Contrast

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This morning we got into the car and were greeted by the smooth sounds of New Kids on the Block pumping from Dr. Iglesias' stereo. It was especially awesome for two reasons:1. this was not the radio playing but a mix CD that Dr. Iglesias had made and 2. Once we got going, he joined us in singing along. After some sweet rocking out in the car, we arrived at the hospital and went to the Internal Medicine ward again. Today our focus was on HIV/AIDS so we saw 2 patients with AIDS and a number of complications. One man who had been in the hospital for 3 months was in his early 20s and his disease was complicated by tuberculosis, hepatitis (since he had been an alcoholic since he was 11!), and malnourishment. He has had a very hard life and it showed. He was so thin and it was so sad to see especially since in US he would get TPN (food through an IV) which would improve his health greatly, but this is very hard to get in El Salvador as it is very expensive. We also saw a man who had been diagnosed with Typhoid fever, but his story didn't fit the typical picture and we also noticed that he was very rigid so we talked to the residents about doing some tests for Tetanus, and we will check up on him when we return next week. We also checked in on the woman with the abcess, and I am happy to report that it is healing nicely and she will probably be able to go home in the next couple of days. We were supposed to go to another orphanage this afternoon, but apparently the orphanage director forget and scheduled a trip to the water park for the kids instead. I'm sure that they will enjoy that a lot more than a visit from some doctors!

The good news for us is that we got an early start to our vacation! For some reason when we got home this afternoon both of us were really craving Pollo Campero, but there aren't any within walking distance of us, and we don't have a car, so we decided that the delicious chicken was worth trying to order by phone for delivery. (all of the fast food restaurants deliver here, which is probably doing great things for everyone's hearts and waistlines!) This already difficult task was further complicated by the fact that we couldn't find a menu anywhere. We tried all of the google tricks we could think of to try to find a menu online but had very little luck. The only helpful info we managed to find was that pechugita is the word for chicken tenders. Katie took Spanish in HS so she got nominated for the job of making the call and was actuallu successful!! At first, we thought that the mission was doomed because the call got disconnected from the very helpful man who spoke a bit of English and when we called back we got a woman who spoke WAY too fast, but the woman heard the desperation in Katie's voice and managed to find the nice man and get us back on the phone with him. So anyway, we got our delicious chicken 30 minutes later and were very happy girls who spent the rest of the night packing for our beach vacation!

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