Well, the week has well begun! We have our devotions on the roof at dawn, eat a hearty breakfast at 6:30, and are at the clinic by 7 AM. The waiting room is full, many patients already registered. IT is non stop, with Karen, Penny, 2 para-medics, and I seeing pts. Dr. Bill is circulating, helping all of us, consulting, diagnosing, checking meds, etc. We enjoy discussing the pts, and using each other to debrief, learn, laugh, etc. There are some sad, some funny, some puzzling, and some mundane things we see each day. Boy with osteochondroma (may turn malignant..); a very sick 17 year old, 10 days post partum with "childbirth fever", but who had come for seizures, which could not be treated because of the pregnancy; a sick baby with Hydrocephalus, a shunt, feeding tube etc. Prayer was all we could offer, but it was deeply felt and appreciated. There were the ladies with headache, stomach ache, leg aches, knee aches, etc... Who wouldn't? .....when you are up at dark, prepare an open fire, make your own tortillas, walk up and done the mountains carrying firewood with a strap on your head, etc. Most have never taken a pill in their lives. Imagine the relief of an Ibuprofen pill! Then there are the kids with worms...and the kids with worms..and the kids with worms... I need a stamper for writing the prescription for Mebendazole...especially when I am seeing not just a family of 7, but a whole village! It has become a joke. Somehow, when my turn in line comes for a patient, I get a Village! By the time I leave the room after examining and discerning symptoms, and writing prescriptions, I need air and a good laugh! Both are usually freely available. (the first photo is one of my villages...lovely family, polite,smiling, but very poor, very dirty, and all with colds and worms...
More later! Much love from Chiapas..
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