Honduras Part 7

Well our Honduras trip is almost over… time sure has flown by…

Monday we had a day of clinic… nothing too exciting to write about there. Brittney has gotten pretty good with her Spanish.. me I am still working on it. It’s a long process, and I am slow at picking up languages. It’s a good thing smiling is universal.

Tuesday we all (Brittney, Dupree, Dra. Xiomara, Dr. Ayes and myself) got in the lovely VCOM truck and traveled 3 hours up and down and around the mountains to Catacamas. It’s a little town north and east of Tegucigalpa that has a clinic. The original reason for visiting this clinic was that their people came to see our clinic and we started talking about a program that they run for their chronic patients (diabetes, dyslipidemia, and hypertension). They invited us to see their clinic and take the information they have gathered at their program so we can start a program of our own. Well anyone who knows me well knows that I do not fare well in cars, or boats, or plans, or basically anything that moves. So I had to be medicated and sleep through most of the trip. Brittney was glad she had Dupree to talk to while I slept. I am pretty much the most un-fun traveler in the world. I love to travel and see new places I just don’t enjoy the process to get there.

We met with the doctors that run the clinic and they told us all about their program; how it focuses on family education, especially in the diabetic patients. They have come to the realization that you can’t stop diabetes, you can only prevent the complications, so the best way to help the patients is to help the families learn about proper diet, exercise, you know all the really fun things in life. Apparently eating fried plantains all day is not a good meal plan… and yes, I would eat them at every meal if I could. The program sounds really amazing, and the doctors working on it are so smart. Someone really needs to do their PhD work on this, because it’s a really great opportunity. I hope Baxter is able to set up a similar program here because we see so many patients with chronic diseases.

After we learned about the program they gave us a tour of their facility…. I would go there as a patient or a doctor. Brittney and I were trying to figure out if we could start residency programs there or not. This place was beautiful. It’s in the valley of a bunch of mountains, and the clinic is clean and new and well taken care. They have everything from surgery, ultrasounds, EKG’s, x-rays, physical therapy. .. basically anything you need they have. We took a bunch of pictures there, so you can essentially recreate the entire clinic by photo. The clinic is Christian based and basically runs off donations. They have one main clinic and then several smaller medical clinics in the mountains…If you are interested in more information about the clinic visit their website .. http://www.predisan.org/ Hopefully the students after us will get the chance to work there for a few days, because it would be awesome, minus the 3-hour car ride.

After our lovely visit at the Predisan clinic we did a little site seeing. Catacamas has caves of glowing bones. There are caves in the mountains that were used as a second burial sites way back in the day. The locals would bury their dead, and then several years later take the bones and prepare them again and place them in the caves. The caves have many different minerals including pure calcium. Between the river running through the caves and all the minerals the bones are now covered in calcium which causes them to “glow” or sparkle. We didn’t get to see the actual bones, because they now have them blocked off, especially for those gringo touristas.. we are such trouble. But, we did get to hike through a cave and see some very beautiful stalactites and stalagmites. Brittney and I also saw a bat… and yes it was a bat and not a bird, even if the rest of the group doesn’t believe us. There are some lovely pictures of the caves (from Brittney – my camera battery hates me), and pictures of the national forest.

Wednesday Dupree got to spend some time over at Hospital San Felipe catching babies. Brittney and I ran the clinic. Dra. Xiomara took Dupree over to the hospital and left us with Dra. Julieta came to supervise Brittney and me. We saw and treated patients all on our own with minimal translations. We were like real doctors… it was pretty cool.

In the afternoon, we helped organize some of the many boxes of supplies that the clinic has. Why anyone would need 300 French Tip suction catheters is beyond me… but in case you need some the clinic has plenty to spare. We made boxes of supplies that the clinic can’t really utilize (surgery supplies, etc) and made boxes to donate to the hospitals we work at, basically bribing them to let us keep coming to visit.

Brittney and I cooked up a storm last night, it was very tasty, and we had fried plantains. I told you I really would make them for every meal. Dupree came over, recapped his OB day, and told us stories from the farm. We were all laughing so hard we cried a little bit, so all in all it was a good night. We took our extra food and made up plates for the guards, thanking them for keeping the scary gang people out of the Baxter institute.

Today we had our last Brigade out in the community. Of course, Brittney and I took a million pictures. The Brigades are very fun because we get to go into the community, see where they live and help them a little bit. Most of the time it’s just antibiotics and ibuprofen, but it’s the thought that counts right?

Tonight we are taking Dr. Xiomara, Dr. Ayes, and Marco (who’s driven us around the entire month).. out to La Cumbere which is a nice restaurant on top of the mountains that over look Tegucigalpa. The weather is pretty horrible right now.. it’s windy slightly rainy and only 70 degrees. We hope to get to the restaurant before it gets too dark so we can get a couple good pictures of the city.

I’ll be heading back to the states on Saturday morning. Brittney and Dupree are leaving tomorrow.. I am not sure what I am going to do with all my free time tomorrow without new best friend.

Well that’s all for now…hope all is well at home.

Allison

Link to pictures -- http://www.flickr.com/gp/14059370@N07/4tGU5u