Day 2 of Clinic

Thursday June 16

More pictures will be added when we get home!

Day 2 of clinic went much smoother than day 1. We saw 123 patients on day 1 and 122 patients on day 2. Today though the patients didn't show up when they were scheduled. We had a huge lag in time from about 10 am until 1 pm. where no patients showed up. We saw 42 patients in the morning and all the rest after lunch. We were able to handle it because we sent several patients who had no main health complaint to the deworming station where Olivia handed out mebendazole, vitamins, and toothbrushes with floss. This was a huge help. She saw about 50 patients that wouldn't need to see the doctors then. In between those patients she saw patients at the triage station.

Olivia, Linda Working Together in Triage



Red-headed Child Waiting to be Seen by a Doctor

Select this link for more information about ancient, red-headed mummies found in Peru:
https://hiddenincatours.com/the-mysterious-red-haired-mummies-of-the-coast-of-peru/



Lindsey Working Triage

Our triage station was staffed by Olivia, Lindsey, and Linda. They took all the vitals: blood pressure, temp, weight, urinalysis, pregnancy tests, pulse rate, anything they thought was important for the doctors to know. They had to deal with vomiting, crying babies, children running all over, and many, many Peruvian adults waiting to be seen by the American doctors.

Some key things I remember from our first two days in clinic:

One of the first patients was a minor miracle. He was in a wheelchair and couldn't come up the stairs. He had surgery on his foot five months previously and still couldn't bear weight. He wasn't given any physical therapy. Charlie went downstairs to examine him. She gave him one of the orthopedic boots we had. He put it on and was able to stand!  He walked around!  He was so happy he started to cry. Now he could do his own PT at home by walking around. What a great way to start our clinic. (Deb's friend Kimberlie, from AT&T, donated this boot from a major fracture she had two years prior. Deb was hesitant in brining the boot because she wasn't sure there was a need for it. God provides the team with a variety of medical problems. We're fortunate that the boot was still in our medical inventory to help him.)

Many women came in the clinic with multiple children. While they seemed happy, they also looked worn down. Their health suffered because of lack of proper nutrition, lack of fluids, and the heat. This is Peru's winter but the temperature still soars into the 90s during the day and falls to the 60s at night. We saw children wearing coats during the late afternoon. They say it's cold. One child was wearing a parka, snow pants, and boots.  To us it was so hot in the day that we would swear just standing still. The evenings were wonderfully cool and we would sleep with our windows open in the gated hostel.

Dr. Bob and Patients

We used a lot of hydrocortisone cream for rashes. The antibiotic lotion we had is running low. We only have two tubes left. We have a lot of clomitrazole left for fungal infections. I really thought we'd see more. The antibiotic cream that was in the lost donations bag would have come in handy. Deb is contacting the airline today to see if they've located it yet. We also could use more eye glasses. The lost suitcase was packed with them. Everyone wants eye glasses. Some need two pairs - one for nearsightedness and one for farsightedness. We have very few bifocals for them. Testing eyesight is tricky. They read the most blurry line on a sheet of paper and then they try on glasses and try to read again. They keep trying on stronger prescriptions until they find a pair that works the best. Some of them are more worried about fashion than function. The teammates running the eye station (mostly Emily now) have to convince them that function is better than fashion.

Some adolescent boys came in complaining of a rash in their face and bodies which turned out to be acne so the doctors did a lot of hygiene education.

Several patients came in with high blood pressure. They had previously had medical care and were given meds but they don't want their meds to run out so they only take them when their head hurts - a real recipe for a stroke or heart attack.

Health care is very different her than in the US. If you need to see a doctor then you need to pay now. If you don't have the money you don't get to be seen. So many patients don't treat chronic illness and disease the way we would with daily meds. Instead they wait for symptoms and then take the meds. This obviously isn't how the meds were meant to be used.

A big excitement was to give a pregnancy test. All the triage and intake staff would wait anxiously for the results. To date so far, not one of our pregnancy tests have been positive yet. We thought to test a patient we actually know is pregnant as a control to make sure our test strips are still viable but haven't done that so far. I'm not sure if our first pregnancy diagnosis will be as exciting to the patient as is to our staff!

There are a good number of diabetic patients. Some already know they have diabetes and others our doctors are diagnosing. The diet here consists of a lot of simple carbohydrates. Fruits, rice, white bread, and tortillas are a big part of their diet. Soda is quite common and most drink the regular soda because they could use the calories. Thus the high blood sugar we've been seeing.

Several patients suffer from allergies. It is very dry here with zero rainfall per year. Allergies are from dust mostly. We've given a lot of Benadryl and Zyrtec out for allergies.

One very sad case was a grandmother who brought her grandson in to see Charlie. The grandson was blind, mute, and couldn't walk due to a contractured tendon issue in his ankles. He had to be carried every where by his grandmother. It brought Charlie to tears though she tried to hide it from the grandmother. Charlie got her address and I know will be looking for a wheelchair to ship to the grandmother once she gets back to the states.

We will see about 121 patients today if they come in as scheduled.

On a lighter side, at the end of the day, when we all sit around the table and are unencumbered by TV or computers, we sit around the table and let the trials of the day wash away with a little wine. The nuns taught us a new toast: arriba, abajo, al centro, adentro. Up, down, out, and into the mouth it goes!  We laughed so hard we cried.

Some of the stories we recounted were priceless. Dr. Roberto didn't get much sleep in the hostel because of the amorous noise in the room next door in spite of the TV turned way up. He said he had heard some of these hostels were used as brothels and now he wondered if that was true!  We couldn't stop laughing.

It was priceless when Linda put cheese on her bread and then proceeded to spread butter in the cheese. Lindsey and Emily were choking they laughed so hard and then Elena joined in.  Soon everyone was laughing though we didn't know why until finally they could breathe again and tell us that Linda left the plastic wrapper on the cheese and bit into it before realizing what she'd done. Linda is the most jovial, sweet woman next to my mom that I have ever met. It has been such a pleasure getting to know her.

Another story we shared was about our first day at the hostel. We were escorted into the hostel and up to the third floor where our room was. We settled in and rested for a couple of hours. We were told we could rest until 4 pm and then head to the clinic to help set up but we were anxious and wanted to head over earlier. So at 2 pm we got ready to go. Olivia went out in the hall and discovered the gate to our floor was locked and we were locked in!  She began asking for someone to come and let us out but no one came. She talked louder speaking in Spanish but no one came. She began shouting in Spanish but no one came!  Olivia, Lindsey, and I were trapped upstairs!  We eventually were released and found out later that many of our mission team heard inform their second floor rooms but didn't know who was shouting or from where and they were a little afraid!!!  We didn't realize anyone from our group heard us until one of these late night decompression sessions.

Lots of laughs with this wonderful group of angels.

Submitted by Lisa W.