Two days ago, a beloved member of our Honduran community (Don Goyo) miraculously lived through an accidental electrocution. I visited him today in the hospital in the city and he was smiling and praising God for saving his life. All he lost was his pinkie finger. Absolutely amazing!
Then we heard tragic news. Erlin is a young man who has been working at our hospital for the last year. Everyone knows him as the man with a mask. He wears a surgical mask to protect and cover the gaping hole in his face. He was supposedly diagnosed with cancer a couple years ago and given high doses of radiation to his face. By the time our surgeon saw him, his upper lip and palate had been cut or eroded away. The continuing radiation effects have caused further erosion so that there is basically a huge cavern in the middle of his face. Biopsies have been negative for cancer, but the erosion continued, and we finally had some contacts with Honduran ENT surgeons in the capital city who could take care of him there and try to halt the erosion and reconstruct his face. He was married to his High School sweetheart (Erica) in January, who is also working at our hospital. We were very hopeful that he would finally get the help and care that he needed. Today he died in the capital city of Tegucigalpa. His wife was here in our small community. He had no family or friends around. A young, 21 year old man who has suffered greatly with pain and disfiguration for the last couple years, died alone in a strange city hospital today. Absolutely tragic.
And so we ask, WHY? Why is one man's life miraculously spared and another not? Life is not fair, I know this. God's plans are not our plans, I know that too. But I still ask WHY and struggle with not understanding.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The right place at the right time...
Today I had the experience of being in the right place at the right time...
Don Goyo is a bit of a legend around here. He is full of stories, a hard worker, respected as a Christian leader in the community and can be seen at any time riding along on his bike with his machete in hand, with a ready smile, a goofy grin....Don Goyo works for our director and surgeon, his wife cooks food for the children at the bilingual school, his daughter works at the hospital...you get the picture. Everyone knows him and loves him.
Today I was taking my visiting friend out to the waterfall when we heard yelling and saw about 20 men running along the road and up the hill at the driveway to the director/surgeon's home. Everyone was yelling and in a panic so I stopped my car wondering if their house had been robbed or a dog had killed an animal....but then we heard that Don Goyo had been electrocuted and was hanging from a tree by his foot. They got him out of the tree, he was breathing and crying out in pain, so we loaded him into the bed of the pickup truck I was borrowing, turned around and zoomed to the hospital. He was holding up his charred right hand with his pinkie finger burned and broken off, with charred bone sticking out. We got him on the gurney and brought him into the hospital where we hooked up monitors, started IVs and did general assessment. He was awake and talking and we were so thankful he was stable. He then told me that since the power had been out, he was cutting some branches off a tree that kept hitting the electrical wires. He cut the first branch, and then as he was cutting the second branch, the electricity came back on and he was electrocuted. The electricity entered through his burned hand and exited his right foot. He fell backward and his foot caught in a Y branch of the tree which likely saved his life. If he had fallen from the tree he may have broken his neck!
After the initial assessment, I asked how he was. He told me felt like he was dying when the electricity hit him. Then he said, "but our God is powerful and he is gracious and he gave me a second chance". Then he asked about his wife and was so worried that she would be worried about him. He said, "I know I will be OK, but I worry for her because she will be so scared for me. I want to know that she is OK." Several of us had tears in our eyes to hear that this precious man who just had his finger burned off and nearly fell to his death was not concerned at all for his own wellbeing, rather the wellbeing of his wife.
He was stable but there are so many possible complications from an electrical injury that we knew we couldn't handle with our lab and equipment here, especially with our surgeon out of town. So, we transformed a Landcruiser into a makeshift ambulance with an oxygen tank and sent him to the private hospital in La Ceiba where he could have the careful lab monitoring that he needs for the next couple days. They arrived safely in town and an orthopedic surgeon saw him and will only have to amputate his pinkie and no other fingers. Praise God! For a man who lives and works with his machete, he needs as many fingers as can be saved!
So, I thank God that we were headed to the waterfall right at that moment and were there to bring Don Goyo into the hospital and round up the docs and nurses to help right away. Sometimes you wonder why you were doing a certain thing at a certain time and sometimes you know exactly why....
Don Goyo is a bit of a legend around here. He is full of stories, a hard worker, respected as a Christian leader in the community and can be seen at any time riding along on his bike with his machete in hand, with a ready smile, a goofy grin....Don Goyo works for our director and surgeon, his wife cooks food for the children at the bilingual school, his daughter works at the hospital...you get the picture. Everyone knows him and loves him.
Today I was taking my visiting friend out to the waterfall when we heard yelling and saw about 20 men running along the road and up the hill at the driveway to the director/surgeon's home. Everyone was yelling and in a panic so I stopped my car wondering if their house had been robbed or a dog had killed an animal....but then we heard that Don Goyo had been electrocuted and was hanging from a tree by his foot. They got him out of the tree, he was breathing and crying out in pain, so we loaded him into the bed of the pickup truck I was borrowing, turned around and zoomed to the hospital. He was holding up his charred right hand with his pinkie finger burned and broken off, with charred bone sticking out. We got him on the gurney and brought him into the hospital where we hooked up monitors, started IVs and did general assessment. He was awake and talking and we were so thankful he was stable. He then told me that since the power had been out, he was cutting some branches off a tree that kept hitting the electrical wires. He cut the first branch, and then as he was cutting the second branch, the electricity came back on and he was electrocuted. The electricity entered through his burned hand and exited his right foot. He fell backward and his foot caught in a Y branch of the tree which likely saved his life. If he had fallen from the tree he may have broken his neck!
After the initial assessment, I asked how he was. He told me felt like he was dying when the electricity hit him. Then he said, "but our God is powerful and he is gracious and he gave me a second chance". Then he asked about his wife and was so worried that she would be worried about him. He said, "I know I will be OK, but I worry for her because she will be so scared for me. I want to know that she is OK." Several of us had tears in our eyes to hear that this precious man who just had his finger burned off and nearly fell to his death was not concerned at all for his own wellbeing, rather the wellbeing of his wife.
He was stable but there are so many possible complications from an electrical injury that we knew we couldn't handle with our lab and equipment here, especially with our surgeon out of town. So, we transformed a Landcruiser into a makeshift ambulance with an oxygen tank and sent him to the private hospital in La Ceiba where he could have the careful lab monitoring that he needs for the next couple days. They arrived safely in town and an orthopedic surgeon saw him and will only have to amputate his pinkie and no other fingers. Praise God! For a man who lives and works with his machete, he needs as many fingers as can be saved!
So, I thank God that we were headed to the waterfall right at that moment and were there to bring Don Goyo into the hospital and round up the docs and nurses to help right away. Sometimes you wonder why you were doing a certain thing at a certain time and sometimes you know exactly why....
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Meeting with the lay midwives
The last week of January John (our nurse midwife) and I had a meeting with the lay midwives in the communities. John has done some teaching in the past, but had not met with them for a year. Now that we have a little more support from our local Centro de Salud through the department of health, we are ready to get started again. Since I am new to the area it is a good excuse to "start over". We had our typical lengthy Honduran introductions and then spent the rest of the two hours asking them questions about their needs, what the 
women in the communities believe about labor and delivery, what the lay midwives believe about what happens and why and how to handle it. Mostly it was a "getting to know each other" session. We were encouraged by some very correct responses, scared by others. But we were overall encouraged that the ladies who showed up are interested in learning. The ladies that work farther back in the mountains have a reputation for 'doing their own thing' and not being interested in learning or coming to meetings. We are praying for wisdom in how to reach them and get them involved. I kept emphasizing that our goal is to have healthy moms and healthy babies and we need to work together to achieve that goal.
women in the communities believe about labor and delivery, what the lay midwives believe about what happens and why and how to handle it. Mostly it was a "getting to know each other" session. We were encouraged by some very correct responses, scared by others. But we were overall encouraged that the ladies who showed up are interested in learning. The ladies that work farther back in the mountains have a reputation for 'doing their own thing' and not being interested in learning or coming to meetings. We are praying for wisdom in how to reach them and get them involved. I kept emphasizing that our goal is to have healthy moms and healthy babies and we need to work together to achieve that goal. 
Some of the more humorous responses: don't let new Mom's eat green things or the baby will poop green and that is bad, women have increased vaginal secretions during pregnancy because the baby is spitting a lot, women get infections after delivery because they have sex too soon and "men are dirty down there", women get postpartum infections because they eat dirt......:)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
