Sunday - After wrote Sunday afternoon, we went to the futbal game. It was pretty fun, but in a way frustrating because they faked injured so often, got carried off the field, and then ran right back on. I didn´t think that was part of the game... Oh well. Then we went home and relaxed the rest of the night.
Monday - Well, I got sick during the night. So, I spent most of the day in bed. No, I don´t know what I ate. One of the other volunteers got sick too. Anyway... Also on Monday we recieved "the container." The container is the size of a semi that was s shipped from Kansas by boat then truck a few months ago and got held up in customs until Monday. It´s nice to have all this new hospital equiptment... but it´s a lot to inventory, find a place for, and teach the doctors how to use. So...
Tuesday - I still wasn´t feeling wonderful, so they didn´t want me in the hospital around the patients. So, I got organizing tasks that didn´t require a lot of physical energy. I sorted hundreds of pairs of eyeglasses that were used, donated, and measured to see the prescription. They were all in a big box. So, I got to make someorder out of them. I also did some more work in the library with the new books that were donated. I did something else too... but now I can´t remember what...
Wednesday - I worked a 7am to 8pm shift in the ER and with the inpatients. Part of the day was interesting. Part was slow. Nothing to really write home about though.
Thursday - I went in at 8am and worked until 4pm or so in the hospital. Then we moved a big box of laproscopic surgical supplies into another place and I got to inventory it all. Then we watched The Intrepreter. My first movie since I got here. And I´m a movie person.
Friday - Went into the hospital at 8:30am and around 11am we took off with a girl about my age who had attempted suicide with rat posion. She wasn´t breathing, Before I had gotten to the ER, they had done CPR and got her heart going agian. But she wasn´t doing well. We also discovered that she was about 20 weeks pregnant by the looks of it. We don´t have an ER, so we loaded her in the back of a SUV type vehicle with me, 2 doctors, a nurse, and her husband and drove her, very quickly into Cochabamba. It took about 45 minutes. When we left her there she was stable, but still on a ventelator. So... pray for her, her husband, and the baby. Then, I went with Amy to some other missionaries house and figured out what a bunch of donated medicine was. Because on Monday and Tuesday we´re going a couple more hours out into the mountians to do a clinic for 2 days. Then we went out to dinner for Anticuchos. I´m not sure if I spelled that right, but it´s cow heart cooked on a bicycle spoke like schiscabab. Agian, I´m a horrid speller. Then we dropped off 2 volunteers at the airport and came back home.
Puppy update - they´re starting to walk. Not well, but they are. They look like drunk sailers. It´s super cute.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Halfway...
So, halfway through my Bolivia trip... here´s some updates...
*Bolivia is beautiful. The hosptial is right in the Andes mountians, I see the mountians all day.
*The first week was mildy frustrating because they don´t have PA´s here so the doctors don´t know what I can and can not do. So... all I was doing were the same things Michael, the 19 year old pre-med student was doing. The second week they started to figure it out, so things are much better now.
*Twice we´ve helped another ministry with kid-washing. They bring water out to a community without running water, bathe the small children, and give then a new pair of clothes every thursday. Also, on Saturdays they do it for the street children in Cochabamba. It´s very rewarding even though the kids hate baths and scream the whole time.
*The hospital is still getting up and running, more new things being purchased all the time. Especially the last week because Mike, the founder of Hospitals of Hope, is down here with more funds. So, I´ve also been the manual labor, helping build desk chairs, move book shelves, organize medical textbooks into a library... and other things.
*The puppies I told you about last time... Four of them are thriving and getting fatter every day, they started opening their eyes this weekend. The one we worried about died the next day.
*There are a lot of stray, angry, hungry dogs on the streets here in Bolivia. I think there´s as many stray dogs here as there are squirrels in Minnesota. Anyway... Friday morning I was doing a 12 hours shift covering the few inpatients (I think 3 that day) and the ER with one of the doctors... A 10 year old boy came and an had been attacked by 3 dogs. One of his legs had gashes all over. I got to help take care of him, he was very brave though, barely cried at all. I´ve noticed that here. Bolivians are much tougher when it comes to pain than Americans. It´s interesing how much they can tolerate.
*Tuberculosis is also a big problem here, I´ve seen 2 guys my age with severe TB. One had a big pleural effusion (there´s a layer called pleura surrounding the lungs, a pleural effusion is when fluid gets in that sack around the lungs and takes over the room the lungs should have to expand)- anyway, I got to help drain that. I had helped with a pleural effusion once in the US, but not one due to TB.
*Bolivian people are very resourceful. Even when they don´t have to be. For example - there´s an EKG machine at the hospital, and there´s the little EKG electrodes that are like little stickers you sick in certian places to read the heart´s activity. They´re supposed to be used once ´cuz they won´t stick much more than that. Well, the doctors use them over and over and tape them down. At first I thought, what a good idea, they´re working with it even though they don´t have enough resources. Then I went in central supply a couple days later. There´s litterally thousands of EKG pads in there. Tomorrow I´m putting out new ones.
*I´ve been doing some 12 hour shifts in the hospital side, and I only have an interpreter for a few hours of those 12. The doctors here are awesome, they work so hard to be understood. One night it was slow and Dra. Santa Cruz and I sat there for 2 hours with my Spanish-English dictionary. Her teaching me Spanish. Me teaching her English. When I´m over there and it´s slow, so many of the Bolivian staff come to me and ask me how to say certian phrases in English. It´s interesing teaching English, espeicially when they´re so willing to learn.
*Where the clinic and hospital are... it´s countryside, about a half hour outside a city. But next week, Monday and Tuesday we´re going out to "the campo" which means way out in the countryside up in the mountians for 2 days to do medical work there. That should be really interesting.
*There´s so much more to talk about but for now I will leave you with that.
*Pray for me and the other voulunteers here that we can be as effective as possible in our ministry and be good examples of followers of Christ. Pray for the people we come in contact with that they would be open to hearing the gospel. Pray for me that I can keep up my energy and excitement for what I´m doing even though there´s long days.
*Well, now I´m off to go see a professional Bolivian Soccer/Futball game on our day off. Should be fun!
*Bolivia is beautiful. The hosptial is right in the Andes mountians, I see the mountians all day.
*The first week was mildy frustrating because they don´t have PA´s here so the doctors don´t know what I can and can not do. So... all I was doing were the same things Michael, the 19 year old pre-med student was doing. The second week they started to figure it out, so things are much better now.
*Twice we´ve helped another ministry with kid-washing. They bring water out to a community without running water, bathe the small children, and give then a new pair of clothes every thursday. Also, on Saturdays they do it for the street children in Cochabamba. It´s very rewarding even though the kids hate baths and scream the whole time.
*The hospital is still getting up and running, more new things being purchased all the time. Especially the last week because Mike, the founder of Hospitals of Hope, is down here with more funds. So, I´ve also been the manual labor, helping build desk chairs, move book shelves, organize medical textbooks into a library... and other things.
*The puppies I told you about last time... Four of them are thriving and getting fatter every day, they started opening their eyes this weekend. The one we worried about died the next day.
*There are a lot of stray, angry, hungry dogs on the streets here in Bolivia. I think there´s as many stray dogs here as there are squirrels in Minnesota. Anyway... Friday morning I was doing a 12 hours shift covering the few inpatients (I think 3 that day) and the ER with one of the doctors... A 10 year old boy came and an had been attacked by 3 dogs. One of his legs had gashes all over. I got to help take care of him, he was very brave though, barely cried at all. I´ve noticed that here. Bolivians are much tougher when it comes to pain than Americans. It´s interesing how much they can tolerate.
*Tuberculosis is also a big problem here, I´ve seen 2 guys my age with severe TB. One had a big pleural effusion (there´s a layer called pleura surrounding the lungs, a pleural effusion is when fluid gets in that sack around the lungs and takes over the room the lungs should have to expand)- anyway, I got to help drain that. I had helped with a pleural effusion once in the US, but not one due to TB.
*Bolivian people are very resourceful. Even when they don´t have to be. For example - there´s an EKG machine at the hospital, and there´s the little EKG electrodes that are like little stickers you sick in certian places to read the heart´s activity. They´re supposed to be used once ´cuz they won´t stick much more than that. Well, the doctors use them over and over and tape them down. At first I thought, what a good idea, they´re working with it even though they don´t have enough resources. Then I went in central supply a couple days later. There´s litterally thousands of EKG pads in there. Tomorrow I´m putting out new ones.
*I´ve been doing some 12 hour shifts in the hospital side, and I only have an interpreter for a few hours of those 12. The doctors here are awesome, they work so hard to be understood. One night it was slow and Dra. Santa Cruz and I sat there for 2 hours with my Spanish-English dictionary. Her teaching me Spanish. Me teaching her English. When I´m over there and it´s slow, so many of the Bolivian staff come to me and ask me how to say certian phrases in English. It´s interesing teaching English, espeicially when they´re so willing to learn.
*Where the clinic and hospital are... it´s countryside, about a half hour outside a city. But next week, Monday and Tuesday we´re going out to "the campo" which means way out in the countryside up in the mountians for 2 days to do medical work there. That should be really interesting.
*There´s so much more to talk about but for now I will leave you with that.
*Pray for me and the other voulunteers here that we can be as effective as possible in our ministry and be good examples of followers of Christ. Pray for the people we come in contact with that they would be open to hearing the gospel. Pray for me that I can keep up my energy and excitement for what I´m doing even though there´s long days.
*Well, now I´m off to go see a professional Bolivian Soccer/Futball game on our day off. Should be fun!
Monday, August 07, 2006
If you get my e-mails update... this is 98% the same message...
I just wanted to let you all know I arrived safely in Vinto, Bolivia.. around 8am yesterday (Sunday) morning. As soon as I arrived, they brought me to another missionary family´s home so I could shower and change and get ready for church. We went to church at an English service that mainly caters to missionaries. Then we went to another missionary families home for a big lunch. Yesterday was Bolivia´s independance day. I missed the parade Saturday night because I was still at the airport in La Paz, so I didn´t get to really see how Bolivians spend their Independance Day. Oh well. Today the clinic is closed because of the holiday and there´s only one patient in the hospital, so there´s not much to do today. I woke up this morning and was told that the guard dog had her puppies overnight. There are 5 of them. So, actually my first medical experience was with a puppy - one of them was struggling, still is actually, but it is very cold here overnight in the mountians - when the puppies were born this morning, one had already died and one was very cold and pretty unresponsive. 3 of us took turns for a couple hours this morning rubbing her and blowing the hairdryer at her on low. She´s doing better now, more responsive, but still the least active of the bunch. So far the mom is not a very good mom and is not letting them nurse much. Also, we think she might still have another puppy in her because of the way she´s acting. We´re trying to get ahold of a vet. So... that has occupied most of the morning. Then the three of us short-term volunteers that are here carried 16 sets of bookshelves up a flight of stairs to the offices and library at the hospital. So, we got our workouts. Now we´re here at the internet place. The other short term volunteers that are here are: Andrea who is a 20-year-old pre-dental student who got here just a day before me; and Michael, a 19-year-old pre-medical student who has been here a month already and leaves the day after I do. Then there´s the guest house hosts, Kyle and Amy, who are in their late 30`s. So... that´s my trip so far! No cool medical stories yet. Those will come. Oh yes, sorry, but I will not be putting any pictures online until I return because there is only dial-up internet here and it would take far too long. Typing this has even taken awhile due to the fact that everything but lower case letters is not in the same place as it is on an American keyboard. So, keep us in your prayers and I will keep you updated as I can.
I just wanted to let you all know I arrived safely in Vinto, Bolivia.. around 8am yesterday (Sunday) morning. As soon as I arrived, they brought me to another missionary family´s home so I could shower and change and get ready for church. We went to church at an English service that mainly caters to missionaries. Then we went to another missionary families home for a big lunch. Yesterday was Bolivia´s independance day. I missed the parade Saturday night because I was still at the airport in La Paz, so I didn´t get to really see how Bolivians spend their Independance Day. Oh well. Today the clinic is closed because of the holiday and there´s only one patient in the hospital, so there´s not much to do today. I woke up this morning and was told that the guard dog had her puppies overnight. There are 5 of them. So, actually my first medical experience was with a puppy - one of them was struggling, still is actually, but it is very cold here overnight in the mountians - when the puppies were born this morning, one had already died and one was very cold and pretty unresponsive. 3 of us took turns for a couple hours this morning rubbing her and blowing the hairdryer at her on low. She´s doing better now, more responsive, but still the least active of the bunch. So far the mom is not a very good mom and is not letting them nurse much. Also, we think she might still have another puppy in her because of the way she´s acting. We´re trying to get ahold of a vet. So... that has occupied most of the morning. Then the three of us short-term volunteers that are here carried 16 sets of bookshelves up a flight of stairs to the offices and library at the hospital. So, we got our workouts. Now we´re here at the internet place. The other short term volunteers that are here are: Andrea who is a 20-year-old pre-dental student who got here just a day before me; and Michael, a 19-year-old pre-medical student who has been here a month already and leaves the day after I do. Then there´s the guest house hosts, Kyle and Amy, who are in their late 30`s. So... that´s my trip so far! No cool medical stories yet. Those will come. Oh yes, sorry, but I will not be putting any pictures online until I return because there is only dial-up internet here and it would take far too long. Typing this has even taken awhile due to the fact that everything but lower case letters is not in the same place as it is on an American keyboard. So, keep us in your prayers and I will keep you updated as I can.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Off to Bolivia I go!
I am leaving Mora at 3:00am - about 6 1/2 hours from now. My dad is driving me to the airport. I am flying American Airlines from Minneapolis to Miami, then Miami to La Paz, Bolivia. When I arrive in La Paz, I have to collect my baggage and go through customs. Then I need to find a ticket counter for either LAB or AeroSur airlines and get a flight to Cochabamba, these tickets cannot be purchased before I get there. I land in La Paz at 7:53pm, so I pray there's a flight out after 8:30pm or so and that I can get on it. Otherwise, I will be spending the night in the airport in La Paz and getting the first flight out in the morning. When I find out what flight I get, I give the full time missionaries a call, and someone will come pick me up at the Cochabamba airport.
My first full day in Bolivia, August 6, is the Bolivia Independance day. So, hopefully I'll get to see a bit of how they celebrate their independance.
So, I am asking for you to pray for safe travels for me. Pray that my flights leave on time and are safe. Pray that my luggage arrives with me at my destination. Overall - just pray my travels go smoothly.
I hope to be posting updates and possibly pictures on here, so keep checking if you're interested. I don't know how often I will get to the internet while I am away... it may be only a couple times the whole month... it may be every couple days. Not promising anything at this point.
I'm off to weigh my luggage, put it in the car... and hope to sleep for about 5 hours before I have to get up agian! :)
My first full day in Bolivia, August 6, is the Bolivia Independance day. So, hopefully I'll get to see a bit of how they celebrate their independance.
So, I am asking for you to pray for safe travels for me. Pray that my flights leave on time and are safe. Pray that my luggage arrives with me at my destination. Overall - just pray my travels go smoothly.
I hope to be posting updates and possibly pictures on here, so keep checking if you're interested. I don't know how often I will get to the internet while I am away... it may be only a couple times the whole month... it may be every couple days. Not promising anything at this point.
I'm off to weigh my luggage, put it in the car... and hope to sleep for about 5 hours before I have to get up agian! :)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)