Hello again readers - So I know that I just updated like 4 hours ago but I think that I need to recap what we did this weekend. The big group of students got split into three groups. Pai, Liam and Kristen went to Coban and Semuc Champey for the weekend and I will let them tell you about their adventures out there. Megan, Kina and Nick stayed around the lake and got some diving and touring done. Then the rest of us - Me, Christina, Shannon, Mitch, Lisa and Chris - all took Friday off and traveled down to El Salvador to see what they could offer us for the weekend. The following is a list of things that happened in no particular order. If you're really bored, see if you can put them in order and get back to me on it:
-"Lisa, keep shakin that ass girl"
-Los Cobanos, it looks like paradise online but it was really a fisherman's wharf.
-Being pelted with rocks from the tide in the Pacific Ocean
-Enjoying a beautiful sunset during a typical El Salvadorean meal which is basically seafood.
-Chris being called out by a Cuban lady when he tried to explain he knew little Spanish by saying "mi espanol pequeno" and she took it as "pequeno, poquito y corto pene". Don't worry - we backed him up by saying it was grande.
-Neil being called out by the same Cuban lady to go up and dance with her and failing to shake his hips because I have no skillz.
-Start drinking at 4pm because we had nothing better to do.
-Ordered lunch and waited for 2.5 hours until we actually got it.
-Riding in the back of a pick-up truck to get from one town to the next.
-Laying out by the pool for 8 hours and applying so much sunscreen on Lisa's back that I'm pretty sure she came back more pale than she started out.
-Mitch the asshole, since he didn't notify the owner of the hotel that he was sitting on the beach with his surfboard instead of actually surfing and the owner thought he was pretty much dead.
-Chris, Lisa, Christina and myself desnudarse-ing in the pool at 2am
-Chris, Lisa, Christina and myself being absolutely and ridiculously drunk at 1:59am
-Watching Cuban dancers shake their stuff and being absolutely mesmerized and in awe.
-Lonny our guide who pretty much sucked up to us the whole trip but was a blessing since he toured us all around La Libertad and made sure we were safe.
-Christina continuing to repeat that Chris' package was glorious.
-Grandma Shannon...who went to bed at 8pm.
-Going to La Libertad with the intention that we were going to a reggae festival but instead we ended up partying with locals.
-Dancing to "Everybody" by the Backstreet Boys and being the first americans ever to visit a discoteca in La Libertad.
-Mitch dancing with a local all night and not looking too happy about it all night.
-Bubbles and smoke machine on the floor in the discoteca which made it that much cheesier. Oh did I forgot to mention that it took place in a garage?
-Chris electocuting himself in an attempt to turn off the pool lights so that he could desnudarse.
-Praying and crossing our fingers that Los Cobanos didn't look like its surroundings which included mud, swamp and shacks. We didn't luck out.
-Paso Misterioso, basically it was incline where we parked the car in neutral at the bottom of the hill and instead of letting gravity do its normal thing, we went UP THE HILL. It was very crazy.
-Going through 400Q in phone minutes in 2 hours because of roaming and international charges. Lame.
-Awesome "family room" with a king size bed, 3 singles and a couch. Oh - and agua calienteeee.
-Paying 19 dollars for a bottle of rum, bottle of vodka, 3L of pepsi and a gallon of orange juice. Baller.
So that pretty much sums up our weekend - lots of ridiculousness but we had a good time. On the trip back to Lake Atitlan we were all pretty tired and most of us got a lil sick to our stomachs since the whole ride was REALLY hot and humid and it just didn't mix well with all the bumpiness of the roads and turns. But we made it back okay and are ready to start another week of clinic before we head out to next adventure - Tikal!
Adios,
Neil
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
You know we actually do work here...
So while going over the blog I realized that it seems like all we do in Guatemala is travel and have fun. Therefore I thought I should probably explain some of the things that we do and see here in clinic. So we´ve given you the basic overview of Santa Cruz and how everything kind of runs around here. There´s two main doctors and a nurse that are kind of the attendings here that we report to. Then the students come in and can take histories, do physical exams and even give their recommendations for diagnosis and treatment plan before the attendings sign off on it. So it´s a really cool experience that we get to be involved from the beginning all the way to the end. Here are a couple of things that we´ve seen so far!
-Scarlet Fever
-Thrush
-Scabies
-Head Lice
-Diarrhea....every single type of it
-Malnutrition like no other
-Warts
-THE Gout
Christina, Kristen and I have also gotten some training on what to do for prenatal care for women around here. We have been involved in the prenatal care for most of the women in the village and so we tell them what are dangerous signs that they should be on the lookout for during their pregnancy and then what to expect when its time to deliver the baby. I think Kristen already alluded to this but we get to sit in on ultrasounds and we´ve even done some of the Leopold presentation things to feel for a baby´s head, back and extremities. Overall its a pretty cool experience.
So besides all the patient care we have been involved in a couple of projects that we want to complete in our time here at Santa Cruz. Christina and I are working on a Recycling Trash Project. In Santa Cruz, there aren´t really things such as trash cans or even like a landfill area where all the trash gets put. Instead - it just gets thrown into the streets and accumulates there. So even with all the beauty that you guys can see in our pictures...there are some pretty disgusting things as well. In an effort to combat this - we´ve come up with a recycling program where we give a presentation on trash to the elementary school kids here on why trash is bad and what ways we can help clean up Santa Cruz. Then at the end of the presentation we give each student 3 large 1.5L bottles and tell them to fill them up with inorganic trash until the bottle is COMPLETELY full. Then they can return the bottles to us in return for a pair of colorful crocs! The kids love the shoes so they´re very motivated to participate in this. We then take the bottles and use them in construction projects to make walls and things of the sort as a sort of eco-construction project. It´s pretty neat stuff and I´ll keep you all posted if we have any more developments on the things we´re building and participation and such.
The other project that other students are working on is the nutrition project. Malnutrition is a big problem here in Santa Cruz and its even more so for the mothers of recently born children or even those that are pregnant and about to deliver. We always see babies that are way under the curve as far as weight and length are concerned and so in order to improve this situation some of the students have started a nutrition class for these mothers. Shannon, Pai, Nick and Kristen are the ones that are working on this and I´ll let them explain it more in detail but the jist of it is that these guys are making recipes and teaching a cooking class every week for these ladies so that they can get an idea of what is good to feed their babies and to make sure they are getting enough calories to grow. It´s a very involved project and I don´t know half the details that they do but I´m sure they´ll be glad to tell you all.
Okay - so there, I proved that we don´t just roam around all day playing games haha. It´s pretty cool working up here and it´s kind of a bummer that the summer is coming to an end and for most of us this is our last weekend up here. But we´ll make the most of our time up here and hopefully make a good impact on the community before we leave. That´s it for now - I´ll write back in a few about our awesome adventures in El Salvador and this past weekend.
Hasta Luego!
Neil
-Scarlet Fever
-Thrush
-Scabies
-Head Lice
-Diarrhea....every single type of it
-Malnutrition like no other
-Warts
-THE Gout
Christina, Kristen and I have also gotten some training on what to do for prenatal care for women around here. We have been involved in the prenatal care for most of the women in the village and so we tell them what are dangerous signs that they should be on the lookout for during their pregnancy and then what to expect when its time to deliver the baby. I think Kristen already alluded to this but we get to sit in on ultrasounds and we´ve even done some of the Leopold presentation things to feel for a baby´s head, back and extremities. Overall its a pretty cool experience.
So besides all the patient care we have been involved in a couple of projects that we want to complete in our time here at Santa Cruz. Christina and I are working on a Recycling Trash Project. In Santa Cruz, there aren´t really things such as trash cans or even like a landfill area where all the trash gets put. Instead - it just gets thrown into the streets and accumulates there. So even with all the beauty that you guys can see in our pictures...there are some pretty disgusting things as well. In an effort to combat this - we´ve come up with a recycling program where we give a presentation on trash to the elementary school kids here on why trash is bad and what ways we can help clean up Santa Cruz. Then at the end of the presentation we give each student 3 large 1.5L bottles and tell them to fill them up with inorganic trash until the bottle is COMPLETELY full. Then they can return the bottles to us in return for a pair of colorful crocs! The kids love the shoes so they´re very motivated to participate in this. We then take the bottles and use them in construction projects to make walls and things of the sort as a sort of eco-construction project. It´s pretty neat stuff and I´ll keep you all posted if we have any more developments on the things we´re building and participation and such.
The other project that other students are working on is the nutrition project. Malnutrition is a big problem here in Santa Cruz and its even more so for the mothers of recently born children or even those that are pregnant and about to deliver. We always see babies that are way under the curve as far as weight and length are concerned and so in order to improve this situation some of the students have started a nutrition class for these mothers. Shannon, Pai, Nick and Kristen are the ones that are working on this and I´ll let them explain it more in detail but the jist of it is that these guys are making recipes and teaching a cooking class every week for these ladies so that they can get an idea of what is good to feed their babies and to make sure they are getting enough calories to grow. It´s a very involved project and I don´t know half the details that they do but I´m sure they´ll be glad to tell you all.
Okay - so there, I proved that we don´t just roam around all day playing games haha. It´s pretty cool working up here and it´s kind of a bummer that the summer is coming to an end and for most of us this is our last weekend up here. But we´ll make the most of our time up here and hopefully make a good impact on the community before we leave. That´s it for now - I´ll write back in a few about our awesome adventures in El Salvador and this past weekend.
Hasta Luego!
Neil
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Hey Nino!...Dimo el Billo
Hola amigos! Time for another update for the students of Mayan Medical Aid from this past weekend. The pictures are all uploaded and posted on the Picasa site so you can look through them and ogle them in envy. Sooo here we go:
Friday, June 13:
So some of us decided to take this day off from clinic because for the first time in a longgg time - it was a GORGEOUS day. Kristen, Christina, Shannon, Kina and I all headed out to Casa Del Mundo which is basically this beautiful isolated swimming hole at the lake. The water was a lil cold...the soldiers had to retreat for a bit if you get my drift...but it was actually really nice. We got some awesome pictures with Kristen's underwater camara so you guys can see. Then Shannon and Christina stayed behind while Kristen, Kina and I hiked 2 hours to San Marcos. Two hours included stopping for pictures b/c we seemed to come upon a Kodak sight every 50 meters. San Marcos is just a little town on the lake that is more resort-like and it was just nice to walk around and see it. After that we picked up Shannon and Christina and met up with the rest of the estudiantes to head out to Antigua! Laurie and Jeremy also joined us to begin their journey back home. If you haven't read about it - read the post below.
We arrived in Antigua at about 6pm and met up with a new student named Megan (she's Canadian eh and goes to school w/ Kina). The first thing we did (surprise surprise) is go eat at Panza Verde. It was basically this really elegant, fancy restaurant that cost us each $25-30 a head...but totally worth it. The food was excellent, the music soothing and the company was even better. After dinner, we met up with Kina's new friend Fernando who's a local from Guatemala City. He took us out to a local bar where there were a bunch of people dancing to anything from salsa to electronica. We attempted to have a couple of drinks there but it was quite crowded and so we ended up leaving there not too long after we got there. Then we went to another salsa/meringue bar where we danced the night away and finally ended up at Reilly's the Irish bar for a couple more drinks before calling it a night and passing out in our BEAUTIFUL hotel. Quite a welcome change from the mosquitoes and scorpions of Casa Rosa.
Saturday, June 14th:
So the gang woke up early (all except Mitch who had to run) to get to the coffee plantation tour we had scheduled at 9:30. The tour included a presentation on the Mayan instruments that are used in villages and towns today and it was really cool to see everything they used to make music. What was even better was the Kindengarten teacher who spoke Spanish to us in the slowest way possible. Very awesome for understanding. Then we had the coffee tour itself and learned a lot of cool things about coffee (one plant only makes one pound of coffee or 40 cups!). Then we got to sample coffee and it was pretty much the best coffee I've had in my life (3rd best quality in the world according to the guide). After the tour we all came back to Antigua where we had lunch at this local place that was recommended in Pai's guidebook. Well - the food was delicious but those corn tortillas didn't sit well with me and I wasn't feeling so hot the rest of the day. But after lunch, we all kind of split up and were being tourists in Antigua. Some of us shopped (and bought 2000Q hammocks), others went to practice conversational Spanish and then the rest of us pretended to be Asians and took pictures of every church we could find in Antigua (That'd be me). Then we all had dinner at another fancy restaurant called El Sereno where Fernando and another new student (Liam - from NYC, Osteopathic Medicine) joined us. Very fancy restaurant, awesome sunset view and even a proposal room with rose petals and candles all around the table...put it on your list those of you that are close to gettin married..it'd be real baller. After dinner we all came back to the hotel to have AMAZING cake that we bought in the market and then passed out because we had another busy day the next day...
Sunday, June 15th:
So at 6 in the morning everybody except for Christina and Lisa woke up to head out to the Pacaya Volcano near Antigua. We got there and were immediately hounded by kids trying to sell us walking sticks and horse rides to the summit. After all that, we began the 1.5 hour hike up to the volcano itself and when we got up there it was absolutely amazing. You could still see lava coming out of the crater every once in a while and our group walked over the volcanic rock to a lava flow which was awesome. It was really hot, lots of phosphorous and sulfur, but we got to roast marshmallows and they tasted delicious =) So after the volcano we all came back to Antigua, spent the last 2 hours shopping, hittin up the bank and eating (we ate at this place called Pollo Campero which is the Guatemalan equivalent of KFC) and then we hopped back on the shuttle to Lake Atitlan. Sunday night we were all pretty much tired but we still welcomed the last student to join us this week - Nick, from the University of Wisconsin.
Okay so that was believe it or not the short version of it all but I got it all in there. If you don't understand the joke in the title it's cuz Chris called a small kid in Central Park "Hey Nino" so he could give him the rest of his disgusting brownie. The "Dime El Billo" part comes from Shannon's attempt to ask for the bill at El Sereno on Saturday night. Classic...even though my Spanish teacher probably is writhing in pain from reading it haha. Okay - that's all for now, till next time!
ESTAMOS TERMINADOS!
Neil
Friday, June 13:
So some of us decided to take this day off from clinic because for the first time in a longgg time - it was a GORGEOUS day. Kristen, Christina, Shannon, Kina and I all headed out to Casa Del Mundo which is basically this beautiful isolated swimming hole at the lake. The water was a lil cold...the soldiers had to retreat for a bit if you get my drift...but it was actually really nice. We got some awesome pictures with Kristen's underwater camara so you guys can see. Then Shannon and Christina stayed behind while Kristen, Kina and I hiked 2 hours to San Marcos. Two hours included stopping for pictures b/c we seemed to come upon a Kodak sight every 50 meters. San Marcos is just a little town on the lake that is more resort-like and it was just nice to walk around and see it. After that we picked up Shannon and Christina and met up with the rest of the estudiantes to head out to Antigua! Laurie and Jeremy also joined us to begin their journey back home. If you haven't read about it - read the post below.
We arrived in Antigua at about 6pm and met up with a new student named Megan (she's Canadian eh and goes to school w/ Kina). The first thing we did (surprise surprise) is go eat at Panza Verde. It was basically this really elegant, fancy restaurant that cost us each $25-30 a head...but totally worth it. The food was excellent, the music soothing and the company was even better. After dinner, we met up with Kina's new friend Fernando who's a local from Guatemala City. He took us out to a local bar where there were a bunch of people dancing to anything from salsa to electronica. We attempted to have a couple of drinks there but it was quite crowded and so we ended up leaving there not too long after we got there. Then we went to another salsa/meringue bar where we danced the night away and finally ended up at Reilly's the Irish bar for a couple more drinks before calling it a night and passing out in our BEAUTIFUL hotel. Quite a welcome change from the mosquitoes and scorpions of Casa Rosa.
Saturday, June 14th:
So the gang woke up early (all except Mitch who had to run) to get to the coffee plantation tour we had scheduled at 9:30. The tour included a presentation on the Mayan instruments that are used in villages and towns today and it was really cool to see everything they used to make music. What was even better was the Kindengarten teacher who spoke Spanish to us in the slowest way possible. Very awesome for understanding. Then we had the coffee tour itself and learned a lot of cool things about coffee (one plant only makes one pound of coffee or 40 cups!). Then we got to sample coffee and it was pretty much the best coffee I've had in my life (3rd best quality in the world according to the guide). After the tour we all came back to Antigua where we had lunch at this local place that was recommended in Pai's guidebook. Well - the food was delicious but those corn tortillas didn't sit well with me and I wasn't feeling so hot the rest of the day. But after lunch, we all kind of split up and were being tourists in Antigua. Some of us shopped (and bought 2000Q hammocks), others went to practice conversational Spanish and then the rest of us pretended to be Asians and took pictures of every church we could find in Antigua (That'd be me). Then we all had dinner at another fancy restaurant called El Sereno where Fernando and another new student (Liam - from NYC, Osteopathic Medicine) joined us. Very fancy restaurant, awesome sunset view and even a proposal room with rose petals and candles all around the table...put it on your list those of you that are close to gettin married..it'd be real baller. After dinner we all came back to the hotel to have AMAZING cake that we bought in the market and then passed out because we had another busy day the next day...
Sunday, June 15th:
So at 6 in the morning everybody except for Christina and Lisa woke up to head out to the Pacaya Volcano near Antigua. We got there and were immediately hounded by kids trying to sell us walking sticks and horse rides to the summit. After all that, we began the 1.5 hour hike up to the volcano itself and when we got up there it was absolutely amazing. You could still see lava coming out of the crater every once in a while and our group walked over the volcanic rock to a lava flow which was awesome. It was really hot, lots of phosphorous and sulfur, but we got to roast marshmallows and they tasted delicious =) So after the volcano we all came back to Antigua, spent the last 2 hours shopping, hittin up the bank and eating (we ate at this place called Pollo Campero which is the Guatemalan equivalent of KFC) and then we hopped back on the shuttle to Lake Atitlan. Sunday night we were all pretty much tired but we still welcomed the last student to join us this week - Nick, from the University of Wisconsin.
Okay so that was believe it or not the short version of it all but I got it all in there. If you don't understand the joke in the title it's cuz Chris called a small kid in Central Park "Hey Nino" so he could give him the rest of his disgusting brownie. The "Dime El Billo" part comes from Shannon's attempt to ask for the bill at El Sereno on Saturday night. Classic...even though my Spanish teacher probably is writhing in pain from reading it haha. Okay - that's all for now, till next time!
ESTAMOS TERMINADOS!
Neil
Monday, June 16, 2008
... and a broken neck
So, good news is that we're home. Jeremy made it through the three hours of twisting roads and loud medical students, through 8 hours of plane flights, and through two seperate 7 hour trips to the ER. We're finally home. Thanks for everyone's help, thoughts, and prayers. My parents are also here helping us navigate the ER visits, picking up prescriptions, and doing other wonderful parent things.
We got into Chapel Hill at 6:15 on Saturday and went to the ER.... where we stayed until 5 am. Jeremy got some CTs done. They showed a fracture in the spinous process of C7 (cervical vertebra 7)... yup, a broken neck. We stayed around to wait for neurosurgery to finish what they were doing (probably save someone's life), and Jeremy wore a cervical collar until they could take some more x-rays and ensure that it was stable.... which it is. They then sent us home. During the CT, he also began having a new pain in the right side of his head.
Jeremy and I slept until 2 pm, and he awoke with a terrible pain in the right side of his head and swelling. It was his worst pain yet, so we brought him back into the ER around 3:30. They took some more CT scans, and the doctor thought that there may be an infection so they gave him some augmentin. We left around 11.
We're going to be back tomorrow for a wound recheck and Tuesday to get his stitches out.
So it looks like Jeremy's count is:
- fractured C7 vertebrae
- 20 stitches in about a 6" arc in the top of his scalp
- 2 stitches in the back of his head
- 1 stitch above his eyebrow
- possible infected scalp stitches
- 1 nasty arm wound that should have been stitched up
However, he did fall 40 feet and hike for 3 hours with a broken neck... thank God it was stable and I still have a husband.
We got into Chapel Hill at 6:15 on Saturday and went to the ER.... where we stayed until 5 am. Jeremy got some CTs done. They showed a fracture in the spinous process of C7 (cervical vertebra 7)... yup, a broken neck. We stayed around to wait for neurosurgery to finish what they were doing (probably save someone's life), and Jeremy wore a cervical collar until they could take some more x-rays and ensure that it was stable.... which it is. They then sent us home. During the CT, he also began having a new pain in the right side of his head.
Jeremy and I slept until 2 pm, and he awoke with a terrible pain in the right side of his head and swelling. It was his worst pain yet, so we brought him back into the ER around 3:30. They took some more CT scans, and the doctor thought that there may be an infection so they gave him some augmentin. We left around 11.
We're going to be back tomorrow for a wound recheck and Tuesday to get his stitches out.
So it looks like Jeremy's count is:
- fractured C7 vertebrae
- 20 stitches in about a 6" arc in the top of his scalp
- 2 stitches in the back of his head
- 1 stitch above his eyebrow
- possible infected scalp stitches
- 1 nasty arm wound that should have been stitched up
However, he did fall 40 feet and hike for 3 hours with a broken neck... thank God it was stable and I still have a husband.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Dude...check out that wicked scar
Thank you Kristen for the novel that you wrote. It needed to be said though because a lot has happened this week in Guatemala. I'll be glad to fill in the gory details that I saw in the hospital and when I first saw Jeremy. Laurie was the first to let us know that something had happened as she came running towards the hotel screaming my name for me to go over and help. So we quickly went over there and as soon as I got there I saw Jeremy sitting in a chair with blood ALL over his face and a t-shirt tied around his head because Fletch said that he suffered a pretty big gash. He had cuts and a pretty big laceration on his arm and he said that his back hurt a lot. We quickly called for additional help since the First Aid kit at the Iguana didn't have a C-collar (baaaaad news) so I held his C-spine until help arrived and we quickly got him on the backboard, loaded him on a boat and then off to a hospital in Solola. To reiterate what Kristen said...the volunteer FD here sucks because I had to basically lift and push the stretcher into place in the "ambulance".
But anywayy - at the hospital we quickly rushed him to the X-ray room where we were not at all surprised to see that the x-ray tech wasn't there because she was out to dinner. So we had to wait before she came. And then we had to do lateral x-rays twice because she didn't do them right and she either penetrated too deeply or not far enough (that's what she said?). After the X-rays came back negative we went back to the ER where I experienced the most horrific thing I think I have seen in the medical world. The surgery doc on call got out all of his "sterile" stuff and told Jeremy to lay down so he could stitch up the wounds on his head. The first thing he did was take a FULL needle of lidocaine and literally jab it into the gash on top of his head trying to irrigate, anesthetize and pull his scalp up off his skull alll at the same time. He basically succeeded in all of this while BENDING THE NEEDLE ON THE SYRINGE and before I knew it I could see Jeremy's skull...yes - the bone. He then proceeded to stitch Jeremy up and I think that he got about 25 on the big gash on top of his head and then 3 on the one on his forehead and 2 on the one in the back of his head. Jeremy said that the doc didn't fully numb him because he could feel the last four on the big gash that he had on top of his head. So while all this is going on I basically am in complete shock because of the pain that I just saw Jeremy go through but he put up with it like a man. I would've cried like a girl.
At the end of it all, there was a pool of blood (about 20 mL) on the floor which I'm pretty sure didn't get cleaned up till the morning. Then proceeded the ridiculousness. First - they wouldn't let Laurie stay with her husband overnight b/c he was in the men's room. Then when I tried to say that I would stay they said I couldn't do it either. So Jeremy was super angry at this point but we convinced him to stay overnight just in case. Second - they wouldn't let him eat. They thought that he was going to vomit everything due to his pain. Third - they didn't even ATTEMPT to clean the wounds on his extremities and so they were left open to infection. Oh wait - the nurse put THREE strips of tape across his deepest laceration on his left arm. Woop-de-doo. So angry, hungry, infection-prone, alone Jeremy was in the men's wing all night while Laurie and I were ushered off to this small room with a hard mattress, one sheet and a wool blanket to sleep on. Needless to say we didn't get much rest. At 6am we immediately woke up to get Jeremy. Little did we know Jeremy was ready to get out quicker than we were and he was up and WALKING and ready to get the hell out. So we signed the papers without seeing the trauma doc and went back home. So that's the whole story. Laurie and Jeremy are going to come back home this weekend so please wish them a safe trip back to the States and keep them in your thoughts and prayers please.
So there are all the other details from Neil's point of view. Kristen pretty much got the rest of the details so I will leave you with a wonderful quote from Christina this week:
Adios y hasta luego!
Neil
But anywayy - at the hospital we quickly rushed him to the X-ray room where we were not at all surprised to see that the x-ray tech wasn't there because she was out to dinner. So we had to wait before she came. And then we had to do lateral x-rays twice because she didn't do them right and she either penetrated too deeply or not far enough (that's what she said?). After the X-rays came back negative we went back to the ER where I experienced the most horrific thing I think I have seen in the medical world. The surgery doc on call got out all of his "sterile" stuff and told Jeremy to lay down so he could stitch up the wounds on his head. The first thing he did was take a FULL needle of lidocaine and literally jab it into the gash on top of his head trying to irrigate, anesthetize and pull his scalp up off his skull alll at the same time. He basically succeeded in all of this while BENDING THE NEEDLE ON THE SYRINGE and before I knew it I could see Jeremy's skull...yes - the bone. He then proceeded to stitch Jeremy up and I think that he got about 25 on the big gash on top of his head and then 3 on the one on his forehead and 2 on the one in the back of his head. Jeremy said that the doc didn't fully numb him because he could feel the last four on the big gash that he had on top of his head. So while all this is going on I basically am in complete shock because of the pain that I just saw Jeremy go through but he put up with it like a man. I would've cried like a girl.
At the end of it all, there was a pool of blood (about 20 mL) on the floor which I'm pretty sure didn't get cleaned up till the morning. Then proceeded the ridiculousness. First - they wouldn't let Laurie stay with her husband overnight b/c he was in the men's room. Then when I tried to say that I would stay they said I couldn't do it either. So Jeremy was super angry at this point but we convinced him to stay overnight just in case. Second - they wouldn't let him eat. They thought that he was going to vomit everything due to his pain. Third - they didn't even ATTEMPT to clean the wounds on his extremities and so they were left open to infection. Oh wait - the nurse put THREE strips of tape across his deepest laceration on his left arm. Woop-de-doo. So angry, hungry, infection-prone, alone Jeremy was in the men's wing all night while Laurie and I were ushered off to this small room with a hard mattress, one sheet and a wool blanket to sleep on. Needless to say we didn't get much rest. At 6am we immediately woke up to get Jeremy. Little did we know Jeremy was ready to get out quicker than we were and he was up and WALKING and ready to get the hell out. So we signed the papers without seeing the trauma doc and went back home. So that's the whole story. Laurie and Jeremy are going to come back home this weekend so please wish them a safe trip back to the States and keep them in your thoughts and prayers please.
So there are all the other details from Neil's point of view. Kristen pretty much got the rest of the details so I will leave you with a wonderful quote from Christina this week:
I like my men like I like my coffee...black and hot
Adios y hasta luego!
Neil
Oh the Drama in Guatemala....
So we have had quite the week, folks. Since Neil updated you on last weekend, I'll start at this past Monday. First thing's first, we've had a great time in clinic. Neil, Christina, and I have been working with Carmen this week on physical exam terminology and we've gotten to see quite a few patients with her. It's been really encouraging to be able to start taking full histories in Spanish and likewise be able to instruct patients on how to take the medicine we are giving them. We haven't seen anything too crazy, and surprisingly we haven't seen any patients with diarrhea (I'm pretty sure it's because we've taken care of that for everybody, haha). So far we've seen a bunch of URI's, "la gripe" (the flu), otitis externa, heat rashes, gout, and some fungal infections. It's kind of entertaining that we are learning all of the medications in Spanish before we've even learned them in English at school, haha. We also worked with Guadalupe yesterday, the nurse here at the clinic, to learn all about pre- and post-partem examinations with the women of Santa Cruz. The crazy thing is that in this small village of approximately 2000 people, there are more than 60 births each year. Guadalupe is responsible for seeing all of them (at least all that are willing to come in for health care), which is a big job in and of itself. Compound that with women not being willing to go to the hospital when they are in danger, i.e. when the fetus is transverse or feet-first at over 8 mos. gestation, when they are hemorraging, or when they are having fever or abdominal pain. The people here do not think highly of the nearby hospital in Solola and are petrified that if they go there, they will die. So, rather than seek care for their high risk pregnancies, they call a mid-wife to help with a home delivery, which has proven fatal for the mom and/or baby. But women here do not really consider family planning as their husbands won't permit it; to them they are not "man enough" if their wives are not producing many children. I met one 57 year old woman last week who had 13 pregnancies in her lifetime. It is not uncommon for a woman my age to already have 3-5 children here in Santa Cruz (don't worry, I'm not getting any ideas). But it is just extremely unfortunate because, say with a salary of 1000 quetzales per month (for an average construction worker, translates to $130 US per month), they accomodate feeding 7, 8, 9, 10 mouths by purchasing what they can afford, which is usually arroz y papas (rice and potatoes). Approximately 68% of children in Santa Cruz have permanently stunted growth and thus are extremely small in stature due to malnutricion. I don't think it helps the fact that they carry ridiculous loads strapped to their heads/backs walking up the mountain from the boat docks to their homes.
Well, that's pretty much the week in review at the clinic. Except for the other adventures we have survived....
So, on the way home from the market at Chichi last weekend, I started getting pretty bad abdominal cramps or shall we say poopie pains. Oh yes. And come Monday and then Tuesday, they got pretty severe and Tuesday morning I found blood in my stool. Lucky as we are to be working at a clinic, Carmen listened to my symptoms and without a doubt told me I had amoebic dysentery. I must say if you are going to get a GI bug, amoebiasis is the one to get. Other than a few cramps and bloody popo, you don't feel bad at all. So I started on Secnidazole on Tuesday, which is just a day's course, and hoped for the best. Well....Tuesday night before bed I discovered that I had urine the color of coca-cola, and despite the fact that I can't remember what that disease was we learned about (glycogen storage disease..? I dunno), I knew it wasn't good. The next morning it was more of the same, so in a tizzy I called Carmen and ended up having to take the boat over to Panajachel (Pana) to give a blood, urine, and stool sample. Let me tell you how comforting it is to get blood drawn in an open-air facility with a dirt floor and nurse that doesn't even put on gloves before sticking me. Not so much. Do as the Romans do, though, right?
Well, Neil, Christina, and I returned from Pana early evening only to find out that while we were out, Jeremy (Laurie's husband for those of you who don't know him) had fallen from a 40-ft watter fall. I'm not sure when Laurie will be able to update this blog, so hopefully she won't mind if I give you the brief overview. He and Fletch, an employee at the Iguana (hostel where we eat and hang out at night) went hiking up a ravine to check out the magnificent waterfalls they have here. They had reached the source, and the most dangerous parts of the climb, and were starting to head back down. What Jeremy thinks happened is that he saw a beautiful sight, took out his camera, and at that point lost his footing. They think that he fell about halfway down, touched down on a rock ledge and then fell the remaining 20 or so feet and hit his head on a rock. Fletch said it took him about 15 minutes to come to, and then somehow, miraculously, Jeremy was able to hike the 1 1/2 hour way down to the Iguana (though he didn't remember the first 30 minutes of the descent). At the Iguana he was complaining of pain in his back, and it was evident that he had a pretty big gash on his head and arm, among other narly abrasions. So, the next hour entailed calling Craig and Carmen, getting the backboard from the clinic, and everyone rallying at the Iguana to get Jeremy secured down and onto the emergency boat over to Pana. There we were met by the volunteer FD, which may I tell you weren't very well trained to get a stretcher into an ambulence. They kept getting the wheel of the stretcher stuck on the rear bumber. Anyhow, Craig and Carmen and Neil rode in the back with Jeremy and Laurie up front up to the nearest hospital in Solala. Thank God as it turned out Jeremy does not have any fractures (talk about divine intervention), probably very much a result of him having a backpack on at the time of his fall. But he did get about 30 stitches in his scalp (a nasty laceration that apparently went down to his skull) and they wanted to keep him overnight. I'm going to allow Neil, Laurie, and Jeremy to fill you in on all the details of the night, since well I wasn't there and also they have some pretty colorful stories, but suffice it to say for now that Laurie wasn't allowed back to see Jeremy all night because he was placed on a "men's ward", the nurses never cleaned him up or stitched a cut on his arm that definitely should have been sutured, his IV stopped in the middle of the night with no one taking notice, and in the morning when he went to use the restroom he encountered a tile floor covered in pools of urine and blood. I think that may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, or otherwise when Jeremy decided to check out regardless of actually being formally "discharged".
So Laurie and Jeremy made it back safely to Santa Cruz yesterday and rested for the day and night, and came in to the clinic this morning to have Jeremy's arm wound irrigated, cleaned, and bandaged and the dressing on his head changed. I haven't talked to them directly since earlier today but Carmen just came into the office where I'm typing a few minutes ago to say that they had decided to head back home to NC. We'll keep y'all posted on that. Please pray for Jeremy's recovery and both of them during this time...and if they are indeed heading home, for a safe journey.
Well, I better be signing off now; if you have made it this far you're probably ready for me to stop typing anyhow! Just to give you a heads up on our weekend plans...the 9 of us are going to head to Casa del Mundo tomorrow, a small hotel where there is supposed to be a great (and clean) place to swim along the lake, followed by lunch in the small nearby village of San Marcos, which is set up as a holistic retreat center (Do you know you can actually pay to come do a program where you meditate in silence for 40 days?!). Then at 3pm we are going to hop on a shuttle to Antigua, where we'll be spending the weekend. So far we've made dinner reservations at Ponce Verde, which is supposed to have the best chocolate mousse in the country (I don't doubt the truth in that; let me just say Guatemala is NOT renowned for its choc), we're (or I am) hoping for some more Salsa adventure tomorrow night. Saturday we are going to hike Pacaya, an active volcano and where you can close enough to the molten lava to roast marshmallows! So excited about that. Sunday we've planned to tour a coffee plantation, then back here to good 'ol Santa Cruz. It's great to be able to have all the other students as travel buddies on the weekend, just to be able to have some down time from the clinic and and get to know everyone. The other students here are so great and really the experience wouldn't be nearly the same without them. I mean really...you know you're with good peeps when you can call on any of them to look at a toilet full of your brown urine ;-)
PS--all my tests came back fine so I think that it was/is either the Secnidazole or the anti-malarial prophylaxis that is somehow causing funny colored pee. But who knows...keep ya posted if I learn anything more, but I am feeling a whole lot better.
Ok, have a great weekend everyone! More adventures to be posted in the coming days!
Much love,
Kristen and the MMA gang
Well, that's pretty much the week in review at the clinic. Except for the other adventures we have survived....
So, on the way home from the market at Chichi last weekend, I started getting pretty bad abdominal cramps or shall we say poopie pains. Oh yes. And come Monday and then Tuesday, they got pretty severe and Tuesday morning I found blood in my stool. Lucky as we are to be working at a clinic, Carmen listened to my symptoms and without a doubt told me I had amoebic dysentery. I must say if you are going to get a GI bug, amoebiasis is the one to get. Other than a few cramps and bloody popo, you don't feel bad at all. So I started on Secnidazole on Tuesday, which is just a day's course, and hoped for the best. Well....Tuesday night before bed I discovered that I had urine the color of coca-cola, and despite the fact that I can't remember what that disease was we learned about (glycogen storage disease..? I dunno), I knew it wasn't good. The next morning it was more of the same, so in a tizzy I called Carmen and ended up having to take the boat over to Panajachel (Pana) to give a blood, urine, and stool sample. Let me tell you how comforting it is to get blood drawn in an open-air facility with a dirt floor and nurse that doesn't even put on gloves before sticking me. Not so much. Do as the Romans do, though, right?
Well, Neil, Christina, and I returned from Pana early evening only to find out that while we were out, Jeremy (Laurie's husband for those of you who don't know him) had fallen from a 40-ft watter fall. I'm not sure when Laurie will be able to update this blog, so hopefully she won't mind if I give you the brief overview. He and Fletch, an employee at the Iguana (hostel where we eat and hang out at night) went hiking up a ravine to check out the magnificent waterfalls they have here. They had reached the source, and the most dangerous parts of the climb, and were starting to head back down. What Jeremy thinks happened is that he saw a beautiful sight, took out his camera, and at that point lost his footing. They think that he fell about halfway down, touched down on a rock ledge and then fell the remaining 20 or so feet and hit his head on a rock. Fletch said it took him about 15 minutes to come to, and then somehow, miraculously, Jeremy was able to hike the 1 1/2 hour way down to the Iguana (though he didn't remember the first 30 minutes of the descent). At the Iguana he was complaining of pain in his back, and it was evident that he had a pretty big gash on his head and arm, among other narly abrasions. So, the next hour entailed calling Craig and Carmen, getting the backboard from the clinic, and everyone rallying at the Iguana to get Jeremy secured down and onto the emergency boat over to Pana. There we were met by the volunteer FD, which may I tell you weren't very well trained to get a stretcher into an ambulence. They kept getting the wheel of the stretcher stuck on the rear bumber. Anyhow, Craig and Carmen and Neil rode in the back with Jeremy and Laurie up front up to the nearest hospital in Solala. Thank God as it turned out Jeremy does not have any fractures (talk about divine intervention), probably very much a result of him having a backpack on at the time of his fall. But he did get about 30 stitches in his scalp (a nasty laceration that apparently went down to his skull) and they wanted to keep him overnight. I'm going to allow Neil, Laurie, and Jeremy to fill you in on all the details of the night, since well I wasn't there and also they have some pretty colorful stories, but suffice it to say for now that Laurie wasn't allowed back to see Jeremy all night because he was placed on a "men's ward", the nurses never cleaned him up or stitched a cut on his arm that definitely should have been sutured, his IV stopped in the middle of the night with no one taking notice, and in the morning when he went to use the restroom he encountered a tile floor covered in pools of urine and blood. I think that may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, or otherwise when Jeremy decided to check out regardless of actually being formally "discharged".
So Laurie and Jeremy made it back safely to Santa Cruz yesterday and rested for the day and night, and came in to the clinic this morning to have Jeremy's arm wound irrigated, cleaned, and bandaged and the dressing on his head changed. I haven't talked to them directly since earlier today but Carmen just came into the office where I'm typing a few minutes ago to say that they had decided to head back home to NC. We'll keep y'all posted on that. Please pray for Jeremy's recovery and both of them during this time...and if they are indeed heading home, for a safe journey.
Well, I better be signing off now; if you have made it this far you're probably ready for me to stop typing anyhow! Just to give you a heads up on our weekend plans...the 9 of us are going to head to Casa del Mundo tomorrow, a small hotel where there is supposed to be a great (and clean) place to swim along the lake, followed by lunch in the small nearby village of San Marcos, which is set up as a holistic retreat center (Do you know you can actually pay to come do a program where you meditate in silence for 40 days?!). Then at 3pm we are going to hop on a shuttle to Antigua, where we'll be spending the weekend. So far we've made dinner reservations at Ponce Verde, which is supposed to have the best chocolate mousse in the country (I don't doubt the truth in that; let me just say Guatemala is NOT renowned for its choc), we're (or I am) hoping for some more Salsa adventure tomorrow night. Saturday we are going to hike Pacaya, an active volcano and where you can close enough to the molten lava to roast marshmallows! So excited about that. Sunday we've planned to tour a coffee plantation, then back here to good 'ol Santa Cruz. It's great to be able to have all the other students as travel buddies on the weekend, just to be able to have some down time from the clinic and and get to know everyone. The other students here are so great and really the experience wouldn't be nearly the same without them. I mean really...you know you're with good peeps when you can call on any of them to look at a toilet full of your brown urine ;-)
PS--all my tests came back fine so I think that it was/is either the Secnidazole or the anti-malarial prophylaxis that is somehow causing funny colored pee. But who knows...keep ya posted if I learn anything more, but I am feeling a whole lot better.
Ok, have a great weekend everyone! More adventures to be posted in the coming days!
Much love,
Kristen and the MMA gang
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
"The Gym Is Over There", Abna...Our Latin Lover, "I suck at bargaining"
Hi readers! Sorry its been so long since an update - me and the other students all took a weekend trip to a lot of cities and had a lot of fun. So let the stories begin!
Friday, June 6:
So after a half day at the clinic the other students and I decided to head out to San Pedro on the other side of the lake. This place was described to us as a "hippie hangout" and it kind of showed when we got there. A lot of Europeans were around and they all seemed to be high or were talking about getting high that night. But anyway - it was actually a little dead since its not tourist season so we kind of had the city to ourselves. We walked around a little, found some churches, had a drink at Niq's Place (the cappuccino's look like lava lamps) and then set out for dinner. Oh before I forget - we saw a gym there and they had a bunch of equipment while playing upbeat 80's music. Pai decided to show off her ripped body in one of our pictures entitled "The Gym Is Over There". Check it out. After navigating through sketchy alleys we found this place known as the Buddha Bar. They had an Asian cuisine there and although the food sounded good on paper...it wasn't so great in our bellies. But that's okay - cuz the drinks were super cheap (For you old enough try rum, grenadine and lemonade...its great). Then we set off a couple of hot air balloons which was really cool (and we have great pics of) and went off to go Salsa dance at a place called Chile's (no...not the Chile's we've all grown to love in the States). We sat down in the restaurant for a couple of Cuba Libres (Rum & Coke) and Mojitos and waited for dancing. That is when we met our lover...Abna. He was graceful, beautiful and pretty much an overall nice guy. He taught us how to salsa and there are just hilarious pics of it all in our album. Maybe I'll show you ladies out there a couple of moves when I get back to the States. Oh - and Christina totally had a dream about Abna and so we tease her a lot about him haha. But after dancing we were tired and ended up going to sleep in our $3/night hostel. It sucked. A lot. Foam mattress, wool blanket, pillow full of dust mites and all the mosquitoes and loud noises you could ask for. Shannon and I have decided we're doin 5-star hotels from here on out haha.
Saturday, June 7:
So we wake up in the morning with the intention of heading out to "La Nariz" to check out the beautiful lake...but it wasn't so beautiful in the morning with clouds and drizzle. So instead we had a wonderful breakfast at Le Jardin (I got awesome pancakes with fruit and yogurt) and then set off for Santiago. Let me just start by saying I suck at bargaining with the boatmen here. They want 25Q a head to take us from one place to another and use gasoline as the excuse as to why its so much. We just gave into them because we suck at bargaining. The good news is that it cleared up though and it was REALLY sunny and we were in a boat with no top so we got AWESOME pictures of the lake at its finest. In Santiago - we were immediately bombarded by kids and vendors who were trying to sell us everything and anything. It was basically a market town and a lot of the girls bought things like purses, pirahanas, paintings, jewelry and other merchandise. But the main attraction at Santiago was Maximon. This is some Pagan god that gets passed around from house to house in the village so you have to find someone to show you where it is. A group of med kids know better - we asked the guard at the bank to tell us where it was and he did it for free haha. Maximon was...interesting. Its basically a god that they pray to and worship by giving him cigarettes, liquor and beer. He's dressed in a cowboy hat, has a beard and looks exactly like the Marlboro man on the box of cigarettes. It was...weird. They make him smoke cigarettes and when he's done they make him drink liquor. We only got one pic since they were charging 10Q a pic...but its a good one. After Santiago we left and went to Pana for some grocery shopping. Then we took the late boat back to Santa Cruz (where we almost drowned from there being too much weight on the boat) and PASSED OUT in our hotel rooms in Santa Cruz.
Sunday, June 8:
Today is the day that we headed out to Chichi - the GIANT market outside the lake. We woke up super early to hop on a shuttle to the town that left at 8am. Along the way we got to see more of Guatemala's beautiful countryside including a couple of waterfalls that got created from the rain that we've been getting. We got to the market at around 10am and it was INSANE. Words cannot explain the amount of people and things that you could see there. We immedately dived into it and started bargaining with vendors and getting deals on stuff. They tried to price things 3-4x as much as they should cost but if you're good at bargaining then you can get them down low. I took Shannon's approach to the whole thing where you stick with a price and if they don't give it to you ... walk away. Ok - it didnt work all the time but I got some gifts outta it! After shopping for a couple of hours we met up with Pai's friend Jess who teaches in Chichi. She took us to this wonderful buffet for lunch where we ate to our hearts content and then did last minute shopping before heading back to Lake Atitlan. When we got back to our hotel rooms - we were tired and just watched movies, played cards and relaxed until we fell asleep. But before I forget - time to introduce more characters to our vacation. We had 4 more people join us this weekend:
-Laurie: that UNC girl that we saw kayaking in the rocky waters of Atitlan cuz she's crazy.
-Lisa: 4th year pharm student at University of Maryland - Baltimore
-Chris: 2nd year pharm student at University of Maryland - Baltimore
-Mitch: still haven't gotten to know him but we know he's a dental student?
Phew - that was a hell of an update but its very detailed for your enjoyment! If you guys want any gifts or postcards or something let me know and I'll try my hardest to get them as soon as I can. Oh and to those that think that I'm in paradise..try again. It's raining and I eat alot. I'm getting more pale and fat rather than tan and skinny. Go figure. Anyway - hope everyone's enjoying their summer so far, I miss you guys!
Hasta Luego,
Neil
Friday, June 6:
So after a half day at the clinic the other students and I decided to head out to San Pedro on the other side of the lake. This place was described to us as a "hippie hangout" and it kind of showed when we got there. A lot of Europeans were around and they all seemed to be high or were talking about getting high that night. But anyway - it was actually a little dead since its not tourist season so we kind of had the city to ourselves. We walked around a little, found some churches, had a drink at Niq's Place (the cappuccino's look like lava lamps) and then set out for dinner. Oh before I forget - we saw a gym there and they had a bunch of equipment while playing upbeat 80's music. Pai decided to show off her ripped body in one of our pictures entitled "The Gym Is Over There". Check it out. After navigating through sketchy alleys we found this place known as the Buddha Bar. They had an Asian cuisine there and although the food sounded good on paper...it wasn't so great in our bellies. But that's okay - cuz the drinks were super cheap (For you old enough try rum, grenadine and lemonade...its great). Then we set off a couple of hot air balloons which was really cool (and we have great pics of) and went off to go Salsa dance at a place called Chile's (no...not the Chile's we've all grown to love in the States). We sat down in the restaurant for a couple of Cuba Libres (Rum & Coke) and Mojitos and waited for dancing. That is when we met our lover...Abna. He was graceful, beautiful and pretty much an overall nice guy. He taught us how to salsa and there are just hilarious pics of it all in our album. Maybe I'll show you ladies out there a couple of moves when I get back to the States. Oh - and Christina totally had a dream about Abna and so we tease her a lot about him haha. But after dancing we were tired and ended up going to sleep in our $3/night hostel. It sucked. A lot. Foam mattress, wool blanket, pillow full of dust mites and all the mosquitoes and loud noises you could ask for. Shannon and I have decided we're doin 5-star hotels from here on out haha.
Saturday, June 7:
So we wake up in the morning with the intention of heading out to "La Nariz" to check out the beautiful lake...but it wasn't so beautiful in the morning with clouds and drizzle. So instead we had a wonderful breakfast at Le Jardin (I got awesome pancakes with fruit and yogurt) and then set off for Santiago. Let me just start by saying I suck at bargaining with the boatmen here. They want 25Q a head to take us from one place to another and use gasoline as the excuse as to why its so much. We just gave into them because we suck at bargaining. The good news is that it cleared up though and it was REALLY sunny and we were in a boat with no top so we got AWESOME pictures of the lake at its finest. In Santiago - we were immediately bombarded by kids and vendors who were trying to sell us everything and anything. It was basically a market town and a lot of the girls bought things like purses, pirahanas, paintings, jewelry and other merchandise. But the main attraction at Santiago was Maximon. This is some Pagan god that gets passed around from house to house in the village so you have to find someone to show you where it is. A group of med kids know better - we asked the guard at the bank to tell us where it was and he did it for free haha. Maximon was...interesting. Its basically a god that they pray to and worship by giving him cigarettes, liquor and beer. He's dressed in a cowboy hat, has a beard and looks exactly like the Marlboro man on the box of cigarettes. It was...weird. They make him smoke cigarettes and when he's done they make him drink liquor. We only got one pic since they were charging 10Q a pic...but its a good one. After Santiago we left and went to Pana for some grocery shopping. Then we took the late boat back to Santa Cruz (where we almost drowned from there being too much weight on the boat) and PASSED OUT in our hotel rooms in Santa Cruz.
Sunday, June 8:
Today is the day that we headed out to Chichi - the GIANT market outside the lake. We woke up super early to hop on a shuttle to the town that left at 8am. Along the way we got to see more of Guatemala's beautiful countryside including a couple of waterfalls that got created from the rain that we've been getting. We got to the market at around 10am and it was INSANE. Words cannot explain the amount of people and things that you could see there. We immedately dived into it and started bargaining with vendors and getting deals on stuff. They tried to price things 3-4x as much as they should cost but if you're good at bargaining then you can get them down low. I took Shannon's approach to the whole thing where you stick with a price and if they don't give it to you ... walk away. Ok - it didnt work all the time but I got some gifts outta it! After shopping for a couple of hours we met up with Pai's friend Jess who teaches in Chichi. She took us to this wonderful buffet for lunch where we ate to our hearts content and then did last minute shopping before heading back to Lake Atitlan. When we got back to our hotel rooms - we were tired and just watched movies, played cards and relaxed until we fell asleep. But before I forget - time to introduce more characters to our vacation. We had 4 more people join us this weekend:
-Laurie: that UNC girl that we saw kayaking in the rocky waters of Atitlan cuz she's crazy.
-Lisa: 4th year pharm student at University of Maryland - Baltimore
-Chris: 2nd year pharm student at University of Maryland - Baltimore
-Mitch: still haven't gotten to know him but we know he's a dental student?
Phew - that was a hell of an update but its very detailed for your enjoyment! If you guys want any gifts or postcards or something let me know and I'll try my hardest to get them as soon as I can. Oh and to those that think that I'm in paradise..try again. It's raining and I eat alot. I'm getting more pale and fat rather than tan and skinny. Go figure. Anyway - hope everyone's enjoying their summer so far, I miss you guys!
Hasta Luego,
Neil
Friday, June 6, 2008
picasa password
hi all,
sorry about the confusion with the picture password. I'm pretty sure this link will work for you for now:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0BbNXLJo2YsnMQ
the link to the right does not work right now as it is password protected, so if i upload more pics, i´ll get that workin.
love,
kristen
sorry about the confusion with the picture password. I'm pretty sure this link will work for you for now:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0BbNXLJo2YsnMQ
the link to the right does not work right now as it is password protected, so if i upload more pics, i´ll get that workin.
love,
kristen
Thursday, June 5, 2008
solamente fotos
hello amigos,
i don't have time to post much since i spent all the internet time getting all these pics up for your viewing pleasure! today was a good day...learned a lot of Spanish, Neil taught us how to play "Set" during lunch, and i got to play with a really cute puppy this morning (see the pics) at La Iguana Perdida while studying and enjoying that renowned Guatemalan coffee. Tomorrow Craig and Carmen (the docs we're working with) are heading to Antigua to drop Haley and Lianna off (they are finished with their 4 weeks of the program and are heading out to travel before going back home to the States), so we all have different assignments. I'm excited as I get to head out with Christina and one of the clinic staff, Martita, to interview the native women about their breastfeeding practices. Many women here breastfeed until their children are 3 and 4 years old, which I know may be practice for some groups of women world-wide, but here they do it to the exclusion of introducing ANY solid foods. This, as you can imagine, greatly contributes to the malnutrition problem here among other things (lack of immunity, dental issues..etc). So we will be going out to these women's homes tomorrow and interviewing them, hopefully we'll visit about 15 women. Ok, really got to go, love to all and please check out the pics (all Santa Cruz..some of our hotel, the trek to/from the clinic, the clinic itself, views of the lake and lakeshore from the boat, and my fellow classmates) at the following website until I get them uploaded to the right as a picture link!
http://krake.shutterfly.com/action/?a=0BbNXLJo2YsnEw
i don't have time to post much since i spent all the internet time getting all these pics up for your viewing pleasure! today was a good day...learned a lot of Spanish, Neil taught us how to play "Set" during lunch, and i got to play with a really cute puppy this morning (see the pics) at La Iguana Perdida while studying and enjoying that renowned Guatemalan coffee. Tomorrow Craig and Carmen (the docs we're working with) are heading to Antigua to drop Haley and Lianna off (they are finished with their 4 weeks of the program and are heading out to travel before going back home to the States), so we all have different assignments. I'm excited as I get to head out with Christina and one of the clinic staff, Martita, to interview the native women about their breastfeeding practices. Many women here breastfeed until their children are 3 and 4 years old, which I know may be practice for some groups of women world-wide, but here they do it to the exclusion of introducing ANY solid foods. This, as you can imagine, greatly contributes to the malnutrition problem here among other things (lack of immunity, dental issues..etc). So we will be going out to these women's homes tomorrow and interviewing them, hopefully we'll visit about 15 women. Ok, really got to go, love to all and please check out the pics (all Santa Cruz..some of our hotel, the trek to/from the clinic, the clinic itself, views of the lake and lakeshore from the boat, and my fellow classmates) at the following website until I get them uploaded to the right as a picture link!
http://krake.shutterfly.com/action/?a=0BbNXLJo2YsnEw
RIP Pobre Scorpion
Hey guys,
Jeremy and I got into town yesterday. We´re starting at the clinic Monday. This morning we were moving into "the bungalo." When Jeremy was opening the curtains I noticed a shadow. It ended up being a 2 inch scorpion. I wanted to capture it in a mug and throw it outside, but Jeremy beat me to it. We had a pet scorpion for about 5 minutes. Tragically, Jeremy decided he wanted to photgraph it near the bungalo door. When it he set it free and it jetted for the open door, he tried to stop it with his foot and squished 5 of its legs. He then put it out of its misery. It was our first pet, and here he goes and kills it within 6 minutes. Sad.
RIP poor little scorpion
I appologize for the uselessness of this post and the useless loss of scorpion life.
And, by the way, Jeremy and I were both part of the winning ¨hola china¨team.
Jeremy and I got into town yesterday. We´re starting at the clinic Monday. This morning we were moving into "the bungalo." When Jeremy was opening the curtains I noticed a shadow. It ended up being a 2 inch scorpion. I wanted to capture it in a mug and throw it outside, but Jeremy beat me to it. We had a pet scorpion for about 5 minutes. Tragically, Jeremy decided he wanted to photgraph it near the bungalo door. When it he set it free and it jetted for the open door, he tried to stop it with his foot and squished 5 of its legs. He then put it out of its misery. It was our first pet, and here he goes and kills it within 6 minutes. Sad.
RIP poor little scorpion
I appologize for the uselessness of this post and the useless loss of scorpion life.
And, by the way, Jeremy and I were both part of the winning ¨hola china¨team.
Team Strawberry Cervix
Hello again family, friends and fellow bloggers! I just wanted to give a short update on whats happened since my enormous post. Oh by the way - thanks for calling me out Krake...we'll see if I let you boil water or get your soy milk tonight haha. Anyway - yesterday was a long day at the clinic and Kristen and I were finally able to dive into the bulk of history taking and physical exam in Spanish. Carmen was our teacher and I feel like I completely refreshed my Spanish skills just listening to her talk yesterday. We'll test that out today. But after a long day at clinic we all came back to La Iguana for Taco Tuesday...even though it was Wednesday and then Quiz Night! My team name was Strawberry Cervix ... for all those MS2's that can understand where that comes from...and we got bonus points for the most creative name! Kristen and Pai's group was called "Hola China" cuz that's what all the little kids in the town call Pai haha. Anyway - "Hola China" won the game and got a bottle of wine which we will hopefully open tonight for when we have our party since Lianna and Halie are both leaving us on Friday. I'm still a little bitter about it since I only lost by two points. I totally think that Beastiality is one of the most popular sexual fetishes in the world...Oh and fellow Scrabulous players...try and think of the words that use all of the vowels (a, e, i, o, u) in a word...but backwards. So you have to have a word that has the vowels in the order u, o, i, e, a. Good luck. No cheating.
Okay - well time to sign off because Kristen is making me feel guilty about being the computer hog. I said it once and I'll say it again...I wish I brought my laptop. Hope everyone's doing well and look for pictures on our next post!
Adios!
Neil
Okay - well time to sign off because Kristen is making me feel guilty about being the computer hog. I said it once and I'll say it again...I wish I brought my laptop. Hope everyone's doing well and look for pictures on our next post!
Adios!
Neil
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Meet My Friend Fred
Hola familia, amigos, and friendly readers :-)
This is my first attempt at "blogging" and I'm under all this pressure since Neil has basically showed me up with his ridiculously long and detailed posts, haha. Well let me tell you, it's cause he steals computer time EVERY chance he can get...go figure haha *I love you Neil*...
Anyhow, Guatemala is pretty great so far. I arrived safely on Sunday and met up with Neil and Pai and the rest of the crew already here. For those of you who don't know, my dear friends Nicole and Tommy lost their son Payton suddenly on Friday, May 23rd, and I was thankful to have the opportunity to delay my departure to be able to stay for the week and spend time with them and their children. Please continue to pray for Nicole, Tommy, and their children Morgan, Dillon, Tyler, and Ayden. I won't cover all that Neil has thus far, but basically we have been well introduced and taken care of by Craig and his wife Carmen as well as all of the friendly students that started before us. Lake Atitlan is beautiful, even despite the rain and clouds...there is a peace and tranquility about it that is truly unmatched. The people of Santa Cruz are wonderful, from natives to travelers to staff alike. Our hotel, La Casa Rosa, is quaint and welcomes us in with a beautiful lakeside tropical garden retreat. There is a cabana out front that I think Pai and I are going to use for yoga one of these mornings (when it's not raining). Speaking of Casa Rosa, the title of my blog references my pet spider, Fred. He is a huge creature (he's got to be like 2 inches in diameter, if that's how you measure spiders), and he chills out in one corner of my room up by the ceiling. One of the students here, Leanna, told me that he didn't move, ever...and that the guys staying in my room before me could attest to that. Well, I went on blind faith that night (or maybe I was just blindly tired), but sure enough Fred does not move but more than a couple of cm in any given direction. Plus i have yet to find any bugs in my room, so I'm thinking that Fred kills them all while I'm gone and now I have a particular affection for him.
The past couple of days at the clinic have been great. I will say it's been a bit difficult to jump back into the swing of studying....yes we have worksheets and homework very much reminiscent to 3rd grade, haha. But it's great..and it's why I'm here! Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have learned enough that I can actually see a patient and take a full history.
Laurie (my classmate and friend if you don't know her) and her husband Jeremy just arrived so I'm gonna bounce, but I hope everyone is doing well, thank you for your thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes, and I will write more soon I promise!
Lots of love,
Kristen
This is my first attempt at "blogging" and I'm under all this pressure since Neil has basically showed me up with his ridiculously long and detailed posts, haha. Well let me tell you, it's cause he steals computer time EVERY chance he can get...go figure haha *I love you Neil*...
Anyhow, Guatemala is pretty great so far. I arrived safely on Sunday and met up with Neil and Pai and the rest of the crew already here. For those of you who don't know, my dear friends Nicole and Tommy lost their son Payton suddenly on Friday, May 23rd, and I was thankful to have the opportunity to delay my departure to be able to stay for the week and spend time with them and their children. Please continue to pray for Nicole, Tommy, and their children Morgan, Dillon, Tyler, and Ayden. I won't cover all that Neil has thus far, but basically we have been well introduced and taken care of by Craig and his wife Carmen as well as all of the friendly students that started before us. Lake Atitlan is beautiful, even despite the rain and clouds...there is a peace and tranquility about it that is truly unmatched. The people of Santa Cruz are wonderful, from natives to travelers to staff alike. Our hotel, La Casa Rosa, is quaint and welcomes us in with a beautiful lakeside tropical garden retreat. There is a cabana out front that I think Pai and I are going to use for yoga one of these mornings (when it's not raining). Speaking of Casa Rosa, the title of my blog references my pet spider, Fred. He is a huge creature (he's got to be like 2 inches in diameter, if that's how you measure spiders), and he chills out in one corner of my room up by the ceiling. One of the students here, Leanna, told me that he didn't move, ever...and that the guys staying in my room before me could attest to that. Well, I went on blind faith that night (or maybe I was just blindly tired), but sure enough Fred does not move but more than a couple of cm in any given direction. Plus i have yet to find any bugs in my room, so I'm thinking that Fred kills them all while I'm gone and now I have a particular affection for him.
The past couple of days at the clinic have been great. I will say it's been a bit difficult to jump back into the swing of studying....yes we have worksheets and homework very much reminiscent to 3rd grade, haha. But it's great..and it's why I'm here! Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have learned enough that I can actually see a patient and take a full history.
Laurie (my classmate and friend if you don't know her) and her husband Jeremy just arrived so I'm gonna bounce, but I hope everyone is doing well, thank you for your thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes, and I will write more soon I promise!
Lots of love,
Kristen
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Welcome to Guatemala: Land of shotguns, buns of steel and rain
Hello readers! Soo I apologize for not writing about my trip sooner but Internet is just so limited here and not to mention I was a complete idiot and didn't bring my laptop. To my fellow MS2's coming to Nicaragua...BRING YOUR LAPTOP. You'll thank me later. But alas, here I am all safe and sound and ready to tell you about my trip so far. So here goes...
Sunday, June 1:
I arrived in Guatemala at about noon and proceeded to baggage claim where I crossed paths with two FINE Guatemalan girls. And me and about 3 other guys all turned our heads to look and then they all proceeded to have a conversation with me in Spanish. I just smiled and nodded but at the same time knew what they were saying b/c "man speak" is universal haha. I went down to baggage claim where i met up with fellow classmate Pai. We then went out of the airport where we were greeted by 1000 Guatemalans that were waiting for their respective families to come out of the airport. Here we met up with Dr. Craig Sinkinson who is basically our boss for this trip. We hopped in the car and went to a random parking lot in Guatemala City. Here we met up with Craig's wife - Carmen. She's the pediatrician at the clinic as well. It was at this point where Pai and I noticed the militia carrying shotguns everywhere. I feel safe.
Carmen then drove us to Antigua where she dropped us off to explore the city. It's a gorgeous and historic town. Pai and I took the opportunity to get some money here. The currency is the Quetzal named after the country's famous bird. We get 7.5Q to one dollar; awesome rate. I bought a cell phone and we got some awesome cake and walked around just taking in the sites. Then we met up with 3 more of our students: Kristen (or Krake as some of you know her), Kina and Shannon. We then shuttled all the way to Lake Atitlan which is where we are staying. It was a 2.5 hour grueling ride through mountains and it made me pretty sick haha. Finally we arrived in the largest town on the lake called Panajachel. But we are staying in Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is a small town that has only 2000 people and we are staying in one of 4 hotels there. When I got to my room, I got the apartment style. So here I am livin like a king with my king-size bed, kitchen and private bath. Only downside is that I gotta deal with bugs...including scorpions. Sounds awesome right? NOT. But i do get to sleep under a mosquito net that has butterflies on it...jealous? Anyway - after we checked into our rooms we just had dinner and then we basically conked out for the rest of the night because we were essentially dead tired.
Monday, June 2:
So today we went on our first trip to the clinic. All got up, brushed teeth, took cold showers and had breakfast at the Iguana which is the hotel next to us. Quick aside here - the Iguana is basically the place to be in Santa Cruz. There are hikers and climbers and travelers that run through there all the time and there's a bar and they serve AWESOME breakfast lunch and dinner there for reasonable prices. So we go there a lot. But anyway, here we were the 8 of us ready to go on this trip:
Me, Kristen and Pai - MS2's from UNC
Shannon and Halie - MS2's from University of South Dakota
Christina and Lianna - MS2's from University of Indiana
Kina - MS3 from University of British Columbia (She says "Eh" a lot")
So one of the things to get used to in Guatemala is the hills. Well - our clinic is on top of a freaking mountain. Every morning we have to climb a 60 degree incline for about .75 miles to get to the clinic. So basically by the end of this trip - I've decided that I'm going to have the sexiest legs ever as well as buns of steel. We'll see how that works out for me. But at clinic we just got a little overview of what we do and what to expect. Then later on that afternoon we all took a boat out to Pana - the big town on the lake - and we got a tour, grabbed lunch, exchanged more money and bought some groceries. Liquor is super-cheap and milk is super-delicious. It was also hard to find a jelly that I liked...but I found one! So we all then headed back to Santa Cruz for dinner at the Iguana again and then we passed out. We go to bed so freaking early because the sun goes down at like 6 and we're just drained from all the walking that we do. We're old - what can I say?
Tuesday and Wednesday, June 3 and 4:
So the last theme of this trip so far has been the rain. There's been a lot due to the tropical storms running through the region and so its been hard to see the beautiful sights we were promised and to go out and do things. But we're making the most of it. We've started spanish lessons in the clinic and we're quickly building our medical vocabulary and grammar so that we can talk to patients in the later weeks. We've eaten and had a couple of drinks at the Iguana as well but other than that nothing too exciting. I did find out that Christina is a lil ghetto girl and is instantly my favorite on this trip haha. We talk about rap and engineering cuz she was a BME too. But anyway - we also planned what we wanna do for the rest of this trip. Here's what we've come up with so far, feel free to look up the places for yourself!
Sunday, June 1:
I arrived in Guatemala at about noon and proceeded to baggage claim where I crossed paths with two FINE Guatemalan girls. And me and about 3 other guys all turned our heads to look and then they all proceeded to have a conversation with me in Spanish. I just smiled and nodded but at the same time knew what they were saying b/c "man speak" is universal haha. I went down to baggage claim where i met up with fellow classmate Pai. We then went out of the airport where we were greeted by 1000 Guatemalans that were waiting for their respective families to come out of the airport. Here we met up with Dr. Craig Sinkinson who is basically our boss for this trip. We hopped in the car and went to a random parking lot in Guatemala City. Here we met up with Craig's wife - Carmen. She's the pediatrician at the clinic as well. It was at this point where Pai and I noticed the militia carrying shotguns everywhere. I feel safe.
Carmen then drove us to Antigua where she dropped us off to explore the city. It's a gorgeous and historic town. Pai and I took the opportunity to get some money here. The currency is the Quetzal named after the country's famous bird. We get 7.5Q to one dollar; awesome rate. I bought a cell phone and we got some awesome cake and walked around just taking in the sites. Then we met up with 3 more of our students: Kristen (or Krake as some of you know her), Kina and Shannon. We then shuttled all the way to Lake Atitlan which is where we are staying. It was a 2.5 hour grueling ride through mountains and it made me pretty sick haha. Finally we arrived in the largest town on the lake called Panajachel. But we are staying in Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is a small town that has only 2000 people and we are staying in one of 4 hotels there. When I got to my room, I got the apartment style. So here I am livin like a king with my king-size bed, kitchen and private bath. Only downside is that I gotta deal with bugs...including scorpions. Sounds awesome right? NOT. But i do get to sleep under a mosquito net that has butterflies on it...jealous? Anyway - after we checked into our rooms we just had dinner and then we basically conked out for the rest of the night because we were essentially dead tired.
Monday, June 2:
So today we went on our first trip to the clinic. All got up, brushed teeth, took cold showers and had breakfast at the Iguana which is the hotel next to us. Quick aside here - the Iguana is basically the place to be in Santa Cruz. There are hikers and climbers and travelers that run through there all the time and there's a bar and they serve AWESOME breakfast lunch and dinner there for reasonable prices. So we go there a lot. But anyway, here we were the 8 of us ready to go on this trip:
Me, Kristen and Pai - MS2's from UNC
Shannon and Halie - MS2's from University of South Dakota
Christina and Lianna - MS2's from University of Indiana
Kina - MS3 from University of British Columbia (She says "Eh" a lot")
So one of the things to get used to in Guatemala is the hills. Well - our clinic is on top of a freaking mountain. Every morning we have to climb a 60 degree incline for about .75 miles to get to the clinic. So basically by the end of this trip - I've decided that I'm going to have the sexiest legs ever as well as buns of steel. We'll see how that works out for me. But at clinic we just got a little overview of what we do and what to expect. Then later on that afternoon we all took a boat out to Pana - the big town on the lake - and we got a tour, grabbed lunch, exchanged more money and bought some groceries. Liquor is super-cheap and milk is super-delicious. It was also hard to find a jelly that I liked...but I found one! So we all then headed back to Santa Cruz for dinner at the Iguana again and then we passed out. We go to bed so freaking early because the sun goes down at like 6 and we're just drained from all the walking that we do. We're old - what can I say?
Tuesday and Wednesday, June 3 and 4:
So the last theme of this trip so far has been the rain. There's been a lot due to the tropical storms running through the region and so its been hard to see the beautiful sights we were promised and to go out and do things. But we're making the most of it. We've started spanish lessons in the clinic and we're quickly building our medical vocabulary and grammar so that we can talk to patients in the later weeks. We've eaten and had a couple of drinks at the Iguana as well but other than that nothing too exciting. I did find out that Christina is a lil ghetto girl and is instantly my favorite on this trip haha. We talk about rap and engineering cuz she was a BME too. But anyway - we also planned what we wanna do for the rest of this trip. Here's what we've come up with so far, feel free to look up the places for yourself!
- San Pedro and San Pedro volcano
- Antigua and the Pacaya volcano
- Chichi market
- Monterrico
- Tikal
I'll post more details on these places when the dates get closer for us to visit them.
Anyway - I'm going to go ahead and sign off this because it's already gotten too long to begin with. I hope everyone's enjoying their summers and let me know if you want a postcard!
Hasta Luego,
Neil
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