Day 2 Clinic
Hello family and friends, I would love to talk to you in Spanish
but I can’t I had an overload today. My day started about 6:50 a.m. We had a
rough night so it was not a great amount of sleep last night. I had just
finished showering and Kate came into my room to talk because there were some
boys outside. So I was like well where are they. I peek my head around the
corner (my room is right next to the entrance of the house so there is no front
door just a small gate, don’t worry mom my window and door both have strong
locks on them, plus Santa Cruz is very safe) and I see a couple boys being loud
they were talking in Kikichicall so I couldn’t understand what they were
saying, not that I would be able to in Spanish either. Hahahaha. Anyway I could
still hear them but their voices got faint so I shut off my light and peeked
out they were far away so I said Kate they are gone. So she took off running to
her room and the boys started running to the gate. Kate slammed her door and I
was still in the process of picking my mind to figure out what was going on.
All of a sudden I saw a huge firecracker go off and I slam my door shut.
For the next 20 min I just heard the
boys raving about their explosion. They finally went away around 11:30. I
couldn’t fall asleep for about an hour or so because as soon as the boys went
away the dogs started going crazy fighting and stuff. Ahhhh. Es no Buenos. I am
just tired. But our adventure today was to San Pablo which is a 20 min boat
ride from Santa Cruz. (Sorry kaycee got the name wrong on fb). So we get off
the boat load our entire clinic tools into the truck. When we got everything
into the truck we also entered the truck we were all standing up and it was an
uphill climb. (here in Guatemala all of the cities are on hills so no matter
what we have to climb the hills or drive up the hills and I am not talking a 20
degree incline it is closer to 60 degree incline. It is insane let’s just say
my buttocks will be nicely toned when I get home. Hehehe. Es muy bueno. J Anyway 10 of us piled
up into a little Toyota pickup and voyaged on. The clinic is very dirty in
America it would have been shut down in a heartbeat. The thing is the health is
so bad here there are little rules. Craig and Carmen have to comply with the
rules of the Health ministry ( I wish it was as cool as the Harry potter
ministry) but there are many rules to work in the clinic but not as many as in
America. Here I can do ultrasounds (which I rather not), give shots which I
will probably do tomorrow, and assist in many other ways. I probably will not
work with the dentist til next week I need to work on my Spanish first Craig
said. So I worked with Carmen all day. Every single second I am astonished by
the privileges I grew up with. Today with Carmen we did pediatric care. The
mothers here are so young most of them are 15-18 years old. They are not well
nutrition children. They have a lot of
problems with not knowing how to feed their babies, being so young or their
boyfriends leave them and they can afford to feed their babies. Nothing makes
me feel so awful. It is terrible to see
these little babies with so many problems. A lot of the patients today we
diagnosed with Scabies which is a parasite that is transmitted through close
contact. So a lot of the babies and mothers have it. And the parasite is a lot
like a bed bug but easier to get rid of. But if the mothers do not take proper
care for the child’s clothing or sheets or blankets or their own the child will
not get better. One child had a bad infection from the scabies so we had to
give him an antibiotic injection. The scabies was infected on his hand. So I
learned how to give an injection I have not gave one yet but soon I will. We
just saw a lot of sad cases. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Today was a
rough day. I am not feeling super confident. I wish I could explain how difficult
it is to be in a situation where everyone around you is speaking a different
and you understand very little. It is only understood when you are living in
the situation. It is bad at the house too I can barley talk to the family
because they don’t speak any English. It is going to take time I know but today
I just feel way overwhelmed and I need a break from everyone hahaha which is
hard to get here. I just got to stay positive. But I have also got to learn
quickly.
Well Buenos
noches.
DESI
Day 3 clinic
Today we stayed in Santa Cruz we only travel to different
towns on Tuesday and Thursday. We went to the clinic about 9 and Craig started
us with some Spanish lessons. There is so much to learn he sent us with 30
pages and about 3 tests of learning so soon I will be good at Spanish, lets at
least hope. We learned for about an hour then we started checkups but as soon
as we started a man walked in with half his finger cut off. Don’t worry it was
just flopping around haha. It was so bad. Let’s just say not my liking. I went to another room. Hahaha. Shhhh I am a
coward. So I went Stephanie which is a medical student that is leaving in 2
days. So we finished diagnosing a old women so tiny probably 4 feet tall and
she was just not feeling well. That was easy then we were about to bring the
next girl in to do an ultrasound and the power went out. So the whole day we
had to clinical with no power. It was a pretty easy day we finished about 3
o’clock and then we went to our house. Mama cruz made such a good dinner. It
was a carne (roast) con papas y zanarzes y . It was one of the best roasts I
have ever had. It was amazing. Sorry mama. The rest of the night we spent
working on our spanish.
Lots of love
Desi
Day 4 clinic
Today was not off to a good start I woke Today we traveled
to Tzununa to do our clinical this place is more poor than the last city we
went to. The clinic is very sad. We had to put sheets up everywhere so we would
have enough rooms to examine patients. This time we separated into pairs of two
there were two Americans that volunteerd to help today. The man went to equidor
on his mission. So Carmen stuck him with me so we could examine more ppl. It
probably was comical for an outsider to watch because I would say something in
spanish he would correct me then the girl would translate to kikichical. Then
back kikichical to espanol to English. It was bad. But I am getting better. A
lot of the symptoms are the same so I am picking up a lot more. The first
patient I had today was a little bebe. She had a really bad infection in her
mouth. She had pus in blisters all on the inside of her mouth it was so sad. We
had to hold her down to see inside. We gave her some antibiotics and some
ibepropheno for the pain. The next lady was old. She had a lot of pain everywhere
and she just was not feeling well so we gave her some antibiotics for the tos
which is a cough in spanish and then an injection for the pain with some
ibepropheno. So today I gave my first injection in the butt. Hahahhaa it was
pretty interesting. Just so you know the skin is a lot tougher than you think
so you have to press really hard to get through all the layers of skin and the
muscle so the needle inters all the skin. So I felt pretty accomplished today.
Hopefully I get more experience like this. It is interesting. But I know for
sure I don’t think I could handle working in a clinic or hospital. Tonight we are
eating with Stephanie at la Iguana
because it is her last night. I hope it is good. We have been so spoiled having
mama Cruz cook such good food. Like for breakfast she made amazing banana pancakes.
For lunch she packed us fresh fruit and peanut butter sandwiches. Well I have
to go to dinner. Miss you all. Cant wait to chat this weekend for those of you
who want to my skype is desi.nelson
Lots of love
DEsi!!!
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