AL/CA/MD/VA Team Journal 4
Clinic Day - Planes Del Picacho, Santa Cruz de Yojoa
We had a last minute change of plans this morning as the village we were supposed to visit today was in mourning with the recent loss a son of the village leader. Instead, we climbed a different mountain and found ourselves at the small village of Planes Del Picacho where we got a warm welcome from the community members. Raleigh did a wonderful job with the welcome sermon and we were off and running.
One of the first patients we saw was a small 7 year old boy who had been experiencing worsening abdominal pain for the previous 24 hours. After being examined by Doctora Moncada, it was determined that he probably had acute appendicitis. The family had no financial means to pay for transportation to the nearest hospital and also seemed reluctant to let him go as they felt they would be ok leaving everything in God’s hands. Since he was clearly in a lot of pain and needed a higher level of care, the team got some funds together and our Honduran inventory coordinator, Cardy, provided a ride to the nearest public transportation. We all have been praying for his safe recovery and expressed to each other many times how fortunate it was that we came to this village on this day.
The medical clinic continued to stay busy throughout the rest of the morning with lots of headaches, colds, bone pain, and an unusual number of bugs in ears. As always all patients in every area were grateful troopers regardless of what we had to do to “help” them.
The team also had quite a bit of fun painting nails, blowing bubbles, and watching the children play soccer with an empty 2 liter Coke bottle. Although we did leave them with a new soccer ball, clearly they were not dependent on us to play everyone’s favorite game of Honduran “football”.
We came home to an absolutely wonderful opportunity to share in the joy of meeting the FOB nurse Pascuala’s new one month old daughter! Pascuala and her husband have been hoping for a new addition to their family for the last 10 years and their prayers have finally been answered. Alison Belin Martinez is perfect in every way. In addition welcoming Alison to the FOB family, one of our team members, Bill Hogan, was tapped in an extra special way as Pascuala and her husband have asked Bill and his wife to be Alison’s grandparents. It was so special to be witnesses to their shared joy!
