During morning conference, David reviewed heart murmurs, but I got pulled away before he finished to head out for the vision screenings. We jumped in Manu’s truck, picked up 3 more volunteers along the way and headed to Instituto Jose Santos Guardiola in Coxen Hole. It’s a high school with 500 kids in the morning shift and 350 in the afternoon. We went upstairs to the library, which was air conditioned! The other volunteers set up the “clinic” in a heart beat. Two eye charts on the far end with two computers and a bit of tape on the ground at the other end.
Soon, the first batch of kids came in. At first I was sitting at a table fuming over the fact that I was missing out on a clinic morning to be completely superfluous at this vision screening. But then I took over for Manu at the door, so I became the bouncer, role caller, and flow maintainer. The kids were great. They were all excited to get called at the door. The kids crowding the door were eager to help me decide who was here and who wasn’t. They laughed at me when I miss pronounced a name. A few of them would stand on the balcony practicing covering their eyes. Some kids were very quick to speak English with us, and others had difficulty understanding what the testers wanted from them.
At one point there was some assembly going on in the courtyard, which combined with the general din of a whole bunch of kids hanging around on the balcony made for quite a chaotic environment to have two letter readings going on simultaneously. We finished 4 classes: the third class of 8th grade and 3 classes of 9th grade (though here their called second course and third course). It was fun to hang out with the kids and some of them really needed the vision screening, but I missed being at the clinic where I felt more engaged and helpful.
I gladly hopped in the back of the truck when we left the school. It was a nice tour through Coxen Hole and then Manu stopped at the big fancy grocery store! Huzzah, real food for Maggie! When Manu dropped me off near my hostel, I went back (sweating in my scrubs) and made myself a salad and sandwich for lunch!
Then I walked back to the clinic with my computer. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to be working on the adolescent program (which I had originally planned on) or head back out for vision testing. Soon after I got there Lena asked for my assistance on a wound clean out. I chatted with Dr. Raymond and then went upstairs to try to find Leigh. I popped in on Alanna, who was not doing so well. She said the pain was getting worse and nausea had set in. An insurance caretaker was arriving today to fly back with her tomorrow. She’ll be glad to have real pain meds back in Canada.
When I came back downstairs, Manu and the eye checkers had left, so my afternoon was free for public health thought. Leigh arrived and while she first met with the 2 new PAs to talk about a diabetes intervention, I went downstairs to see how things were going for Julia. She saw all the English speaking patients. I hung around to see an older woman who was recovering from a bad allergic reaction, was told she had some infection in her body, and needed a refill on her meds.
I went back upstairs to work on class 1 of the teen education course: anatomía, desarrollo y menstruación. I touched base with Leigh on some things, and then got to work. After some time, I went back downstairs. I asked Dr. Molina about a toe fungus that I haven’t done anything about for a while. He gave me an antifungal cream.
I saw a preeclamptic patient with Dr. Raymond, then went back upstairs to work on the PowerPoint. The internet in the clinic was bleeping in and out today, so I would jump back and forth between using the internet to find resources and working on the PowerPoint when the internet went down.
Headed back to the hostel. I was going to go for a walk, but the spirit moved me and I put my kicks on for a run. At first everything was grand. I was loving running on the beach. The colors were beautiful – yellow sun and blue water. But then a couple dogs came running at me. Their owners were outside and they started shouting at the dogs. I stopped to defend myself, but they didn’t attack. They must have roused the neighbor’s dogs who came barking toward me. I immediately started retreating, but one of them bit me on the butt. The owners of the second dogs were yelling and the first dogs owners were throwing coconuts at the dogs. I was trying to turn back the other way and the first dogs came at me again, I was shin deep in the water at this point. The coconut throwing cleared the dogs and I got the heck out of there, my heart racing. So that will be my last jog on the beach here.
I shot some hoops as I passed a group of neighborhood people. I missed 4 in a row and then made a backwards shot – so I left on that minor success. I showered and then returned to the beach house where Roger was cooking dinner for a few of us. I caught up on my blog while Roger cooked and Mikayla and Austin looked through movie selections and started watching Monsters University. Then we played a card game similar to gluck, but more like solitaire.
The food was delicious. He made sea bass and rice. We hung out for a while and then I was hostel-bound.