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Published: December 19th 2009
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Me and my Dog
This is Packy, the greatest dog I´ve ever met. We´ve pseudo-adopted him and slowly but surely are turning him into a gringo. Life in General Its been awhile, but I’m doing great. We’re wrapping up the year here in the next week, and then Ill be in Phoenix, AZ for 8 days over the holidays to see family. Be in touch and enjoy!
Contents 1. Way of Life
2. Clinic Stuff, Interesting Cases, And the Rest of My Life
3. Outside of the Clinic: Rivers, Soccer, and Hammocks
1. Way of Life Life is slow and easy, everyone is friendly, and it’s an entirely different world. From the bus stop, it’s a 45 min. walk/hike down into the valley (where we live). And from down there, there is absolutely no sign of organized civilization, just puro campo. Even when we hiked up to the peak of the Cerro Pelon (tallest mountain/hill nearby, see #), you still couldn’t see the one road that comes in the vicinity of the area. In all directions just pure nature and campo. People live by the sun, there is only electricity in the clinic, a few people have trucks..Its crazy. Walking, carrying, and making are the way of life. But it’s a great reminder of other ways to live and what I
Corinto
Outside of Corinto, our Saturday Getaway town want to incorporate into my urbanized, American life.
2. Clinic Stuff, Interesting Cases, And the Rest of My Life The clinic stuff is interesting, but the culture and language barriers are large there. I can communicate well in Spanish, but with the strong accent and the different way in which rural latinos respond to doctors, I sometimes worry that I'm not getting the whole story. Consequently I take about 45-60 min to see a patient and go over every detail of the story more than once. But it’s worth the time and also probably why the people like the care they receive here so much.
A few highlights of interesting stuff. One wed night people came and knocked on our door at 1230 am (side note, since there’s no electricity here, people live by the sun. up around 430, in bed by 7. And by 8 the town is dead asleep, so 3 people on our doorstep at 1230 was out of this world). They told me a 21 year old was in crazy pain and we had to see him. This was my 3rd week, and my first week without the other 2 med students. So
At Zapote
Becky waiting for the bus we made a call to the director who said 'if the pain is really that bad, they should bring him to the clinic to evaluate him there'. So naturally, the entire family carried him to the clinic in a hammock (he couldn’t walk cuz of the abdominal pain). They arrived at 2am, and my first thought is appendicitis or another acute abdomen.
However, he immediately points to the source of the pain, and its in his testicle. So now i'm freaking out cuz its not a hernia and the only other thing on my differential is testicular torsion, which has a 4-6 hr window until operation before you lose your the testicle. Crazy right. So we ended up going to the hospital at 3 in the morning, and he got admitted. The admitting resident didn’t think it was torsion, but wasn’t sure what it was. So the plan upon admission was to wait til the surgeon came in the morning to evaluate and to get an Ultrasound of the testicle (which costs $20, an amount the family found hard to pay). Unfortunately I still don’t have the end of the story cuz I haven’t seen anyone in the family
Swimmin' Hole
spending another relaxing day, cooling off, in the local river since the event and I don’t know where they live. But one of my goals for the next week is to track them down and pay a visit. Stay tuned.
So that was an exciting/scary emergency. On the opposite end of the spectrum was a non-emergent emergency that I had a few weeks ago. We received a call in the clinic that an HIV+ 30 yo woman was really really sick and couldn’t move. So I hiked up to her house, asking everyone I passed through the woods for help until I found it. Upon arriving she told me she had chest pain, (culturally, everyone here has chest pain/heart pain. im still not sure if its like our head aches (from stress/life) or from their hard labor, but its definitely a common complaint and often vary vague. But, it does give our EKG machine some good exercise).
Anyway, chest pain, head aches, no appetite, etc. so during our chat I find out that she always feels like this when she’s upset or emotional, and that it began this afternoon. After a lot more questions and prodding, just before im about to leave, she finally tells me she had
Bela Tossing Calla
our 2 friends, 'the other couple', playing in the river a fight with her daughter who doesn’t pay her any respect. With the cat out of the bag, we spent the next 30 min talking it out. So that's the other end of the spectrum of 'emergencies'. Equally important for well being and good health, not necessarily in need of an after hours house call.
And lastly the rest of my life. Internal Medicine. I have 100%!r(MISSING)uled out peds, and for a more colorful explanation, feel free to email me.
3. Outside of the Clinic: Rivers, Soccer, and Hammocks Outside of the clinic though is really where im finding my happiness. And as I get to do that more, I think my time here will keep getting better. There’s a bomb ass river that we went swimming in one Sunday with some local kids. It’s pretty strong, so we can only swim in it during the dry season (which began mid Nov). And its super clean (the locals can actually drink it without problems, but since our bodies are slightly less accustomed to giardia and various worms, we're more cautious). And im trying to play soccer 1-2x/week too. (see next entry for more info). I also
learned how to make hammocks one day at our neighbor’s house.
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