Stuck on the wrong side of the river...

When they talk about the rainy season here, they are not kidding! I've never seen so much rain in all my life! I went to town with the surgeon and his wife this week and we got stuck on the wrong side of the 'plancha' (the dry river bed that turned into a raging river over 6ft deep!). We sat there for 2 hours watching the rain pummel us and all the people on either side hoping the water would go down. A couple guys tried to swim across and the current was so strong they barely made it! Finally it was getting dark so all the buses and cars turned around. We ended up staying in La Ceiba (the city) that night. We went and got toothbrushes and then went to dinner in our wet clothes. Fortunately, I don't get cold down here too easy, but they were freezing! We went out to dinner and I splurged and had Filet Mignon for $7! Not suffering too bad! :)

Roseanne just HAD to have clean underwear, so a gaggle of girls followed her around the store to 'help' and tried to convince her to get a g-string. She was trying to explain that she wanted underwear that actually covered her bottom and soon the whole store was very interested in her taste in underwear! So funny!

Fortunately, the next morning the raging river was more manageable, down to about 4 ft high in the middle and not too terribly strong. We made it across in the landcruiser with the snorkel. Everyone else was being pulled across by this huge tractor. I"m glad we didn't have to try to go across in a little canoe with all our groceries and junk!

So, that was my first "trapped on the wrong side of a raging river" experience in Honduras. I 'm sure it will become old hat soon enough!

Supersize

Today was a strange day of abnormally large things. A 72 year old man came in with the complaint of 'hernia', which is fairly common around here. As he pulled down his pants, I was about to ask him which side was bothering him, when he revealed an incredibly huge scrotum. We're talking football size...actually a little bigger than a football. I was amazed and astounded. I had never seen such a large hernia except in the textbooks. I ran to get the surgeon so he could share in the hugeness of it all and schedule surgery!

Then a young girl of 16 presented with abnormally large breasts. Again we are talking supersize here. She was very uncomfortable and was having a lot of back pain and couldn't even find a bra large enough to fit. She made Pamela Anderson look like she was wearing a training bra. I felt really bad for her and we are trying to figure out a way to get her a breast reduction surgery so that she can at least sit up straight.

Obviously photos of these cases would not be appropriate!

Bouncing Baby Boy!

We had another delivery at the hospital and it was very fun! It was a lady that I have seen many times for prenatal care and so it was great to be with her and her family for the birth of her first child.

Tea Party!

After taking care of another scary snakebite and spending three hours in the middle of the night digging rocks out of a kid's head and sewing his scalp back together, I was ready for a tea party. Some of the young girls told me I had to dress up and come with an appetite! We had a lovely time drinking lots of sugar with a little tea, giggling over nothing, and having very refined and sophisticated activities such as trying to keep a cup on the end of your chin longer than anyone else! :) It was great to hang out and relax. They started talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up and I realized that I am grown up and I am doing what I've always wanted to do! Cool! I guess they call that living the dream! :)

Snakebites and swimming holes

A lady came into the hospital this week after being bit by a coral snake. She was reaching behind some dried corn in their storage room and grabbed a snake. It bit her on the finger and by the time she came to us her arm and face were numb. We had six vials of antivenom and we gave it all to her. She got a little worse, then better, then worse again. So, since we were out of antivenom and we don't have a ventilator in case she went into respiratory failure during the night, we sent her into the city. Scary stuff!

This morning a few of us drove up a muddy road and then hiked across a river, past a waterfall, and down a dense jungle trail to a lovely swimming hole. As we struggled through the dense underbrush, the thought entered my head. I hope I don't run into a snake, since we don't have any more antivenom!!! We stepped very carefully. :) Then we went bouldering up the river in flip flops....lots of slipping and sliding! We swam across to where there is a natural hot spring. The sand was really warm (hot if you dug your feet in) and there was a nice warm mud hole! Gorgeous scenery!

Drumming and dancing...

Most of you know by now that I have a relatively recent infatuation with drumming. It all started in London, was greatly enhanced by my bongo drum purchase in Africa, and now I am learning to play a full drum set from some of the teenagers here. What a blast! Praise God for music! One of the VERY musical families here has a drum set in their extra room as well as many other instruments and the missionary kids get together biweekly for "jam sessions" to Christian music. I join when I can and it is a great learning environment. While I am trying to hit things to the right rythm, they are learning guitar, base, flute, keyboards...crazy, scary musical talent here!!! :)

Today it was pouring rain during the kid's PE class, so I was roped into teaching them country line dancing. They did great with the Electric Slide, but struggled a bit with the Tush Push and the Boot Scootin' Boogie. We all had a blast and no one got hurt, so I count it a success!

New Birth

We've had a few deliveries lately. Loma de Luz Hospital is not officially open for deliveries, but when women show up ready to push a baby out and there is no time to send them to the city, we take them in. Of course, I think it's a blast! It has helped us to get a little more organized, write some protocols and prepare for the future. It also points out the incredible lack of training that our nurses have in Obstetrics. In nursing school they may spend from 1-3 weeks total on a labor and delivery unit. It is a big change from a hospital where our labor nurses had MANY years of experience and were our teachers at first. Now, I have to explain every little thing. It is helpful though to know how basic we will have to start with our education. Now if we could just get some more nurses to train!!!

Here are some pictures of a bouncing baby boy that was born here last week.

Escape to the Waterfalls

This last week has been really rough. We’ve been having problems yet again with the government and medical college of Honduras in the continuing struggle to get our doctors licensed here. But I won’t bore you all with the ghastly details. What I prefer to write is about the blessing of God’s beautiful nature. What a wonderful gift to enjoy some of that this weekend. Saturday we all took off for our favorite waterfall and had a wonderful day playing in the water, cliff jumping, hiking to the top of the falls, swimming in pools higher up, getting a great back massage under a small waterfall…good times all around. Of course we did have the little setback of the tailgate of the truck falling off as we drove there, so three of our boys took a nose dive into the mud! It was very funny actually!











And of course, the obligatory traffic jam at the cattle crossing. Poor Sally got caught on the wrong side! We had to wait for all the cattle to go by so she could get back to our side!

Then this afternoon I had another fun diversion for a few hours to take my mind off the stresses of medical stuff. I went with some of the youth down to the beach and we found a huge log, drug it into the water and played "king of the log" for what seemed like hours. Why is knocking people into the water sooooo entertaining?
I just thank God for the little pleasures in life that remind us that the world is not actually falling apart and that there are many things out there besides our problems.

Missionary Conference

This weekend we loaded up the Landcruisers with luggage and kids and headed for the hills. About 30 of us went to the Honduran Missionary Conference in Siguatepeque about a 6 hr drive from here. Those who couldn't go (and had to stay and cover the hospital) sent their kids along anyway, so we had the whole gaggle. What a blast!

There were missionaries from all over the country starting Bible Colleges, teaching english, running medical clinics, ministry to prostitutes, church planting...so many cool people out there! I made great contacts and learned a lot from others. Our speaker was an incredible man who was a missionary in the Phillipines for over 20 years. What stories that guy had! Whew! He was hilarious and inspiring and challenging...best speaker I've heard in a long time! It was cool to be at a conference for missionaries. There was none of this "you need to go out and serve" business. It was all, "now that you're here, how do you best minister to people?".

Hanging out with the MKs was one of the highlights of the weekend. I was one of the chaperones for the swimming pool and that was a good time, except for when some of the kids got in trouble (I'm still trying to figure out that balance between buddy, big sister, and adult). Then we played games, stayed up late talking, told stories, prayed together. Precious kids!

Another highlight was the deliciously cool weather. I actually put on jeans and a sweater. It was so exciting to finally be cold again! At night when I shivered and pulled my blanket up around my neck, I thought I might have died and gone to heaven. As I sit here sweating at 10pm back in the lowlands, I wonder why God didn't call me to the mountains???

Family Surgery

So, today, I was the lucky doctor chosen to remove part of an infected fingernail of one of the MKs (missionary kid). She didn't want it done, but she REALLY didn't want her Dad to do it, so she let me. Of course since all the MKs here are like brothers and sisters they couldn't resist coming in to see what what going on and to make sure that Katie was OK. I had about 10 curious eyes staring at me while I worked! It was actually pretty funny because every time a new kid would come in, they would ask "is she cutting off her finger?". When it was all done and Katie had indeed survived, with the support of her friends, Katie's Dad came in and took pictures of us all. So much for patient confidentiality! :)

Home visits

Last weekend I went out with my friends John and Penny to the hills to visit a family. We went 4-wheeling up a crazy dirt road for half an hour and then hiked up and up and up the mountains to a ridge over looking the ocean and the villages below. Breathtaking! About ten minutes before we arrived at their home, the heavens let loose and gave us a nice shower. We were already soaked with sweat, so it didn't make much difference!

We spent several hours with them, discussing medical problems, giving them some meds, encouraging, learning and praying with them. It was a great time. The only uncomfortable part was when they insited that we eat some of their fresh, homemade cheese. Yikes! We really prayed over that cheese that we wouldn't be running to the toilet with diarrea the next few days. (we were spared!)

It was such a blessing to visit that family who is so remote. And there are sooooo many others WAY out there that could take many hours, maybe days to reach. And we wonder why they wait to the last minute to come to the clinic!

The biggest pager in the world!

When I was an intern, I had to wear four pagers when I was on call. It was terrible, you were pulling up your pants all night long and when one went off, you would frantically search your waistline for the offending machine.

Now that I am out of training and into the jungles, I have traded in my pagers for a very large, fairly heavy CB radio. So, I once again have the "pants falling down all day" problem. Is there no justice in this world? Am I doomed to be forever hitching up my pants? Should I give in and start wearing suspenders???

Bambu Waterfall

Amongst the many tragedies that we see here every day, (breast cancer left untreated and grown into a fungating mass coming out the skin) there is amazing beauty all around in nature. Today was a national holiday, which meant a day off. Yippee! There is a visiting doctor and his wife who really wanted to go to the waterfall, so after much calling around, I finally commandeered a vehicle for a few hours and off we went. We bumped and jostled down the road, crossed many rivers (almost got stuck in one!), and then hiked up the river to a lovely waterfall and fresh water pool. Gorgeous. It was nice to relax and get away from the craziness of the hospital!

Salsa and Zuko

I must say that I make some pretty mean salsa. I'm quite well known among Greeleyites for my delicious salsa and for the taste of garlic left in your mouth for several days after eating it! :) Unfortunately, my secret weapon (salsa maker) did not make it to Honduras, so I was reduced to chopping vegetables by hand. No wonder people don't make salsa that often! Its a lot of work! I'll have to try it out on some of the other missionaries and see if they

like it as much as my Colorado friends.

Just wanted to show the "juice of choice" for most Hondurans in these parts. ZUKO. It is of course not juice at all, rather lotsa sugar with some flavoring. Strange thing is that it really grows on you and I've become quite fond of the Mango flavor. Hope all my teeth don't fall out! The local Honduran dental disaster is a good demonstration of what happens when you drink sugar and never brush your teeth!

Really big scrubs...

Supersize! The Hondurans were amazed that they could fit a whole person in each leg of these scrub pants that were donated.

Tarantula!!!

I awoke with an itchy toe, realizing something had bit me. I turned on the light and glanced at the clock. It was midnight. For some reason I remembered that I had not checked under my bed that night for bugs. As I hung my head over the edge of the bed, my breath caught in my throat at the sight before me. I blinked my eyes several times and wondered if I was dreaming. Then it moved. One huge, long, hairy leg after another, walking toward me. I’ve never seen a tarantula so big!!!! I yelped and called out to Amy that there was a tarantula under my bed. So, there we were, both bleary eyed, standing on our beds, wondering what to do! We ended up putting on our hiking boots, finding brooms and sticks and bowls and chasing the silly thing out from under the bed, then out from under the dresser and finally trapping it under a bowl. It was quite the ordeal and involved much jumping from one bed to another. Talk about adrenaline! We scooted the bowl outside and put a large brick on top of it. The next day we watched it bake in the sun.

Cayos Cochinos Islands

9/10/07

I had this weekend off, so Amy and I went on a little adventure to the Cayos Cochinos which are some tiny islands just off the coast here. We have a lot of patients from there and they have no consistent medical care there. They have a nurse 3 mo out of the year on the big island, otherwise they have to take a boat to the mainland to see a doctor. We took a very small blue canoe with an outboard motor out on the open ocean with fisherman, Malaquias. We put-putted for 1 1/2 hrs to get there. (In a large boat it only takes 45 min.) Malaquias was bailing water the whole time and we were praying for no waves higher than the 6 inches that we were sticking out of the water!!!

We stayed on a tiny little island called Chachajuate, about the size of a football field, where anywhere from 60-120 people live in little huts on the sand. There are fishing boats all around and plenty of hammocks. They recently put in a composting toilet, but I think they still "do their business" in the ocean most of the time. There is a lock on the toilet, so anytime you want to take a dump, you have to go find the "keeper of the keys". I guess she could give you a pretty good account of everyone's bowel habits! :) Anyway, we stayed in a little "cabana" for $4 per night. It was just a rickety bed on a sand floor, with wooden walls and open windows overlooking the sea. We could hear the waves all night! It was lovely. We learned a lot about the Garifuna people and hope to eventually start monthly trips to the islands to provide medical care and education.

Losing a patient

9/12/07
We just lost a patient this afternoon. She was struck by lightning near the river while bathing her child. She was immediately unconscious. It took them 15-20 min to get here, no CPR. On arrival she was cold and unresponsive, no breathing, no heartbeat, no pulse. We did CPR, got an IV, gave meds and she finally had cardiac rythm. We intubated, gave more meds. The EKG shows a huge inferior myocardial infarction. (common in lightning strikes per our cardiologist). We worked on her for two hours but she never took a breath or responded. The worst is that we have no ventilator here, no ICU, no way to transport her safely to La Ceiba. They say that she would likely not make it to town (the ambulance is a truck with no trained personnel) and even if she did make it with a heartbeat, the track record in La Ceiba is very poor for any critically ill patient surviving. We discussed taking turns bagging her (ventilating her by hand) overnight but our director vetoed that. It is likely that she didn't have oxygen to her brain for 20, maybe 30 minutes. We finally had to call it. She left behind a husband and six children. She was only 34 yrs old.

Machete Wounds

How is it that one tool can keep us doctors so busy? Perhaps because every Honduran and their dog owns a machete or two or three and never leaves home without it. They carry their trusty machete everywhere...walking down the road, working in the fields (obviously), riding on a bicycle, hopping in the back of a truck, under their pillow at night... I admit it is an incredibly useful tool. It is used mainly in the fields for working with crops, but also comes in handy for gathering firewood, cutting grass, cutting rope or string, chopping the head off a snake, cutting up meat or veggies (the all-round super-size cooking knife), self defense weapon...and the list goes on. Since Hondurans carry this tool with them and leave them lying about their homes, I spend several hours per week sewing up machete wounds. Most of them are accidents. The kid tripped over the machete lying about in the kitchen. A man mistook his leg for the plant he was cutting down. The five people riding on one bicycle fell over and someone landed on their machete. However, other docs have seen some very serious wounds inflicted during drunken brawls where machete wielding is common. All this to say that the "Honduran household tool" is causing a steady improvement in my suturing skills. Good thing I like to sew!

Hurricane Felix

Praise the Lord it passed us by! We had battened down the hatches, bagged up valuables, moved furniture away from windows, and were getting ready to move patients around in the hospital when we received news that Hurricane Felix had changed course and was moving through central Honduras rather than along the coast. It hit Nicaragua as a Category 5 and caused great damage, but as it turned inland, it hit the mountains of central Honduras and transitioned into a mere Tropical Storm. What a relief! Lots of rain and a few power outages is all we suffered. I consider all the scrambling about and hurricane preparation as good practice for the next one. Hurricane Season is just beginning!

Flowers and Bugs

On one of my "exercise walks" up the hill to the water tower, I found this cute flower with a lovely little green spider on it. So, I immortalized it on film forever!

There are a few other bugs I took photos of that I will share. Most of you are probably not so interested in the little flowers and pretty bugs, but I tend to think that its the little details that make life so interesting. God is incredibly creative!