The Honduran Chronicles

Been a while!

2005-01-28T17:12:00.000-08:00

Sorry Matt-philes for not fulfilling your daily (or in this case 18-day) need for the updates of my incredibly exciting and eventful life. Okay, fix your faces to "Stunned" when I tell you what I did once the past two days: I GOT TO DRIVE!!!!
"Matt, what's the big deal? I drive everyday!" may be what some of you are thinking, but if you don't know me, you don't know that I LOVE to drive and to have experiences in cars that a normal person might not have (i.e. enjoy some spirited high speed driving, off-road driving, etc). Yesterday and today I took Ruby (our POS 1970 Ford F-100) to go to an orphanage and to get wood for some projects that some Hondurans here are working on. Okay, so you need to drive Ruby to understand just how POSish it is. It only has one brake that works (front, passenger side), and at that, if you do any more than breathe on the brake pedal you are at a risk to be thrown through the windshield! It has no turn signals. It has a horn (I think). It has steering that goes anywhere but center (you can turn the steering wheel about 20 degrees in either direction befor the car will go in another direction). No seatbelts. The shift knob comes off with a shift of the gears. There are random wires hanging from the dash. I'm sure that there are more problems, just none that I discovered in my driving of the car the past few days.
Both yesterday and today I got to take it off-road, because this being Honduras, the paved roads don't stretch all the way to where you want to go, so there were a few times where I had to be pointed to where I was going to do on this dirt road in the middle of a field and just gas it and point it in a direction to get up a hill or through some rough patches. Needless to say once I got over the brakes and all the other problems, I am a pretty smooth driver of it and thoroughly enjoy being in the driver's seat, working the clutch and gas and just having a blast.
Well, in the way of surgeries, I have been faithfully attending surgery every Monday and Tuesday at 8:00am, and will put on a future blog the totals for the surgeries that I have seen. What is nice is that with the experience that I have gotten here is that I would not have been able to get this experience in the States due to patient privacy laws and stuff, so this is a really good experience to have! I most definitely want to work in the OR and I really really want to be a surgeon, but the only problem is is that I have eczema on my hands and I am not sure if scrubbing in all the time will irritate it. If not, I have been talking with Michel about anaesthesia and find that very interesting also, so I have a nice alternative. We'll see. :)
God has been faithful with giving me a Christian sister here from New York. I have not had a Christian come down here (other than the lady who runs it and she is a bit extreme in her beliefs), and we have been able to talk about our walks and pray before meals among other things. She has been such a blessing to me. Thanks God!

Well, let me know how all you guys are doing! The last post set a record with 5 responses, so let's try and surpass that! ha ha
I love you all and I'll be back in the States in 11 days!! Have a good one!

I scrubbed in!

2005-01-10T12:31:00.000-08:00

Today I was observing surgeries with Dr Navarro again, and after the first surgery (circumcision and removal of an undescended testicle), I asked if it would be possible for me to scrub in, and he told me it wasn't since I was not a med student. Well, we were sitting around, waiting for the OR to be cleaned up and he asked me what kind of medicine I am interested in, and I told him either surgery or anesthesia. Well, wouldn't you know, about 30 minutes later, he said that I would be able to scrub in! :)
It took a while to scrub in, and I was worried how it would feel, because in the states they use sponges with soap impregnated in them, whereas here they use actual scrub brushes with soap poured in them. I did pretty good with that, and it didn't seem to bother the eczema on my hands, so I got in the OR, gloved and gowned, and took my post next to the surgeon. The surgery was a hernia repair, and all I really did was hold retractors, cut sutures, and dry the operating field to keep it clear. However, it felt GREAT! It was so nice to actually do something rather than just stand there and try to not touch anything to de-sterilize it. It was funny, because at first I kinda stood back, and he looked and said "Come closer, you're too far away!" I had to laugh, because normally he's telling me the opposite!
Well, like I said, it was a great experience, and I am going in tomorrow again, so we'll see what happens!
I'll let you know!

Life

2005-01-09T17:42:00.000-08:00

How are things, everybody? Life is keeping on here. I am getting more and more antsy to get home, as the time nears. A month from now I'll be getting dinner at my parent's house in Dayton, Ohio.
Things here are picking up, I guess. I'll be heading to surgery tomorrow, and hopefully there are a lot of surgeries planned so that I can get some more experienced. So far, here's the current count: 2 appendectomies, 6 tubal ligations, 1 vericrose vein removal, and 1 cholecystectomy (gall bladder removal). There were more surgeries planned last week, but they had to get bumped for one reason or another. Anyway, hopefully tomorrow will be entertaining. :)
To be honest, things seem to be deathly slow here. We have 2 med students here (one from Australia and one from San Antonio, Texas), and between them and Michel, I am pretty much out of a job. The only real way I can help is that I know the pharmacy and the drugs we have pretty well. When it was just Michel and I, I would do histories, initial physicals, and vital signs, present the patient to him, then shadow him until we needed meds, and get those. While he was giving the drug and followup info to the patient, I´d pull the next one back, and we'd start it all over again. Now, all I do is sit in the pharmacy and read until someone needs meds, get those, and sit and wait. Needless to say, the rush of being here is gone and I'm just looking forward to seeing my family again.
God's been teaching me a lot lately about patience and his love. I just hope that the second half of my trip will be as personally fulfilling as the first. We'll see.

Happy New Years! ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

2005-01-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

Okay, so New Years was cool here. Michel and I went to the pool hall around 8:30 and didn't have to wait long for an open pool table (since most of the people who were there were drinking instead of actually playing pool), and we played 10 games (6-4, I lost, but I still played some of the best pool that I've ever played! When Michel was in Canada, he actually belonged to a member's only billiards club, because he played so much, so to beat him at 4 games, that's quite an accomplishment). We quit at 11:30 and just sat and chilled until New Year's came. Holy cow, there was no mistaking when the clock struck twelve. Honestly, we were in the pool hall, which doesn't have any doors, just two door-size openings and it has a big open window in the middle of it that is just open without a window, and the firecrackers were so many and so loud that I asked Michel if it had started raining. It seriously sounded like rain on a tin roof. Just imagine that, except so loud you have to shout, and you get a feeling like what things were like last night.
It was funny, there were all types of firecrackers going off EVERYWHERE and so people who were driving would turn a corner and drive as fast as possible down these roads so that they either don't get hit by any fireworks or that if they are hit, they won't be hit by too many of them. We waited until 12:45 before walking home or else it would have been like a scene out of Blackhawk Down, he and I dodging firecrackers like the Rangers did bullets in Mogadishu.
Well, we got home safe and sound and luckily we did go home then, because about 1:15, the second wave hit and while it wasn't as loud as the first, it still was loud enough to keep you awake in bed!
Hope you all enjoyed yourself and stayed safe. Let me know how you're doing!

Surgery again!

2004-12-27T19:37:00.000-08:00

Well today was a good one in that I got to watch two interesting surgeries. The first was a planned cholecystectomy (gall bladder removal), and the other was an emergency appendectomy. The cholecystectomy was interesting but it was really deep in the abdomen and the incision was really small, so I didn't get to see a lot. However, when he removed the gall bladder, he cut it open and took out the gall stones, and there were two big ones! They were about the size of two small marbles (hey, it's the only thing I can think of!). I'll bet she's feeling better!
The appendectomy was cool since I could see most of the things and since this is the second time that I was seeing it, I knew better what to look for and what was coming. His appendix was perforated and so to check for infection, he pulled out the entire small intestine to check for any infections or lesions on it. THAT was cool! Here was this guy, out cold on the operating table and his small intestines were just lying on top of his stomach! (well, not on top of his stomach directly, there was all the drapes and everything covering his body)
Well, next Monday and Tuesday there are 4 operations each, so I hope to be able to watch them. Monday: cholecystectomy, 2 hernias, and a circumcision. Tuesday: 2 cholecystectomies, and 2 hernias. Should be fun! :)
I'll let you guys know how it goes! :)

Ohhh....life

2004-12-23T18:16:00.000-08:00

Hey all. How's things? Things are good here. I am doing well and am getting along alright. My Spanish is getting better. Every now and again I think about my first week or so when I got here (about 3.5 months ago!!) and about how much better I am at, well...everything. I know my way around town, my Spanish, while not fluent is a heck of a lot better than when I got here, and generally I am a lot better off now than before. However, I have noticed how even here I get in a rut with my daily walk with God and just let things slip. I brought Christian books to read, but I haven't read them yet. I'm about 1/4 way through one by Piper, but I just read it whenever I am a)in the mood, or b)don't have anything else to read. I can read other books I have in a day or two, but my Christian ones? Forget about it. Why is that?
I watched most of "Saving Private Ryan" today on my portable DVD player (thanks mom and dad for that!! :). I didn't finish it because Ramona (the med student here now) wanted to go into town before some stores closed. However, even after seeing that, I realize how much people have suffered for our country and in a cause for what they believe is right. I want to do that. I feel that God has called me to medicine, but also to the military. I just can't shake the desire to be in the military, and I've had it for, well, really as long as I can remember. I thought about enlisting a little bit after high school, but chose to go to college instead. A couple times I talked to Marine Corps officer selection officers about possibly being a Marine officer (even a Marine aviator) after college, but felt like I should wait. Now, I think that God had been having me wait for the blend of military and medicine to come together. How cool would it be to be a military physician and have a ministry at the same time? Talk about a captive audience! I don't know, I just think about it and I pray about it, and sometimes I feel like "Oh man, that'd be really hard. Why don't I just do the normal doctor route: Go to med school, sink myself into some serious debt, go to residency, finish that, make some cash, pay off my debts, and live my life?" Honestly, while it is attractive because it is easy, I think that it would actually be pretty boring. Oh well, who knows. I'm just rambling here.
Well, I'll talk to you later.

The Trip From Hell Part 6

2004-12-21T18:06:00.000-08:00

I GOT MY BAGS!!!! Thank the Lord in Heaven above! One indication of how excited I was to see my bags is the fact that I almost hugged them when I got them! ha ha
Well, proof that this is the trip from hell (and I still count it as the trip down here, because I have not arrived at my destination with my luggage. When that happens, this trip will be over and I will commence living down here for another 2 months), I got my bags today, which is a good thing, right? Well, my ride to Danli left me while I was at the airport getting my baggage. No sweat, I've been through this before just a week ago, so off I go in a taxi for a hotel, drop my newly aquired luggage off and head off to the Burger King next to the Parque Central. Tomorrow, catch a taxi to the bus station, and take the "directo" bus to Danli. I have it down! :)
Well, thanks for following the TTFH series. It has been adventurous yet extremely aggravating for me to write this, but I hope you TTFH followers have taken at least a modicum of joy from it. Keep following The Honduran Chronicles for more fun and enjoyment! Tell your friends!

The Trip From Hell Part 5

2004-12-21T12:40:00.000-08:00

Today, 7 days after landing in Tegucigalpa and 8 days after starting my trip in general, they have my bags here in Tegucigalpa. While that is good news, there is only one problem: I can't get them until 3! (by the way, they told me this at 12:05) Oh, and my compensation for this? A $75 Taca credit that is not redeemable for cash. Gee, thanks guys. What makes you think I'd want to fly your crappy airline again after you lost my bags for a week?? Oh well, maybe I'll travel with them again WITHOUT any checked bags!
Well, I'll let you know tonight how things went with actually obtaining said bags!

¡Hasta luego!

The Trip From Hell Part 4

2004-12-20T19:40:00.000-08:00

Still no bags. I'm going to Tegucigalpa tomorrow to check on the status of them since Taca is not answering my calls. I'll let you know how it goes.

The Trip From Hell Part 3

2004-12-17T17:40:00.000-08:00

Good news and bad news. Good news first: I got word from Taca that both my bags have been located. They are in Miami. Now the bad news: They won't be here for 6 days. Apparently they are being sent cargo and will take a longer time to arrive in Teguc. (lesson learned here: Never ever send anything via Taca cargo!! I mean seriously! 6 days for two bags??)
Now I am in Danli. I was told to go back to Danli and to call in 6 days and see if they are there. Instead, I plan on calling EVERY day to check up on them and see what happens!
Well guys, I'm tired. Tired of the constant stress of trying to track down my bags and tired of not feeling completely comfortable knowing that all my things are safe. Hopefully this will all end soon.
Let me know how you are doing!

The Trip From Hell Part 2

2004-12-16T01:44:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to bed at 6:45 and woke up this morning at 8am. Niiiice sleep. Since then I've just walked around Teguc, got some cash from an ATM, called the airport for my bags and was told to call back. Apparently the warehouse hasn't inventoried the bags they have there yet. So I'm going to call over there again and see what's happening. Other than that, not much else has happened. I'll keep you guys posted!

The Trip From Hell, Part 1

2004-12-15T17:37:00.000-08:00

Okay guys, I have personally experienced the WORST trip that I have ever heard of or could imagine or envision. Where do I start? Okay, Monday night I couldn't sleep due to the habit I obtained at home of going to bed at 2 or 3am, and since we had to wake up at 3:30am to be out the door at 4 for my flight, I didn't get any sleep that night. I took off from Cincinnati (CVG), and flew to Chicago O'Hare (ORD). From there, I flew to Miami (MIA, I think) where I anxiously anticipated changing from American Airlines to Taca Airlines (they fly to Central America only). Well, our arrival gate was changed from the B Concourse to the E Concourse of Miami International, meaning that to get to my next plane would require a walk of "close to a mile" (quoting an airport staffmember who told me that). Well, I walk said mile and find out that even though I was there 55 minutes early, I had missed my flight, because they stop booking people 90 minutes before boarding. VERY LONG STORY SHORT, I ran around a lot, talked to a lot of people, and finally found a flight for the next morning at 4:40am (the next was the 17th for Taca and the 25th for American). Since it was supposedly my fault that I missed the flight (because I have control of the aircraft from seat 11A), I did not qualify for any hotel or meal vouchers. I called Juliet up (friend from Cincy who's doing a year of missionary work in Miami) and she agrees to pick me up and let me stay at her place with her 3 housemates. I get roughly 2-2.5 hours sleep last night, and get up at 1am to be at the airport 3 hours early as advised by the people at Taca. I get my ticket and sit at the gate for about 2 hours before we boarded. It was then that I realized that the flight wasn't going straight from Miami to San Salvador (which I found out at Juliet's was the capital of El Salvador) to Tegucigalpa (capital of Honduras), but instead had a stopover in Managua (capital of Nicaragua). I take off and make all my connections and get into Teguc and find out that my bags are in Miami. Another LONG story short, I decide to wait 5.5 hours to see the status of my bags and just spend the night here in Teguc and come to find out, one of them is coming at 5pm tomorrow and they are searching for the other checked bag.
"But Matt, how are YOU holding up?" you may ask? Well, I figured it out today that I have had about 4-4.5 hours sleep in...what time is it? 5:30pm? 56.5 hours. Oh yeah, and factor in the stress of yesterday, being cut off from a flight that I arrived on time for with a ticket in hand then being hung out to dry because it was "my" fault, and the fact that I have traveled through 4 countries (yeah, four, count 'em: USA, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and last but not least, Honduras), I am a bit worn out. We landed somewhere (really can't remember where), and I didn't know what country I was in. I think you have to be pretty freaking worn out to not even know what country you are in!
Well, needless to say, I'm going to go get some American fast food to eat (they have that here in the capital), then I'm going to go back to the room, (maybe) read a little bit, then (definitely) SLEEP!!!
See you all tomorrow! I'll update you on the 2004 Trip O' Hell featuring Matt Rickert. :)

Well....

2004-12-08T13:15:00.000-08:00

I'M BACK!!!! (for another week or so)
Geez, you guys don't know how nice things are here: toilets you flush your toiletpaper in, cable tv in English (for that matter, ALL tv in English!), and bookstores! Weirdness.
Well, I know that I will grow accustomed to all these things yet again and then head back to Honduras for another two months.
Have a happy holidays if I don't post again!

A Scrotum, 2 Toenails, and a Record-setting flight

2004-11-17T16:40:00.000-08:00

How can these three POSSIBLY be connected, you ask? Well, read on faithful readers!
First up, the scrotum. Today while I was helping Michel seeing patients, Sydney calls over to us and tells us that he needs both of us to come over to his exam room. Not having a clue what it is he wants, we walk over and there's a guy laying there with the front of his pants open and blue underwear on (by the way, I have yet to see regular tighty-whities). A little confused we ask what is going on, and Sydney pulls down the guy's underwear and there it is: A scrotum about the size of a softball (or a large apple or orange, for those who don't know what a softball is). I strapped on some gloves and started exploring the large mass that is this man's scrotum. Michel started to give us things to look for: whether it's fibrous or fluid-filled, if we can feel both testicles, whether it has an end point (i.e. towards the abdomen), etc. So we start exploring and feel that it is a fluid-filled sac inside the scrotum and then we went hunting for his testicles. We found one after a good amount of searching but were unable to find the other (imagine trying to feel a grape inside a gel-filled sac about 4 inches in diameter!). We told him that he had to go to the hospital for surgery and that there wasn't anything that we could do for him. What does he tell us? Not "Sure thing, I'll go right now" or something of the sort, but instead he comes back with "I'll go in a week or so. The crops need harvesting." Now, I understand the fact that that is probably his sole income for the year and that if he doesn't do it nobody else will, but if it were me, having a scrotum as big as my fist would make me seek out surgeon lickety split. Brave guy!
Two Toenails: Later that afternoon, we had a guy come in who needed some help with his toenail. I looked at it and found what looked like a badly ingrown toenail with about 1/4 of an almond sticking out of it. Come to find out he tried to remove it himself (without anaesthesia, I assume), but failed and it got infected. What's the almond part? The infected tissue was so infected that the tissue had nearly calcified with all the bacteria and pus underneath. We gave him a round of antibiotics and told him to come back on Friday for the removal of the ingrown part and the near-calcified infected tissue. (I'm actually quite excited about it, to be honest! Should prove to be quite interesting!) The next one came in less than 10 minutes later. It wasn't infected at all and looked simple enough, so we decided to remove it today. I got all the stuff together and started shooting him up with the normal amount of 1% lidocaine and waited the standard time for the anaesthesia to take effect. Well, after about 6 or 7 minutes, there was very little change. I called in Michel (he is an anaesthitist after all) and so Michel took a crack at it. 6 or 7 minutes later, very little change. He tries some more and we waited even longer for this one. All told, 40 minutes later and as much lidocaine as we could safely give him, there was very little change. So we told him to come in either tomorrow or Friday and we'll try with 2% lidocaine instead. If that doesn't work, we'll either tell him to live with it, or we'll do it Civil War-style and stick a leather belt or piece of wood in his mouth and tell him to grab the edges of the bed and hold on tight. Ha ha just kidding
Okay, last but not least, the record-setting flight. NASA flew the X-43A Tuesday to a speed of 6,600 mph (10,621 km/h) or about Mach 10. It was using a scramjet engine, which instead of using fan blades, uses the forward motion of the aircraft through the air to compress the air for ignition by liquid hydrogen. Isn't that amazing? The plane was moving so fast it that the forward motion was sufficient for compressing the air alone. That is cool! They are saying that this could have applications in the space industry and in commercial flight as we would be able to cross continents in about an hour. Isn't that amazing? That's all. Just found it interesting and figured I'd pass it along (by the way, my source, just to be legal, was http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/11/16/scramjet.delay/index.html).

Have a good one everybody! I'll let you know how the removals go (of the toenails, not the scrotum, ha ha).
Bye bye!

Screaming kids, Meds, and Homesickness

2004-11-13T16:28:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know you all might or might not see the link between the aforementioned three things, but there is one: Me! Huh? You may ask. Let me continue.
Screaming kids: Kids here are unlike any others that I have ever seen. When we walk in to see them at the clinic, (when their parents are with them, holding them, mind you) there is a 50% likelihood that they will start crying, and a 25% likelihood of screaming. And this isn't a loud cry, this is screaming that makes you open your mouth to relieve the pressure on your eardrums or they will pop loud. Oh, and forget about it if you try to put a freakin stethoscope on them to listen to their lungs, it's scream-city there! What really sucks is that it is next to impossible to do an accurate diagnosis when you can't hear anything that is going on in their thoracic cavity due to the 180 dB screaming going on. It gets QUITE old after a while (especially the day that we had 3 year old twins in one room, and a 2 year old in the next room-HELL ON EARTH).
Meds: I wanted to see how dirty (or clean) scrub pants would be after a week or work since I do a lot of running to get meds for Sydney or Michel, because as they are examining somebody, they'll tell me what meds they need, and I'll get them either all at once or as they are examining them. Well, Monday and Tuesday we had a Honduran doctor at the clinic who does a minimum of examination of the patients and spends most of his time writing prescriptions. They seem to follow the "spray and pray" principle. Spray as many meds at people as possible and pray that one of them helps the people. So not only was I getting meds for Sydney and Michel, I had Dr. Writes-a-lot giving 4, 5, sometimes 6 meds apeice. A lot of what he was giving was suspensions (meds in liquid, basically), and we give our suspensions in plastic bags, because they are cheaper than bottles, so needless to say that I did a fair bit of spillage, and on top of what I did the rest of the week, by Friday my scrub pants were FULL of dried liquid spots. It was actually quite funny. I felt like I had really been through a lot (which, while the doctor was there, I really was going through a lot!) looking at my pants, so maybe we'll do a follow-up test next week and see how things go.
Homesickness: I want to go home. I'm not like crying myself to sleep or anything like that, but I just want to go. I miss home, my family, friends, fast food (believe it or not!), and long hot showers. There are things that I definitely like about Honduras, and I know that I will miss it while I am back in the US, but I also miss home. Oh well, 17 more days till I come home for Tim's wedding (my oldest brother, for those who don't know). I have already informed my family that I do not care what time it is, I want to get some kind of fast food and donuts when I get home! I'm salivating right now, just thinking about it! :)
Well, hope you all are doing well. Enjoy life! God bless!

Work in the dark

2004-11-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

Today we had a woman in who has venous insufficiency in her left leg and has developed an ulcer on her leg 4cm long by 2.5cm wide. She has been coming in regularly to get the dressings on the ulcer changed, and today was one of those days. It was only Michel and me in the clinic because Sydney is on vacation and Holly is working in the hospital full time.
So this woman comes in and I take off her old dressing and am examining it when the lights go out. It was pretty dark in there, and I couldn't clean and debride the wound with it being so dark, so I went and got my Maglite (big flashlight for those who don't know) and had my translator hold it while I cleaned and debrided the ulcer. In the middle of cleaning it and affixing a new dressing, I had to chuckle because here I am cleaning and covering an open ulcer in the dark with just a flashlight lighting up my workable field. I felt like I was some disaster situation with no power, taking care of critically injured patients with nothing but the flashlight to light up the room (when in all reality, it is NOT a disaster situation and the patient was NOT injured at all, save for an ulcer on her leg). It would have been a perfect photo opportunity for a cover of a book on practicing medicine in wartime or something. ha ha Anyway, a boy can dream, right? It made me think of a picture that I saw last night online that was taken of an OR in Kabul in the late 70's, early 80's that Doctors Without Borders/MSF was using, and it was taken during a surgery and there was blood all over the floor and it seemed that the only thing lighting up the surgery was a light over the patient and another lamp over another patient that I assume was being readied for surgery. I would love to work under those conditions. I know it would be hard, stressful, scary, etc, but you would be there to help a population that few would go help for one reason or another, and showing them that while they may be in a dire situation (war, natural disaster, etc), they are still important and that other human beings want to help them out no matter the risks. That is why I want to go into medicine, really. We'll see. Like I said, a boy can dream, right?

2004-11-05T15:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/afghanphotos/sec2/index.html />

The operation

2004-11-01T17:12:00.000-08:00

Okay, so the woman who was the subject of the last blog was supposed to return to the clinic on Saturday, right? Well, she comes back today, which is only a few days late, no biggie. I got all the stuff together: hemostats, scissors, gauze, betadine, etc, and prepard for our operation. Sydney, our nurse, was manning anesthesia, which consisted of 4cc of 1% Lidocaine at the base of the toe, thoroughly spread around top, bottom, and sides to adequately block the nerves leading to the toe so that she didn't hit the ceiling when I started. When she was thoroughly devoid of pain on the affected toe, I started, clearing a path under the nail with hemostats, then cutting to the base of the nail with the scissors. When I rolled the nail out from under the skin, we saw just how big this nail was. It was huge! Proportionally, with regards to exposed nail size and the size of the nail under the skin, it was the biggest nail I've removed! (2 totally on my own, 3 or 4 that I've had a hand in) After that, we patched her up, got her some pain meds, and sent her on her way.
Postop evaluation: I'd say it was the best one that I have done yet. The cut was perfectly straight (in terms of angle on the toe, straight in vs. pointing towards either side, kinda hard to explain here), I got all of the nail out of the toe, and there was the smallest amount of bleeding that I've had yet. All in all, a perfect success! :) Everyone who saw it said that I did a very good job!
Needless to say, I was very happy afterwards. I know it's not much, but it's all I got, so I want to be perfect.
After that, the day was interesting with patients ranging from shin splints and sore joints to a baby who was just 22 days old with a full body rash which we found out was a reaction to either vitamins her mom was eating (and then getting through breast milk) or what her mother was washing her with. Her mother was very upset at the fact that she wasn't getting any antibiotics. She didn't understand that not only is it not a bacterial infection, you do NOT want to start pumping a baby that young full of meds after 22 days of being alive. Oh well, I told her that if she didn't like what we did that she could go to the hospital. We'll see what happens. :)

My first surgical consult

2004-10-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I am not a surgeon, or even a doctor yet, but today, I had what I consider to be my first surgical consult. Okay, so let me set the stage for you: We had a woman come in, mid-40's with a pretty bad ingrown toenail. Michel, the subject of an earlier post, was seeing her, and asked if anyone was able to remove ingrown toenails, and so of course, since I have experience in the matter, I volunteered my services (I've only removed one and watched one, but I still remember how to do it. It's like riding a bicycle! ha ha).
He asked me to come take a look and to see what I thought. I looked at it and explained my planned course of action: antibiotic prophylaxis, the procedure itself, etc. He drew out a toenail on a piece of paper and was asking me questions on how I planned on doing it, and when he felt confident that I wasn't going to amputate part of this woman's toe, agreed for her to come back Saturday morning for "the chop".
After she left, we were straightening up the room, and I turned to Michel and said "Hey, was that my first surgical consult?" He turned to me and said, "Yeah, Matt, it was! You're in business!" To someone who wants to go into surgery (i.e. me), having a knowledgeable person working in medicine looking at you as a competent provider of care and able to perform a procedure (even as minor as this) safely and with a degree of trust, it is such a good feeling. I was just beaming after the patient left, because it was like I got a small glimpse into my future life.
WHY CAN'T I JUST BE THERE RIGHT NOW?????? Sorry, I am glad I am here, and I am excited about the opportunities that I have had here, but I still want to already be in med school or residency, doing what I want to do, and not have 3 years before I will even start med school. Oh well, patience I guess.
Well, I will let you guys know how things went on Saturday. Nothing to worry though, the patient is in good hands... :)

Trip travels wrapup

2004-10-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

Well, I will give details about the trip to Roatan later, but I did want to let all you eager and diligent followers of the saga that is my experiences here (is that grammatically correct?).
After writing the blog on Monday in La Ceiba, we caught the bus for Tegucigalpa, and settled in for the 6 hour ride. While reading a traveller's handbook on Honduras, we found a hotel called "The Tobacco Road Inn" (I think that is what it was) that was about USD$5, so we decided to give it a look. We got into Teguc at night (6:45ish), and caught a taxi for the hotel. We got there and we just fell in love with the hotel. It looks like a little nothing hotel from the outside, but it was so nice on the inside (not nice as in Ritz Carlton nice, but like-home nice). It was only 85 limps, which was also a huge plus. We went out for dinner, which ended up being Chinese, which was excellent. While walking around, looking for dinner, I found a "DK'd" donut place that looked like Dunkin Donuts, so I stored that away for future reference. After that, we settled in for a good night's sleep.
We woke up Tuesday morning, got a (very) small breakfast at the hotel (toasted roll cut in half and a cup of hot tea), then in my savviness of international travel, I remembered that there was a "DK'd" (I think that its a rip off of dunkin donuts, but it just might be the international version, who knows) about four or five blocks away. Off we go to get some donuts, and we find out that they have four, yes FOUR types of donuts, so I got two boston creme eclairs. Were they good? Oh baby, they were fantastic!! :)
After that, we packed up and took off for the bus station via taxi and got the ticket for our bus. After the two hour bus ride home, we decided to walk back home (5-10 minute walk, no biggie) since we each had roughly two limps apiece or 500 limp bills. We got back, changed, and worked a half day in the clinic. Needless to say, we FINALLY GOT HOME!!! :)
Well, like I said, I'll write more about the trip later, b/c right now, I gots to jet. :)
Enjoy yourselves!

Today's travels

2004-10-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

I know that I have not posted in a while, and I apologize, Mattphiles, but here is another installment long overdue on the Honduran Chronicles.
This weekend, Sydney, Anne and I took a trip to La Ceiba and then on to Utilla. We woke up bright and early Saturday morning in La Ceiba after travelling here all day Friday. We thought that there was a 8am ferry to Utilla, but when we called to the port to confirm, we discovered that the only ferry there was to Utilla was at 4:30pm, so we checked on Roatan and there was one at 10am, so we went to Roatan. In a later blog I will share the weekend's events, but right now I am too amazed at our lack of luck in travelling today (and it isn't over yet!), so I will write about that now.
We got up this morning and got to Rudy's restaurant at 6 for a quick breakfast and then decided to get our breakfast to go to make the ferry to La Ceiba at 7. I have never eaten pancakes with my hands before, but Rudy makes good pancakes, so it was pretty tasty! We get to the port and buy our ticket, get on the boat, and it is wonderful. I got to sit by myself at the very front of the boat for a while, do some devotions, write a little in my journal, and just chill. It was very very cool.
We get into La Ceiba, catch a taxi, head over to the bus station at 9:10am , and find out that there is a 9:30am bus. Perfect! We stand in line to buy our tickets when I hear the guy at the counter tell someone that they were filling for the 11am bus. Now understand that the 9:30 would have been perfect, b/c we would have gotten into Tegucigalpa at around 3:30, caught a bus for Danli and been home tonight. Well, the 11:00 would still have gotten us there, but it would be close. So we check and find out that there are two other bus stations in La Ceiba and find a taxi driver to drive us over to them to see if they have any buses going earlier than 11am. The first one we go to had a 10am bus, but since it was a first class bus, the price was L350 (the original bus was L145), and it was going to San Pedro SULA first, which would get us into Teguc at the same time as the 11am would anyway, so we go and check the other station which has a bus at 3:30. So back to the original bus station we go to find that the 11:00 bus had filled up (bear in mind that it is 10:00 at this point), and they were filling up for the 12:30. Now we have to decide if we are going to stay in La Ceiba tonight or Teguc since we will be unable to catch a bus to Danli. We decided to catch the 12:30 to Teguc and take our chances there. At least there we are within spitting distance (well, 2 hours by bus) of Danli, so we can get there earlier tomorrow.
At this point, I was down to L60 after buying the bus ticket, which would pay for taxis in Teguc, but not the hotel or the bus ride back to Danli. At this point, Sydney and I went on a bank hunt to find an working ATM or a bank, while Anne stayed back to watch our bags at the bus station. He took out L1,900, and I got L2,000 so come hell or highwater, we WILL get home tomorrow. :)
Now, we are currently waiting for the 12:30 bus to Tegucigalpa, which will put us there 5:30-6:00, which will be better, because once we get a hotel (which I know will be interesting), we can possibly watch a movie and/or eat some real American food (Pizza Hut, Wendy's, etc). All in all, it has been one letdown after another it seems, but it might actually end up being better because we can get time to have some good ol' American entertainment and food in Teguc which will be the first time in a very long time!
I'll either update this tonight in Tegucigalpa or tomorrow in Danli and let you all know how it went. Hope you all are doing well!

Today's Brigade

2004-10-10T19:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, so today we went on my first brigade. For those of you not in the know (and I am going to assume that that is all of you, b/c as of this morning I too was in that group), a brigade is where we go to a town and depending on what the brigade consists of (surgery, primary healthcare, etc), that defines what it is that you do on said brigade. Well today our was a free clinic where the patients could get a consult and meds for free. As of yesterday morning, we had 4 doctors and 7 nurses coming along to help out. Then the numbers started to drop throughout the day and on into the night. Come 8:30am today (the start of the brigade), we had one doctor, one nurse (who works at our clinic anyways), me (an EMT), Kathy (our leader), and a Canadian anesthitist (Michel, the subject of an earlier post). With just that staff, we saw about 150 people and dispensed meds to them all, also. Working in the pharmacy was two to three Hondurans and me. We worked our freaking butts off today. I know the people working seeing patients worked hard, but we did also, and the only plus side to working in the pharmacy is that there was a breeze going through. All the people working in the clinic got to sit down all day, and we stood most of the day. Needless to say, it sucked either way you look at it.
What was kind of funny was there was a guy working in the pharmacy all day who, come to find out at the END of the day, spoke English! I spoke in my broken Spanish all day long today and he could've been talking to me in English! Oh well, at least I got a lot of practice in my Spanish. That is not always a bad thing.
Well, needless to say, I am tired, dirty, smelly and have medicine suspension solution dried on my scrub pants. I look like a real piece of work! What was kind of nice was that throughout the day today I was thinking "Is this what I want to do for at least part of my life?" What I am thinking of doing is working in humanitarian relief for at least part of my career, and I am sure it can't be too far off what we did today. It was busy, it was hard, it was taxing, but it was also fun and gave me that sense of helping a lot of people in a short period of time. I don't know how long I could hold up under those kind of conditions, but it was still fun and I actually enjoyed my time there at the end of the day. Who knows.
Driving around today in the mountains (which, by the way, was beautiful!) on those incredibly bad roads, bouncing all over the place, I was putting myself forward in time about 15 years, working as a surgeon for a relief agency, bouncing along some gravel roads in Afghanistan or Chechnya or something and I totally digged the thought (liked the thought, for those not up on the "lingo" ha ha). Putting myself out there to help people I don't know who are virtually ignored otherwise, that just seems like such a neat thing to do. Nobody will care that I worked in that town today or what I did there, but what is nice is that I got to impact a lot of lives today and show them that gringos really do care about them. That is a cool feeling. :)

My first taste of surgery

2004-10-05T17:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Sydney and I got to go to the hospital here to observe a surgery, and after a few hours of waiting, we finally got the word that there was going to be an appendectomy. We were getting set to move into surgery when an emergency C-section came in, which put us off another hour. However, when we got ready for it, my heart was pumping! I was really excited and really nervous, because I have had a deep interest in surgery for a long time, and I was really nervous that I wouldn't like it. Kinda like all that time spent reading about it and thinking about it would be wasted if I couldn't take watching one happen.
Well, first cut goes in and I'm still doing fine. He (the surgeon, Dr. Navarro) starts progressing through the surgery, and I didn't notice it, but I had ventured closer and closer to the doc when he looks back at me (I was standing just to the right of him) and he asked me to back off a bit (but in a nice way ha ha). Since I did not scrub in, I am not allowed to get too close, because anything that I touch wouldn't be sterile anymore, and if that thing happens to be the surgeon, he may have to go out and re-scrub before he can continue with the surgery, so needless to say, I backed off. :) He was talking to me throughout the surgery (in English and Spanish) and telling me the in's and out's of what he was doing and why he was doing it. It was so very cool. I couldn't stop thanking him and I was just beaming.
The coolest part? After the surgery, he tells me that next week I may be able to assist him in surgery!! You try and tell me a cooler thing that I could be doing with my time! What was funny was afterwards I was looking up surgery stuff on the web, feeling like a REAL surgeon! ha ha Oh well, I guess there are worse things that I could be doing with my time!

You know what is weird?

2004-10-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

There is this Canadian anesthitist named Michel that is here at the clinic. He's middle aged, single (I think), and working on a pretty large research study involving diver health for fisherman in northern Honduras who dive down to traps to collect what is inside. Pretty interesting to hear how everything is working, actually. His primary reason for being at the clinic is to work on this research project, but he is also there for help if we need some guidance on a particularly difficult patient. Today we had this guy in whose BP was 215/130. That is EXTREMELY high, and so we were trying to get him on some cardiac meds to bring it down. Well, of course, we involved Michel, b/c he knows enough to be a practicing doctor if he wanted to (by the way, he's an anesthitist, not an anesthesiologist, so he's not a doctor), and we all worked really hard to get him on the right meds.
What I noticed during that whole time was that the entire time I have been here, I have tried to impress him as much as possible. He isn't an overly powerful guy or a real domineering personality, he is just one of those people who you feel like if they approve of you or openly admit that you are intelligent or whatever, that you would feel on top of the world. Conversely, if he openly adressed your apparent lack of intelligence, you would just be crushed. I honestly don't know what it is about him, he's just one of those people. Every time he asks me a question (and no one else!) I feel like if I do not come up with the right answer (that he honestly did not know) or impress him with my knowledge, then I haven't done enough or that I have in some way failed. Weird, I know. :)
I have noticed that I have moved from wanting to please God in what I do everyday, and more specifically, in the clinic, to wanting to impress Michel. Who knows. Maybe it's insecurity, maybe it's just a desire to make someone much more intelligent than me feel like I, a lowly 21-year-old EMT could on some small, insignificant level, be recognized as an intelligent, valued member of our healthcare team.
For instance, today for the guy with the blood pressure problem, I was the one who took all his BPs (left arm, right arm, standing, sitting, laying), and I was so nervous, terrified almost, that somebody would go check his blood pressure themselves and find a huge discrepancy in the values I got. Why is that? Because then everybody, including Michel, would begin to doubt my abilities and then I would feel like that whatever work I do would not be trusted at all and would be seen more as a hindrance than a help.
What I have noticed happening is that my H&Ps (history and physical, the info we get from patients in questioning them and examining them about their illness) have gotten a LOT better! Everytime I walk out of the room to go get meds or to ask someone a question (even if it's not Michel), I try to know everything there is to know about their particular complaint (history, onset, etc) so that my info will hold up to any amount of questioning, and I will not have to go back and ask another question to the patient. I figure that all this might be a good thing in the end, because then I keep striving to better myself and grow in my abilities as a healthcare worker.

Why I enjoy medicine

2004-09-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

I know that I have already posted earlier, but I am in a blogging mood, so BACK OFF!! ha ha, just kidding
It honestly baffles me why anyone would want to go into something other than medicine. The ability to look at someone (or in the case of surgery, look IN someone!) and fix what is wrong with them to restore them to full health, or, failing that, to improve the quality of life, or, failing that, to painlessly and quickly bring about an honorable death is just the most fascinating thing in the world to me. Yeah I know that the hours suck, the education is extremely difficult and drawn out, but the rewards are innumerable. Who cares if someone's stock goes up a half of a point, if someone can get the best rate on car insurance, or if they can get their shoes handmade by someone in Italy, if the field of medicine isn't there for them, they're all pointless! (well, I guess the shoes would look nice if you had a fully opened coffin instead of just the upper torso. ha ha) Now I know that there are professions that are honorable and needed, such as farmers to grow our food, pastors to interpret and preach the word, and lawyers and judges to try and settle arguements between people (love ya dad!! :), but come on, I saw a guy on tv one time whose job is to detail celebrity's cars. When it really comes down to it, who cares?
Now I know that I will have stepped on toes with some of my examples, and I'm sorry, they were the first things to pop into my head as I was furiously writing this. But bear in mind what I am talking about here: vital members of a society that if they were not present, a people group would be worse off. If you still have a problem with it, post a thought! We have freedom of speech here in The Honduran Chronicles!

My first fractured bone

2004-09-29T18:20:00.000-07:00

No, not MY bones (I have fractured two though: my right index finger and my tailbone, just in case you were wondering), but a Honduran girl's rib. Okay, let me explain. This 28 year old girl presents today with marked pain in the left midaxillary region of her ribs (basically left side of her chest about in line with her nipple on the side, against her arm) and says that a crazy guy (whether it was a relation to her or not I did not attempt to figure out) swung a metal rod and hit her in the ribs right there. I was worried about injury to her spleen, since it sits right about there inside your ribs, but two things prevented us from checking it out and assuming that everything was okay: She didn't appear to have any bleeding into her abdomen (which she would have if there was an injury to the spleen, because it is essentially a small bag of blood), and we had no way to confirm it anyway since the doctors and nurses aides are striking at our local hospital and they are not seeing any new patients (so I've been told). If you do not understand the reasoning behind the latter reason, simply read the title of my blog again to be reminded as to which country I live in now, and that things here just aren't the same as....well....any industrialized western democratic country!
But what was neat was palpating (feeling, to those unaware of simple medical terms ha ha) along the ribs and actually feeling the fracture in one of her ribs (granted with a whole lot of wincing and movement from the patient). I haven't been able to do that yet, so it was cool to feel precisely where the fracture was. Such as everything in medicine, it sucks that she had to go through that, but it was a good learning experience for me. You don't wish anyone ill will, but you do also hope to see some pretty unique and altogether gruesome injuries (even though this one didn't really qualify under either one) so that you can gain the experience needed to treat the next one that comes along. Other people's pain and misery is my education and experience. Sick, huh? I love it. :)

Vacation is a wonderful thing!

2004-09-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, Sydney, Caroline, Anne and I went on a vacation to Los Naranjos, which is a small town about four hours west of here. We went to Lake Jahoya (the spelling's wrong, but it's a lake in western Honduras), and rented a rowboat for an entire day for 30 limpara (which is about US$1.50). Now don't get me wrong, this rowboat was of exceedingly crappy construction and was incapable of going in a straight line or holding water, but alas the four of us had great fun with it all day long. We paddled around this GIGANTIC lake and stopped in this little inlet and swam around for a while and played with some local kids. After that, we headed back, and on the way back to our hotel, we saw a girl's soccer game was about to start, so I leaned the paddles up against a tree, and we sat down to watch. About 15 minutes into the game, I start to talk about something, then BONK, one of the paddles falls and cracks me in the head! All the Hondurans thought it was HILARIOUS!
The next day, we went to a waterfall, Pulhapanzak, which I highly recommend should you ever be travelling in Central America. The waterfall itself is 43 meters tall, and, unlike the US Park Service, which restricts you from going anywhere near a waterfall, the Honduran way of doing things is that if they leave a gap in the railing big enough for a person to slide through, it's up to them to use their best judgement to decide whether or not to go closer to the waterfall! The four of us slipped through and clambored along the side of this cliff/hill to this smaller waterfall (about 20 feet tall), where we discovered that if you could climb up the side of it and cross the stream feeding it, that you could stand off a rock jutting out in the middle of it and jump into the little pool of water that was being fed by the little waterfall. It was scary and cool all at the same time. I liked it so much I had to jump four times. :) After that, we crossed across the river on some big rocks and sat on one that was within roughly 20 feet of the waterfall! The water spray was hitting us like we were being sandblasted. It was so amazingly cool! You could really feel the power of the waterfall!
On the way back, instead of taking the bus system and paying about 120 limps altogether to get back, we decided to hitchike as much as we could, and we paid a grand total of about 38 limps to get back! Not only was it cheaper, it was faster as Toyota 4Runners travel faster than schoolbuses.
All in all, a very welcome break from the clinic that was also a ton of fun! If you ever want to try something out of the ordinary, I highly recommend it!

I can't even begin...

2004-09-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

...to express what it was I saw today. Today we went to the town trash dump high up in the mountains near here. It was this huge area on a flat area on the top of a mountain near here that was just covered, and I mean COVERED in broken glass, bottles, metal, you name it. There were horses, donkeys, and vultures up there eating at the trash. And we're not talking two horses, a donkey, and four vultures, it was probably 50 horses and donkeys and hundreds of vultures eating at this trash. Not only that, there were lots of children and adults up there poking around the trash, looking for things to salvage or sell. What was so unique was the fact that among all this despair and hopelessness, if you looked up and around, there were some of the most beautiful views and landscapes that I have ever seen. The area I am in is the mountainous region of Honduras, and to look at all the mountain peaks in the distance was truly awe inspiring. Sydney, a nurse here, said it best when he looked out at the dump and the mountains and said "This truly is beauty and the beast." I told him later that I was glad that we went there, but also I wished that we hadn't. If I don't see it, then it doesn't exist except for in National Geographic and the Discovery Channel. Now I know that it's miles from where I live with electricity and running water and a bed with a mattress. It was just one of those things where you can't talk, only look around and try to not feel awful afterwards (even though you still do for living in the US).
What was surprising was that I asked Sydney later on if seeing that had changed his decision to work in medicine internationally, and he said that it didn't because it would only be like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. I was taken aback by that, b/c if you look at the enormity of a situation, it will always blow you away, but if you look person by person, child by child, I think that you can see how you can make a difference. I hope I don't lose that way of thinking and feeling. I want to be able to keep my sense of humanity (not that Sydney has lost his, but you know what I mean), and still be able to detach myself so that I do not go insane or anything. Oh well, we'll see what happens.

My First Taste of Medicine

2004-09-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

How crazy is it when two nurses and an EMT all act as primary care physicians in a clinic? That is what happened today, because the hospital in town was extremely busy and our clinic took a chunk of the overflow, and needless to say, we were SWAMPED. I am an EMT and I saw and treated 7 patients today (including removing part of a toenail, which I admittedly rather enjoyed!). Luckily we didn't get any cardiac patients or anything serious like that, just your regular bacterial and fungal infections with some colds and coughs thrown in. Why is it that this is seen as an acceptable level of care? Because they are poor? While I do enjoy feeling like a doctor and seeing patients and stuff, I do not know the info that I do need to know, and frankly I am just doing my best trying not to make people more sick. I hope that what I am doing helps, but it just isn't safe without a doctor here. Hopefully one will come soon and we can raise the standard of care and not just get by with what we know and what we can look up in medical reference books and drug info books. I had to pray after we got done that God would look over the patients I saw today, and restore their health, because while I was doing my best, it just scares me at what could go wrong if I missed anything. We'll see, I guess...

Guns, Guns, the Magical Fruit...

2004-09-16T14:25:00.000-07:00

...the more you have, the more you shoot. Man, if that isn't poetry, I don't know WHAT is! ha ha
One thing that I still have not gotten over living here in Honduras is the number of firearms that are publicly displayed in major shopping areas. Now I'm not talking about dad taking his family out for an evening and bringing along his hunting rifle, I'm talking about the security guys stationed in front of certain stores and banks standing there with pistols, shotguns and assault rifles. In my walk today from the house to the internet cafe, I saw 8 people carrying pistols, 3 or 4 shotguns, and one guy with an assault rifle (H&K G3 to be exact). Oh, and in front of the bank, one guy walked up to the security guard and pulled a pistol out of his pants and gave it to the guard and walked in nonchalantly. What does the guard do? Tucks it in the front of his pants for all the world to see. Guess it couldn't hurt for him to have another firearm on hand in case something goes down while the gun's owner is in the bank. It is becoming more normal for me, but I still look to see what the guys are carrying, just because it is such a foreign concept to me (I mean honestly, how many stores do you go in in the US where armed guards are standing outside?). Gotta love it here! It certainly is interesting!

It's all in the details...

2004-09-15T15:29:00.000-07:00

So today, two things happened that while they are mildly insignificant, they still caused me to stop and smile. One was Walter (I think that is his name, I keep forgetting it) is an American who has lived here in Honduras for 20 years asked me today "How are you?" And I stopped and told him that it seems like forever that someone has asked me that question in English. That made me chuckle. Then later on, I found saltines in our kitchen and thought about how long it had been since I had saltines with peanut butter. About an hour later I was in my bedroom and came across one of my jars of JIF peanut butter. Feeling a bit sneaky, I creeped downstairs to the kitchen and stole a package of ten saltines (I had to be sneaky because we are not allowed to snack on the food that we did not buy) (and even then, I didn't have to be that sneaky since there wasn't anybody there except for a nurse who ate some of my peanut butter anyway!). Smearing the crackers in the peanut butter and eating them felt like HEAVEN!! Oh boy that stuff tasted good.

I had to see a man about a horse...

2004-09-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

So today I am writing in my journal out on our balcony, awaiting more patients, and aross the street, there is a small field with a donkey in it that eats grass all day. It's funny, because you can watch him get bored doing it, because he will be intently eating, then start to look around, then lift his head and stare at the world around him for a few minutes, then resume eating again. So anyway, he is chomping away on his gourmet meal when I look up and a horse is standing right next to him. Now bear in mind that I live in the outskirts of Danli, so there are still people around, but I am closer to the fields and every once in a great while people will drive their cattle around in my area, but it is mostly just people walking, riding bikes, riding motorcycles, and driving cars. So this horse appears out of nowhere and starts eating some of the donkey's grass. About this time I am so hoping that there would be a showdown as the donkey tries to defend his turf from this invader, but alas he enjoys some more grass and gladly shares it with the horse who quickly finds the one tree off to the side of this field and stands under it. Maybe he was hot, maybe he felt like a midday constitutional, or maybe he wanted to go out and explore, I don't know. Maybe he was looking for cheap healthcare and accidentally passed us up! ha ha
Oh, so I have a theory that I garnered while walking to the internet cafe today. Guys here will, while driving, stare at girls that are walking along the sidewalk. Not new, right? American men have been doing that for ages. Well, what they do here is they will completely turn their head to where they are nearly looking out the back window while they are driving by. So not only do I have to watch out for vehicles when I cross the street, I have to watch out for pretty girls, because the driver will most likely be looking at her and not watching the road ahead. Oh, well, such is life in Danli.

Brain Tumor

2004-09-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, so here´s the thing. Today, in the clinic, the English med student and the Floridian nurse discovered a possible brain tumor in this really nice 44 year old Honduran guy. The med student did a test of his cranial nerves (the nerves that go straight from the brain to the head and shoulders without passing through the spinal cord) and found that he had a defect with his facial nerve (5th cranial nerve if memory serves). So here is the horrendously bad part. He needs a CT scan to confirm the diagnosis, but he can only get one if he lucks out and a Honduran doctor discovers it and refers him to have one. If he walked into a hospital asking to get one, there is most likely no way that he could afford to have one. So if he is not referred to have one, he will die a horrible death that will be extended and very gruesome. Why is this so? I understand that there are reasons for required payment of medical services, but shouldn´t there be a universal loophole for the tremendously poor and/or tremendously ill? Why should those who make a lot of money be allowed to live longer? To look at it from even a evolutionary standpoint, it is not survival of the fittest, it is survival of the richest. That just doesn´t seem right to me. And this isn´t just here in Honduras, it´s everywhere, but I guess that it just hit me today. Who knows. Maybe he´ll get lucky and he will be able to get it one way or another.

I'm in Honduras!!

2004-09-10T17:32:00.000-07:00

So I flew in a couple days ago, and I have done a lot of something and a lot of nothing. I wake up, do my devotions, eat breakfast and chill for a while, then it's off to the races working at the clinic until anywhere from 12 to 5, depending on how many patients there are. After that, it is more chill time, dinner, then chill time. It is nice that it is not hectic at all (I mean come on, that is what Latin countries are known for!), but it would be nice to do something more than that.
Well, this is my first posting, and I hope to post some more of my random (and if you know me, they are RANDOM!!) thoughts. Anyway, hasta luego!