Deirdre’s Blog

At the airport waiting to head home. Saw patients on my own in Spanish today, big step up from my first day. I’m going to miss this place. More to follow when I get my computer.

I am back in Roatan. 

I do not have good enough internet to post pics.  We worked for 3 days in a clinic.  The pulled 9th graders to be our translators.  My room was at the end of the hall.  It was literally the end of the hall with a shower curtin hung up.  The 3rd day it became the operating room when we did 2 scar revisions because if you opened the door you had the best light in the place.  The medications the mission trip ordered were detained in customs all week, so other group members drove around to pharmacies to buy what they could.  There were many people we could not help, but those we could we did using our limited supplies. 

One day we went to La Linea, or the line to hold a clinic.  It is a community built along the old railroad line.  The people were very nice, only spoke Spanish, and were very poor with no electricity.  I was able to use my newly aquired yet still limited medical spanish skills to see most of the patients without the help of translators which was nice as otherwise I had to hunt down a member of the group who spoke spanish and english. 

I plan to work in the clinic back here on Roatan Monday before flying home.  Hopefully I can post some pictures for you then.  You will all be glad to know, this morning I petted the dolphins.

La ceiba is not like Roatan. Got the travelers and survived. Seeing pts with translators pulled from 9th grade. More later

Safe in la ceiba. With church missionaries. Clinic tomorrow.

the trible has spoken

Well folks I have been voted off the island.

Ok not quite, but I am heading over to La Ceiba, or the mainland to work with a group of doctors there.  Not sure about internet over there, so if you don’t hear from me…..I’m in the jungle somewhere.  We leave Sunday and get back Friday, weather permitting.   It should be an interesting adventure. 

On the books for this weekend….zip-line down a mountain over a jungle and land on a beach.

you’ve got mail

So clinic last week was crazy.  Tons of patients every day, but i am starting to think that is how it always is.  So I will tell you about wednesday.  We went on a community outreach “field trip” to Crawfish Rock.  We took “mudhole road” which is kind of like a roller coster the whole time.  TONS of potholes and hills.  It took us up into the mountains where we got a gorgeous view of French Harbor.  At one point you could see the ocean on both sides of the island, so that gives you an idea of how wide it is.  When we got to our destination, we stopped at the matriarch’s house and took care of her feet on the front porch.  She has had diabetic ulcers for years, and we cleaned them up while swatting away the flies.  We then found the school teacher and took over a room of the school house.  From there the word spread and soon we had a line out the door waiting to see us.  We were giving everyone worm medication and vitamins as well as treating the other problems we could diagnose without tests and had medication with us that would work.  We soon ran out of childrens vitamins with many children to go.  There was a triage station for BP and blood sugars, then they proceeded to me or an ER resident, and the attending physician wandered around until we needed his help.  I quickly found that the name on the triage sheet was not the only one who needed medication.  It was also their other child, and this one, and this one, and this one, oh and can we treat the one at school.  From there the patient went to the pharmacy, which was a tupperware bin with an assortment of medications.  After this, they left.  I have no idea how many patients we saw, but after a few hours they put an end to the line and we packed up and headed home.

Over the weekend I started my scuba diving certification.  I hate the skills, but I guess I should know what to do in case of emergency.  After skills I got to go on dives for fun.  The first day we saw 2 turtles, many many fish, and several other things I can’t remember the names of right now.  It was gorgeous.  There are hand signals so the instructor can point out the fish that I should look at but wouldn’t recognize myself.  On Sunday we went diving on the other side of the island because a storm was blowing in.  There we dove along a giant wall.  The wall was on our left side and went down below where you could see, and to our right side was vast blue nothingness.  I just went deeper and shallower along the wall and saw several shrimp, 2 giant puffer fish, a fire worm, 2 trumpet fish and several other things.

Sunday midmorning it started to rain…..and sunday night it rained….and monday all day it rained…and Tuesday morning it rained.  I am talking rain unlike anything I have seen before. Rain so hard you couldn’t talk inside the house because you couldn’t hear over the rain.  It would come in waves from light sprinkle to hard rain to torrential downpour.  When we woke up today there was no power and no water.  We waited for a time it wasn’t raining too hard and walked to clinic.  The clinic had no power and was partially flooded.  Come to find out, even in the rainy season it does not rain like the last few days.  We mopped up the clinic, turned on the generator, and another day of clinic began.

I found internet!!!

So I feel like I have been on Roatan for a week when in reality, it hasn’t even been 3 full days.  I’ll tell you why…

Thursday:  Catch flight in Chicago at 2am, stop in Guadalajara City, Change plans in El Salvador, land in Roatan, get run through customs (amazing), go to clinic, meet people, 3 second costume change to shorts, go work at clinic in the pharmacy, shower, 30 min nap, go to West End for going away party for volunteer leaving next day, go to bed.

Friday:  Go to clinic and work in triage at 730am.  Let me tell you, what Spanish I thought I knew……….not cutting it.  But I did learn enough to weigh people, take BP, pulse, and get chief complaint.  That was the most interesting part because in the end, I had to put something in the computer for the doctor.  I did ok though and we finished around 3.  Then I got to go to the grocery store, which was great because if you have been paying attention, I left KC on Tuesday morning and it is now Friday afternoon.  They have interesting new foods here, and almost everything is sold in a bag….bag of milk, bag of refried beans, bag of la creama. 

Saturday: The clinic is closed on the weekends so at 7am! we went snorkeling.  A family of volunteers lives right next to a dolphin pen, so if you go before the trainers get there, you can pet the dolphins through a net fence.  I was too afraid to really pet them, but I did play catch with a couple of them and a piece of seaweed.  It was very cool, and next time I am determined to pet one.  We then snorkeled for a couple hours and saw many very cool fish, starfish, coral reef, lobster (Huge).  We then went to eat lunch, then went to a pool.  It was up on a hill and overlooked the ocean; it was gorgeous. 

Sunday is known as beach day, and everyone goes to church then hangs out on the beach.  I haven’t tried it yet, but it is sure to be amazing.

In posts to follow I will tell you all about the people, the view, and the creatures, but for now, bedtime as the roster crows at 5am (literally).

PS I can read comments, I just have not figured out how to get them to show up for everyone else. It is not high on my list, just thought you would want to know I get them emailed to me.

Buenos noches!

8.2.10

Ok, so you get two posts in one.  I tried to post the other day but the Internet wouldn’t load the site.

So this week in the clinic I have been paired with Dr. Raymond.  He grew up and was trained in Honduras.  He speaks Spanish and English, with Spanish being his primary language.  He disappears a lot in clinic which gives me the opportunity to see the patients and examine them on my own.  I can get the main idea of why the patient is in the clinic most times, but he expands it a lot when he arrives.  He also councils the patients, which is good, but it is often far beyond my Spanish language skills.  He is very patient with answering questions, so I try to pick up a piece and ask him to expand on what he said. 

My apartment has been causing us some problems, but we hopefully fixed them today.  I have two roommates, pharmacy students from Rochester, NY.  There was a housing mix-up, but it works out because it was cheaper for everyone, and they are sharing one bedroom and I have the other.  We ran out of drinking water Saturday night, so we have been going to another volunteer’s apartment once a day to beg for water.  We have some now, so everyone is excited.  We also had a problem when we would randomly loose running water….usually in the middle of someone’s shower.  It was annoying, especially when it happened to me and I had to ask someone to bring me a water bottle to rinse with.  We assumed this was normal for some reason until mentioning it to someone who told us it was not in fact normal and we should get that fixed.  Today we found the handyman and he hopefully fixed it for us. 

I think that is about all for now, we are meeting up with a couple other volunteers tonight to play games.  I made Tang to take, here it is sold in packets, premixed to fill a 1 liter bottle and it is supposed to be amazing.  Some of the volunteers that come once a year take a case home with them because they crave it. 

Hope everyone is safe and not snowed in.  I am sweating here in scrub pants and a t-shirt, hopefully it is warm by the time I get home!

PS No pictures because it exceeds the size limit.  Sorry.

Hola

This will be short as the bugs are eating me alive.  We are allowed to use the internet outside the clinic after hours, but the sun is setting and I am fresh meat.

I am safe at Roatan.  The clinic is amazing.  I am convinced half the island works here, or helps here, or is somehow connected to the clinic.  More on that soon, I will type and paste from now on.

I have 2 roommates.  There was a housing mix-up, but they are very nice and it is good to have people to travel around with.

I will post when I can, but they keep us busy, and the off time is well filled with beach and island activities.

Buenos noches.

Take 3

Location: Chicago

So my journey to Roatan is not as smooth as I might have hoped.  I tried, but did not outrun what many have termed snowpocalypse.  Let’s hope tomorrow the snow stops so that i can continue on my way.