Day 34, Impact…

34/46 of the daily Lenten blog…

Not gonna lie, today hasn’t been my favorite day. Between a busy ER and clinic, difficult patient situations, struggles with my own competency as a doctor and Spanish speaker, and questions about the future, I’m ready for Tuesday… But enough pity-party. 🙂

My colleagues said that it couldn’t be done. They said it was going too far, even for me… They’re all aware of this ongoing blog marathon that I have been keeping alive. So, when something interesting happens at the hospital, they will invariably say ‘hey, you can put that in the blog!’ But they all seemed to be in agreement about the gentleman, ‘Slick.’ They said that I shouldn’t—NO! that I couldn’t put his story in the blog. 68 y/o Slick (not his real name, age, or gender, as far as you know) came in with impacted bowels, and when I had to stick my finger in his anus (anatomic name used to avoid the word butt) to dislodge the compacted feces, they all agreed that I probably shouldn’t share it with my readers. You know, I think they might be right. So, I just won’t do it. (BTW, that was the closest I’ve been to barfing in a medical setting in the last 15 years). Shout out to Nurse Liz for accompanying me on that journey.

17 year old Bart (not his real name) had an accident 6 years ago. It resulted in a fracture of the end of his femur (some call this the ‘knee’) and a well-meaning doctor here in Honduras put him in a cast. It didn’t heal correctly, and it appears that the growth plate was arrested. Consequently, the bone didn’t grow properly, and his knee became deformed. Now, his knee cap (patella) dislocates (subluxes) spontaneously. He can walk but not run (his dream was to play competitive futból). Our surgeons and one of the visiting orthopedists are going to take a close look at this to see if there’s something we can do to help him.

Photo of the Day:

Photo at the top is a storage cage filled with ‘Chimbo’s’ which are propane gas tanks that we use to power all of our stoves.

Photo below, last night we visited the little town of Balfate. Our friend, Yamileth, had some fish she wanted to give us. On the way to her house, we saw these little cuties walking the road. They had just visited the gas station, where they hooked themselves up with some ice cream.