These last few weeks have been some busy ones (although, I
feel like I could start all of my blog posts this way). We’ve now been living
in our rooms for 3 weeks and it’s nice to be fully unpacked and settled into
our own spaces. I am also loving my hogar. My girls are fantastic and I have so
much fun with them. Because they are older I do a lot of homework help with
them, especially math and English. Had to dust off some of my advanced algebra
the other day!
Literally every day in the clinics is different. With all of
the changes we’ve yet to find a real rhythm. These last few weeks Steffi (my
partner nurse) and I have been working together a lot less. We have been taking
turns going to the clinics and switching each day. So on some days I go to the
external clinic and she to the internal clinic and then the next day the
opposite. This week at the external clinic we had a bit of a shock – the power
at the surgical center was out! Which meant that the internet at the external
clinic (and therefore our EMR) was down. Not only this but the woman who
usually works in the pharmacy with us (and is generally my go-to for all of my
questions) wasn’t there either! She was at interconsulta (specialist doctors
appointment) with one of the ranch kids in the city. Luckily after a few calls
Melissa was on her way down to give us a hand. It ended up being one of my
favorite days in the clinic. Melissa helped us out for a little bit and showed
us the ropes in the pharmacy and then we were on our own. Yes, this means I’m
now a pharmacist…or at least I can read prescriptions, count meds, label
baggies, and give them to patients. Something that I find really odd is the way
prescriptions are given out here – in little plastic bags with a strip of tape
and hand written labels/instructions on the tape. That’s about as legit as it
gets. And you better not let that piece of tape fall off or who knows what
you’ll be taking!
Last week was a rollercoaster. On Friday I went with one of
the clinic nurses (she’s Honduran) to Hospital Escuela (the huge public
hospital) in Tegucigalpa to take 15 kids for blood work and HIV appointments.
What an overwhelming experience that was! The Honduran medical system is
extremely confusing and, at times, difficult. One of the little boys we brought
with us had gotten quite sick the day before so he ended up getting admitted to
the hospital right after his appointment. The other nurse had to take him down
to the unit to be admitted, which left me to go into the appointments with each
kid. Luckily, I had a few of the older high school kids with me who helped
wrangle the younger ones while I was in the appointments. When we finally left
the hospital it was lunchtime so we took all kids to a Chinese restaurant for
arroz chino (fried rice). When the food finally came it was more fried rice
than I had ever seen in my life. I thought, “there is no way we’ll finish all
of this!” Oh how wrong I was. I had to cut off the younger kids or they would
have eaten till they exploded. Seriously though, you’d think we never feed
these kids (trust me, we do).
The next day was just as crazy but in a very different way.
Because we had a boy in the hospital the normal weekend nurse had to go take
care of him in the hospital so I worked in the clinic that day (it was my
weekend to work). Weekends in the external clinic are a little different than
on the weekdays because there is no doctor so for any emergency the doctor gets
called and if it can’t be treated in the clinic then we go to the hospital. As
my day went on it got busier and busier. This is a glimpse of my day: little
girl with temp of 104 having febrile seizures (she had 3 in total in the clinic
with me), abdominal pain/nausea/vomiting, full body rash/allergic reaction
(poor thing couldn’t stop itching), plus a slew of bumps, bruises and cuts.
Eventually I had to call in reinforcements (meaning Mirjam, one of the clinic
coordinators, came to help and one of the lovely physical therapists,
Christina, came to be another pair of hands and hang out with the kids that
didn’t need me). And, as I said before in my last post, everything, somehow,
turned out okay. Something that’s been a hard transition (and still is) is
going from hospital nursing to clinic nursing. In the hospital kids are sick
and if they’re in the hospital you’re always on the lookout for worst-case
scenario. But usually, thankfully, theses kids just have normal kid stuff. They
get sick with a cold or flu and they come to the clinic to get the attention
and the rest that they need to feel better – something that they can’t get in
their hogars with so many other children. My boy with abdominal pain and
vomiting…I’m thinking, oh no! Appendicitis? Nope, just abdominal pain and
vomiting. And the cure? Time, a hot water bottle for his tummy and a cup of tea.
My little girl with the really high temp and seizures? I went in on Sunday to
check on her and I didn’t even recognize her at first! She was like a
completely different kid, sitting up and chatting with me in her little
two-year-old voice.
I think I have a love/hate relationship with the internal
clinic. It kind of scares me but it can be so good and beautiful.
A few weeks ago I also got to do my first Proyecto Familiar
(Family Project). Proyecto is a really special time when a couple of volunteers
make dinner with a family of kids from the Ranch. Many of the kids have
siblings (sometimes LOTS of siblings) who also live here on the Ranch with them
but because they are different ages and live in different hogars they don’t get
to spend a lot of time together. During proyecto all of the siblings in a
family come to the volunteer house and get to make a special dinner together,
which usually consists of baleadas (traditional Honduran food) and cake or
brownies. My proyecto group was really fun. I was with San Lucas Sin Hermanos,
which means the boys in the hogar San Lucas (these are the oldest boys on the
ranch) without siblings. Basically, we make sure that there’s a special
proyecto night for the kids in each hogar without sibilings so they don’t miss out
on this special time and getting to make food together like the other kids.
There are so many families on the ranch that even with having a proyecto group
4 nights a week it still takes almost 10 months before all the families have
had a turn and get to have another turn!
In other news…this last Wednesday almost all the volunteers
(19 in total) piled into the 15 person van (we call it the micro because it’s a
microbus) and went to see Pitbull in concert in Tegucigalpa (hence the blog title...)! It was so much
fun! We all had such a great time. We sang and danced and were very tired the
next day but totally worth it. And we only paid about $25 for the tickets –
doesn’t get much better than that. Besides, how many people can say they’ve
been to a Pitbull concert in Honduras?
And now, my favorite part…PICTURES!
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| The older girls of Talita Kumi (girls hogars) having a reflection activity after dinner. This is also what the inside of an hogar looks like. |
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| Hanging out in hogar. |
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| This little girl makes my mornings in the internal clinic the best! She's learning to walk now! |
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| English homework! How do you spell your name in English? |
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| Clearly working very hard... |
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| This little baby got about 20 "vacunas" (vaccines) and "medicamentos" (medicines) |
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| This poor kid was so sick for most of the day. Totally made his smile worth it when he was feeling better. |
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| Abigail and I - this is our "we survived!" face after a day in Tegus with 15 kids. |
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| This is what happens on your birthday - you get frosting smashed in your face. |
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| View of Tegucigalpa from the office of a specialty consult. |
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| Pretty much sums up how we all feel at the end of the day. |
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| Look who's standing and happy this morning! |
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| Kaiserschmarrn!! The Austrians showed us how to make the best breakfast for dinner. |
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| PITBULL!!! Those are some good lookin' people. |
