What a Day

Thursday, 07/15/2010

What a day! Stoves put in 30 stoves in 15 houses today. Each Stoves team had five houses all over the countryside. The first house our team returned to was the family with a church right next to it. After putting the stoves in and outside the house, we gave the children little wooden cars supplied by one of the medical team and they were thrilled. We rolled the cars across the new cement floor that had dried from two days before and the children rolled them back giggling all the while. We also brought out the Proclaimer which is a voice recording of the New Testament in Spanish that is powered by solar, a little crank or electricity. We told them in our broken Spanish about the Proclaimer and we all went into the church and showed them how to plug it in. The five children of nine gather around and we showed them how to hold the “on” button” down for Uno, dos, tres, quatro ….and it came on saying “the book of “Luke” and the children and mother said “Luke” in Spanish. We showed them how to skip to the next book and it said “John” in Spanish and they exclaimed “John”. They knew that these were books of the bible and were thrilled to have it read to them. Such fun!

At the fourth house where we had been two days earlier putting in the floor and white washing the father had put red in the cement and spread it over the top of the floor. It had dried a beautiful red. We had referred the youngest of his three daughters who was a baby to our hospital so the husband was there but not the wife. We learned that she was still at the hospital and they were transferring the baby to another hospital. The little baby had dysentery and was not doing well. She and the family are in our prayers.

This area of Guatemala is so beautiful. Lush vegetation and mountains are ideal. Those in the United States pay a lot of money for the views that these people have from their mud or plank houses.

The OR had a high school interpreter from Guatemala holding a retractor and another interpreter was right next to her talking video of the entire surgery. Suddenly you see on the video that the retractor holding student falls away from the table and flat on the floor! She had fainted. This was a popular video at dinner. The videoing interpreter says she said to him right before she fainted that she could not hold the retractor anymore….he chose to keep videoing instead to relieving her….surprise to him…

The vendors were allowed in the gate of the hospital today for the first time and all the folks in the OR including nurses, doctors and students had time to go outside to purchase their Guatemalan surgery hats. They are all very colorful now and have been taking pictures in the OR not just of the interesting patients but also their new hats.

Surgeries today include hernias, gall bladders, and even an open gall bladder that the Guatemalan doctors tried to remove three months ago and they gave up. She has been suffering for the last four months after that surgery and our doctors were successful in removing the gall bladder and the patient is going home.

The Eye team broke 100 patients today. They have 55 lbs of eye drops thanks to Allergan and Alson for red eyes that they are giving out which is a good thing since the families of exposed to so much smoke from the open fires in their homes (one of the reason we do stoves with vents). There were 65 patients on Wednesday and 90 on Tuesday. But the eye team does not just give exams and give out glasses, they tend to have lots of children coming through their clinic so they have kid entertainment including bubbles and coloring books and singing with the guitar.

One of our nurses went downtown to get some minutes on her phone. She opened up her phone to show the vender the number of her phone and he could not read the numbers or the writing….so, our nurse sent one of the HELPS team back out to the vender with a pair of the readers from the eye team. The vender was very happy.

The kitchen has a strict rule that nobody can go back into the kitchen except the kitchen team. However, on the first evening when they were working late, beady eyes were out all over….the rats don't obey the rules and are probably thinking….GROCERIES!

Rob went out to see the woodworkers in Sicache today and brought back beautiful wood spoons that they had made with the equipment that he brought them in February. The ladies also made him their delicious fried green beans that they grow.