Blogs from San Salvador, Central, El Salvador, Central America Caribbean - page 9

Hey guys! Just giving you some updates about my preparations for my mission trip to El Salvador. So far..I have had a very successful yardsale and picnic as fundraisers (: Also, some of my family and friends have donated money to me to help with the cost of my trip. Thank you guys so much for donating your money to me. I really appreciate it and I know my family does to. Your money is going to a good cause. So far... I have been packing daily to make sure that I have everything. I am bringing lots of medicine and supplies, so no need to worry..I will be fine (: Just wanted to give you guys a heads up! Check back daily for updates (: Love Jamie PS- I leave Sunday, July 12, at 6:00am. ... read more

Today we made our final visit to the Immaculate Heart of Mary orphanage. Our first concern was the girl who we had sent to the hospital last week for stomach pain. To our relief, it turned out that she was just fine. We saw quite a few staff members and children with parasites this week, probably because some kids had gone home for the Holy Week. We also saw quite a few colds or "colds", because as one of the house mothers said, whenever we come everyone is "sick", so that they can hang out with us. We also examined one of the nuns who may have rheumatoid arthritis, so she must go to the hospital for some tests. We got to practice our OMM skills a little today on a few women who had back ... read more

This morning after we crawled out of bed, stretched, and took some advil, we had pancakes and papaya smoothies and then rested up for our 10 minute walk to the Hilton. Although the walk up and down the hills to the hotel was pretty much torture, we spent the rest of the afternoon being fancy and drinking mojitos by the pool. Once we decided that we had inflicted enough sun damage upon ourselves we walked over to a seafood/sushi restaurant a few blocks away. Our waiter was incredibly nice and started out by bringing us complimentary drinks. Unfortunately they were DISGUSTING. They were orange and fizzy but they tasty spicy and tomatoey so we are thinking that it was some type of especially gross blood mary. We entertained ourselves throughout the rest of our meal by ... read more

Happy Birthday Dad!! Much love from both of us, hope you had a great day! Today we donned our special masks and went to brave the tuberculosis wards. Dr. Iglesias explained to us that there is thought to be a 100% exposure rate to tuberculosis in El Salvador, but not everyone develops the disease. The Saldana Hospital where we work was originally devoted entirely to TB, so it is considered the place to go in the country if you have a difficult case of TB. Most of the men that we saw were alcoholics who were malnourished, which makes one more susceptible to developing outright TB. A few of the men were hospitalized because they weren't taking their medication at home so they had to be monitored to be sure they were taking their meds to ... read more

Yesterday Dr. Iglesias told us that we would be observing surgeries at the hospital today. He also told us that while the OR is the one building at the hospital that does have air conditioning, there is a central control for all of the rooms, so if they are doing a C-section in one room, they have to turn off the A/C in all of the rooms, so that the baby doesn't get hypothermia. I'm sure many of you know that neither of us particularly enjoys surgery under the best of conditions, so the thought of being involved in surgery in a possibly very warm room caused us to approach today with some trepidation. Luckily, there were no C-sections today so the OR was nice and cool and it turned out to be a pretty good ... read more