May 6, 2008

Buddies.

HUGE, DISGUSTING SHRIMP. Don't worry... I didn't eat it.

All 21 of us...eating the great food.

Happy birthday to me! What a fun day for me… I get to spend my birthday in a foreign country. I was actually dreading spending my birthday in Ecuador away from my hubby, but it has been a great day. The 20 of us here get along really well. I woke up to a “heart attack” on my door from the room two doors down. That night, all 20 of us crammed into a van and drove to a YUMMY Argentine restaurant on the other side of town in celebration of my birthday. I had delicious carne and all sorts of things I have heard Matt talk about. Yes, he is right… Argentine food is delicioso!

Today at the hospital was another difficult day. I spent the day in Reanimación. This is a place in the ER where the most critical patients are brought. It is worse than the UCI (aka ICU). Patients here have been, are being or will be resuscitated. Walking in, I smelled the distinct smell of death and it has haunted me since. There is a severe lack of supplies here in Ecuador. Patients are incubated and should be placed on ventilators, but due to the lack of available machinery and funds, they are hooked up the wall oxygen unit. They don’t sedate their patients, because families can’t afford the medicine. Consequently, the patients choke on the tube down their throat. Patients are so crammed into the small room I could hardly reach their head. A few lie completely motionless (we kept rechecking their pulse because they look so dead), while others are rocking and screaming.

One patient came in for severe renal failure (her kidneys were shot). She hadn’t urinated in three days. Because her toxins were trapped in her body, she was delusional and in terrible pain. The family could not bring in a catheter for three days. Finally, when the catheter arrived, it was placed and the entire bag was filled within seconds!!! These are the things we so quickly take for granted in the US. We might not be able to afford a catheter, but at least we can get one.

Another patient was wheeled out for an ultrasound. Because they don’t have monitoring devices hooked to every patient, his status dropped within minutes. His internal gastrointestinal bleed turned ugly and his blood pressure dropped from low, to jaw-dropping-low: 50/10. He was resuscitated.

I saw nearly all I could handle in the matter of 3 hours here. From strokes to heart attacks. From make-shift sterile procedures to a gentleman who had his face and upper skill torn off in a car accident. My stomach is in knots when I try to go to bed at the end of the night. It is not that we don’t have these types of accidents in the United States that haunts me… it is the lack of resources to treat them here in Ecuador that is disturbing. People die suddenly and tragically from things as simple as a broken bone while health care personnel are unable to do anything… and we call our healthcare system murderous.

WHEELCHAIR STORY:
A group of students went out to the community to help the poorest of the poor here in Ecuador. They went to teach about various health topics. As they were leaving a shanty house, a mother ran out to ask that they see her daughter. The students went in and witnessed a 16 year old girl lying on a bed where she had laid for 6 years. She was paralyzed from years of cruel seizures. The mother of five pleaded for a wheelchair so their daughter could see the sun for the first time in years.

That Tuesday the students went to the Hogar de Cristo to complete paperwork and show the pictures of the small girl in hope of gaining a wheelchair. The director smiled and said, "How lucky! We only have one left." When she returned with the chair she said, "Actually, It is a wheelchair from your church." It had been donated by the LDS Humanitarian Aide effort and was going to be delivered by the BYU students... truly, a miracle.

The director wanted to bring it on Friday since the ambulance was already packed with 12 people. The students refused, knowing the need of this family far outweighed the comfort of a ride. The large wheelchair was tied to the top of the ambulance they traveled in and the students eventually arrived to the community. When the students arrived, the mother was in tears and hugged the students with gratitude. The frail girl was gently placed in the wheelchair where she saw the sun and took her first breath of fresh air in years.