their heads, literally! Kids here don’t usually learn how to swim, yet they love playing in water. They will jump in anywhere in the pool, even on top of another person and then flail about until they either get to shallower water, reach the edge, or someone helps them. Because of the smaller pool, the kids who couldn’t swim stayed there which really helped! I was sitting on the edge of the pool, just in case someone needed saving and got soaking wet from all the splashing.
After an hour of swimming, we had lunch, which was amazing! We had steak (everyday food here), tortillas, pasta salad and my favorite, refried black beans. I could write a whole paper on how much I LOVE the black beans here, but I will spare you the details of my passionate love affair.
During the afternoon, thee kids had a worship time and then did a craft. At the end of the day, we were able to give out school supplies to each child. Each class presented us with a card and big hugs.
These kids are amazing! This is the one time during the year that they get to do something like this and we are the only group out of the 12 or 13 that come down each year that does anything with them. So much missed opportunity to minister to them!
After the kids left, we went to the principles house with some of the teachers and had dinner. We had this corn drink that was, well, gross. It was like drinking creamed corn without the chunks of corn. Then we had these tamales that were, well, also gross. They had chunks of chicken in them, bones and skin included! Yep, I’m going to have a hard time with the food down here. That tamale broke about 15 meat rules (if you don’t know about my meat rules, its probably better not to ask, it’s a weird thing of mine). Black beans and rice make up a complete protein, right???
Tomorrow we have church and then changed plans a bit and are going to Antigua (where I'm going to school). I'll try and post some pictures in the next few days.
Finally arrived here in Guatemala! The flights went well and I have to say that Continental rocks! Not only did we have a movie on our way to Houston, we also were served lunch and they made 3 trips for beverages! The flight to Guatemala didn’t have a movie, but they did serve another meal. I guess Continental is one of the only airlines left that serves meals. Anyway…it was nice!
The only hitch was as we were taxing around the runways in Houston, one of our team members heard this strange noise. They had to stop the plane and check the overhead bins. She was sure it sounded like something was loose. Personally, I think it was this guy sitting in front of me. He was tapping his foot to the music he was listening to (even though I-Pods were supposed to be off at this point). After the flight attendant asking a bazillion questions about the noise, I stopped him and told him I thought it was the guy in front. He rolled his eyes because this guy had been giving the flight attendant a difficult time. Not in a mean way, just in an irritating “I’m a boy in my late teens” sort of way. Anyway, since we had to stop, we lost our place in line for take off and had to circle the runways for another 20 minutes. We got into Guatemala City pretty late 10:30 and didn’t get back to where we were staying until 12:00am. Can I say tired!
Feb 21st
First full day in Guatemala. Is sunny and in the mid 70’s. Tank top and capris type weather.
We had a pretty rough night last night and nobody got very much sleep. I think I took the record with only 2 hours of very fitful sleep (I‘m pretty much used to that anyway). We didn’t get to bed until around 1am and then had to get up at 6 so we could leave for our busy day with the kids from Community of Faith school. There was lot of groggy people this morning.
We had a blast with the kids and no one drowned, so that’s always a good thing. We divided 140 kids into teams and then the spent the morning going to several different games. I spent the morning manning the ball relay game. I was standing in one position so long I got a nice little burn on my shoulder and neck, despite sunblock! After game time, they opened up the pool for the kids.
They had a nice little shallow area which was probably only 1 foot deep and then a larger pool that went from 3 feet to 6. This totally helped the kids from getting in over their heads, literally! Kids here don’t usually learn how to swim, yet they love playing in water. They will jump in anywhere in the pool, even on top of another person and then flail about until they either get to shallower water, reach the edge, or someone helps them. Because of the smaller pool, the kids who couldn’t swim stayed there which really helped! I was sitting on the edge of the pool, just in case someone needed saving and got soaking wet from all the splashing.
After an hour of swimming, we had lunch, which was amazing! We had steak (everyday food here), tortillas, pasta salad and my favorite, refried black beans. I could write a whole paper on how much I LOVE the black beans here, but I will spare you the details of my passionate love affair.
During the afternoon, thee kids had a worship time and then did a craft. At the end of the day, we were able to give out school supplies to each child. Each class presented us with a card and big hugs.
These kids are amazing! This is the one time during the year that they get to do something like this and we are the only group out of the 12 or 13 that come down each year that does anything with them. So much missed opportunity to minister to them!
After the kids left, we went to the principles house with some of the teachers and had dinner. We had this corn drink that was, well, gross. It was like drinking creamed corn without the chunks of corn. Then we had these tamales that were, well, also gross. They had chunks of chicken in them, bones and skin included! Yep, I’m going to have a hard time with the food down here. That tamale broke about 15 meat rules (if you don’t know about my meat rules, its probably better not to ask, it’s a weird thing of mine). Black beans and rice make up a complete protein, right???
Tomorrow we have church and then changed plans a bit and are going to Antigua (where I'm going to school). I'll try and post some pictures in the next few days.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Guatemala Here I Come!
So, I am officially leaving in 5 days for Guate! I am this weird mixture of excited, nervous, happy and scared. Crazy!
Anyway, I am going to try and post updates and pictures here on my blog. It depends on internet access and if I have any hot dates taking up my time (just kidding mom, just kidding....maybe).
Stay tuned for tales of my exciting adventure!
Anyway, I am going to try and post updates and pictures here on my blog. It depends on internet access and if I have any hot dates taking up my time (just kidding mom, just kidding....maybe).
Stay tuned for tales of my exciting adventure!
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