Hey everyone! I know it’s been a
while since I’ve written any updates, but I’ve been really busy. A lot has
happened this past week, so I’ll probably end up writing all of this out in
parts. Week three I was definitely feeling a little homesick, but now I’m at a
point where I want to come back here someday to volunteer some more. Or maybe
next time I’ll go to a different country, like Haiti, or maybe the Honduras, or
Columbia. Who knows. All I know is I want to come back to the Caribbean, or
Central America, or South America, and give back even more. I’ve been toying
around with the idea of joining the peace corps after I’m done with school
(which feels like a million years away), or maybe doing more medical mission
trips through school, or signing up for our school’s alternative break program
(where I’d spend part of my fall/winter/spring breaks doing volunteer work).
Wherever I end up, I want to keep volunteering, and I want to travel abroad
again.
I’ve also
decided that I want to keep taking Spanish classes. My Spanish has been getting
better and better. Remember that time I told you about when I had a complete
conversation with a Pastor, and I was super proud of myself? That was basically
my entire weekend while I was at this resort (which I will tell you more about
later). I understood almost everything, and was able to say what I needed to.
My conversations with people are starting to become less
say-only-what-is-essential-to-get-what-I-need and are starting to resemble
actual conversations like what I would have in the US. People here are always
so surprised when I speak Spanish to them, because here very few foreigners do.
They also seem so genuinely excited that I’m there to study their language and
culture. The concho driver I talked to this morning seemed so grateful that I
was studying in his country. He was so proud, and told me how excited he was,
because he wanted to see different cultures mix together more. One of the cab
drivers I talked to over the weekend was so pleased to hear that I was enjoying
his country. The pharmaceutical rep that came to see the doctors this morning
thought it was so cool that we were volunteers from the US. Then we had a
lengthy discussion about all of our favorite Dominican foods. Seeing how appreciative everyone is that I’m
attempting to learn Spanish and seeing home important and useful it has been on
this trip makes me want to keep practicing and learning, because I don’t want
to loose my ability to speak the language. Ever. I think when I get back to the
States, I’m going to take a few more Spanish classes. I eventually want to get
far enough to take the medical Spanish class, because this would be such an
amazing skill to have, and it would allow me to connect with even more
patients. I think knowing Spanish would help me be a better doctor someday. But
I still have so much to learn. I know that there is a group at UF that meets on
Thursdays to practice Spanish. I need to make the time to go to that.
In other
news, I started my medical terminology class this week! I know that sounds
super boring and all, but I’m super excited for it. Speaking Medicine is it’s
own language, just like speaking Spanish is. When I volunteer at Shands, or
watch “Medical” dramas on TV like Grey’s Anatomy, half of the words are in a
completely different language, so I can’t understand as much as I would like.
Now that I’m taking the class, I’ll learn how to decode all of the words. I
loooove the way medical terms are written, because it’s very exact and logical.
All of the words are made of prefixes, suffixes, and roots. So if you learn all
of the pieces, you could take a work that you’ve never seen before, break it
into pieces, and figure out it’s meaning. I’ve just started, and already it’s
helped me out so much in clinics. For example, today one of our patients
brought in these brightly colored, 3-D images of their kidneys and urinary
system. The doctor told us it was an angiogram, and I was able to figure out
that the literal meaning was “image of vessels”. It was a very exciting moment
for me (Yes, I know I’m a nerd. Don’t judge!).
This past
week in clinics has been soooo interesting. I was kind of bummed about clinics
during the third week because nothing too exciting seemed to be happening. It
became kind of monotonous. We’d come in, sit, and listen to the doctor’s talk
to their patients for three hours straight. If we were lucky, we’d have one or
maybe two cool things happen (like the pap-smear and cell phone story I told you
early). But in general, it seemed like it was a lot of sitting on our butts doing
nothing while our friends who were working in the schools came back with all
these amazing stories about how gratifying their work was. I can now say that
after this week, the clinics have been just as gratifying.
Last
Tuesday was absolutely incredible. The day started out pretty typical. One of
the patients came in with her husband for a check up to make sure her pregnancy
was healthy. The doctor did the usual exam, and checked for the fetal
heartbeat. Once she heard it, she turned to Jane and I and said, “Do you want
to listen?” Before we could respond, the dad jumps up and said, “Yes!” The
doctor gave him the ear buds, and when he heard the heartbeat, his expression
was priceless. He gave his wife the most loving look, and you could tell how
excited he was to be a dad. It was adorable. The doctor let us listen too, and
afterwards the dad insisted that the mom listened too. She seemed a little more
nervous about listening to the heartbeat. She was afraid that she wouldn’t hear
it, or something would be wrong. But we finally convinced her to listen. As
soon as she heard it, her face lit up, and she had a big, radiant smile on her
face. It was such a simple moment, but it was incredible watching the
parents-to-be hear their baby’s heart.
After that,
a new mom came in. Her brand new son was 8 days old. She had a c-section, so we
got to watch the doctor’s take out the stitches. She just threw on some gloves,
grabbed some scissors, and pulled them right out. After the mom’s checkup was
done, the doctor examined the baby. He had a skin tag by his ear that the
doctor wanted to get rid of. So the doctor grabbed the same type of thread that
they used for the mom’s stitches, held the babies head down, and tied the
string tight around the base of the skin tag. Then she gave the baby back to
the mom and told her that eventually the skin tag would die and fall off. It
was an action-packed day, to say the least.
Thursday we
went out to the community again, except this time it was to correct all of the
charts that were wrong. The charting system here seems super inefficient.
They’re organized by where you live (sort of). There are these filing cabinets
full of charts. They’re arranged by the street you live on. Then you have to
sift through and find the right house number, because they’re not in numerical
order. There also may be more than one house number, or there might be an upper
or lower house of the same number, or a front and a back of the same house.
Once you find the right house number, every one in the same household is on
that chart. So instead of having an individual chart, you have a family chart.
Every once in a while, they need to go through and update the charts. So that’s
what we did on Thursday.
We went out
to the community with a stack of charts that needed to be verified or updated,
divvied them up, and started looking for the houses. The only problem is that
the neighborhoods aren’t very organized, so even navigating from hose #54A to
#56 is a serious challenge. The houses are all squished together, and there are
literally some on top of others (it’s not like apartments, where it’s one
building with several floors. Some houses have flat roofs, and so people will
just build another house on top of it). The first house we visited was one of
those upper houses. We climbed up this concrete staircase that was built under
part of the ceiling/floor and had a tiny hole cut out towards the top of the
stairs. We had to crouch down while we were climbing, because at the top part
there was less than three feet of space between the ceiling/floor and the
steps. Once we ducked through the hole, there was a wooden plank that we had to
put over the hole to walk from the top of the staircase to the “deck” of the
house. The deck was maybe three feet deep, made of cheap sheets of wood, had
nails sticking out of it, and had no railing or guard to keep you from falling.
We talked to that family, fixed their chart, and headed on to the next house.
Another house we saw was basically a concrete shell that was probably 200 square
feet that housed around 15 people. It was definitely an experience visiting the
homes of the patients we’ve been seeing in the clinics.
The clinics
were interesting today too, because we saw something happen that would NEVER
happen in the US. One of the patients had some bottles of beer with them, so
they gave it to the doctors and nurses as a gift. The doctor opened two or so
of the bottles, gave one to the nurse to drink, and then started drinking one
herself. She even offered some to Jane and I (We said thanks, but no thanks, of
course). So the doctor was just openly drinking her beer, and examining
patients. There was also a stray dog that happened to be wondering around the
waiting room and the consultation room. People kind of just kicked him a little
when he got in their way, but didn’t really react otherwise. It was definitely
an experience.
I still
have more to tell you about the excursions and trips I went on this weekend,
but I am blogged out for now. And I have a Skype date with my little sister. So
I’ll write more soon(ish). Bye for now!
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| Jane and I with one of our favorite patients! |
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| Making friends with this little guy in the clinics! |
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