30 Sep Medical clinic from Ty’s perspective!!
My brother, Ty worked with the doctors and nurses daily while Shelton and I basically just went and helped them set up and left to do Copprome shopping and business..then returned to help break down and get supplies back to the hotel…so below are some details Ty shared! He doesn’t think he is a blogger..but I think he did great! Day 1: We got organized this a.m. and set up at the orphanage. Picked up the docs and the one remaining nurse (Dr. Steve, Dr. Steve and Candi) and set up around 2. The next 31/2 hours were bedlam. We saw all the kids plus caregivers and families…I’m guessing 75 – 80 people. Most were relatively healthy but we did see a few who needed more testing and follow up. They were all very grateful and seemed actually happy…can’t say I’m happy to go see the doctor! The most unique visit came in the way of a very large lady in an upholstered chair in the back of a pick-up. One lady walked 3 hours from a mountain village. All in all a very good day. Thanks Lord for this day and for allowing us to share it with these people. Day 2: I cannot send all of the images I’d like to right now…there’s just too many. But here’s a few. Yesterday, Day 2, was spent in Olivos. We saw every child and most of the adults plus some of their families plus a few from neighboring villages…around 140 to 150 folks. Everybody got parasite treatment and vitamins, some got more extensive treatment and some were sent to the lab in town for more testing. There was a lot of diabetic, blood pressure, fungus and infection issues. We had a waiting line from 9 a.m. until 2:30. Then we began to pack up for the next village and distributed food from FHBC and Feeding Children everywhere. It was a very good day. The people in the village were so appreciative, the kids were so loving and our team worked together like they’d been together forever. We finished up the day resorting and organizing for the next day and moving our shoe shipment from S4S into our bodega (warehouse). Day 3 and 4: We began in a village I’ll just call Villa East for short which adjoins another I will call Villa West. The defining characteristic being that both have a small soccer field sometimes used for directional purposes (ie. “next to the soccer field” or “3 houses north of the soccer field”). Our entourage (15 of us… docs, nurses, interpreters, etc, van loaded to the gills….thank goodness Shelton and Rhonda arranged to help us get our gear to the first stop in the truck) arrived at 9 nobody was around…panic…where are they…what’s happened? The building we were supposed to use was not open so we set up outside under the canopy of some huge trees. One local kid, Angel, who works with us sometimes lives in this village…he had gone around letting people know we were coming the night before. He came up to me and said he had found 5 of the 8 chronic patients also. We needed to move by 1 p.m. so I sent he and 4 kids from the local boys home running…a bribe of a “bob bon” ( a big lollipop) in their mouths and off they went, running through the villages in the immediate area letting everyone know the medical team was here NOW and would only be there for a half day. Within minutes the people came pouring in…we went from nada to mucho! The docs, Steve and Steve, were seeing folks as fast as possible, Candi, Natalie and Lori were triaging for the docs as well as assisting as well as treating wounds…Lisa is the newly crowned Queen of the Lab, testing for glucose and urine samples (Uh-Uh…I still won’t let her stick me in the finger!) and Dan, Marshall and Kimberli have the “farmicia” going on filling prescriptions and doling out vitamins and parasite meds to everyone. In the middle of all this are Lola, Leo and Carla our interpreters running from situation to situation, communicating with voices as compassionate as they are skilled. 45 minutes in and we found out there was another crowd at the “other” soccer field waiting…we split the team, Steve 1, Lori, Lola and Neri took off for the second soccer field to care for that group and we shuttled meds back and forth. Everything went pretty well until right about time we were ready to pack it up and move to our next village in the mountains. A young woman came in who was in dire straits…103 temp, delirious and blood pressure very low…she was really sick…malaria? Denghi fever? No way we could tell…the docs made the call to get her to a hospital stat and about that time she passed out and her kids started wailing. Marshall, Dan and I loaded her into a taxi with her mom and vitals and Nando sped off to the hospital with her. It was 1 o’clock…we all needed food and water so we choked down some sandwiches while we packed up, loaded up and began our trek into the mountains. Ok…if you’ve been to Cienega, MX you’ll know what I’m talking about here. Van fully loaded…climbing a dirt/gravel road which is almost straight up, straddling gullies, wondering how high we’re going before we get to this place called Brisas del Norte…moving further and further into the mountains. Nervous laughter accompanied by the WOW factor of a piece of God’s creation that is simply incredible….beautiful…awesome. Needless to say we made it in and made it out. The people were warm and friendly…loved their sense of community and the way they live…no drug runners allowed in this mountain community! We’ll be back to see them again soon. By days end as we pulled back into the hotel and the evening thunderstorms rolled in we had seen some 200 patients. We were tired but we were happy. After a great dinner at Power Chicken we took inventory, repacked all of our meds and equipment, sealed them for storage and made a list of needs for our next trip. Yes, NEXT TRIP. You see, everybody on the mission has committed to return next spring. Our plan is to return with a medical team every 6 months. Thank you Ty…God is so good…He equips us in ways we never tap into until we just dive in and serve…thanks to this entire team for serving this past week! We will do the medical clinic again in 6 months!!! I go again the end of November for Gaby’s graduation…to buy food for Copprome…. and hopefully to bring Gaby home to the U.S…please pray specifically for October 29th… she has her interview with the US embassy in Honduras to get her VISA…I can hardly wait to get her here…. blessings….
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