Today was our last clinic day. Our group went to Santa Maria de Jesus. This is a really cool village on the slopes of Volcano Agua. The village sits at about 2400 meters (7200 ft) of elevation. The people are indigenous people and a remnant of the Mayan people. There has been very little mixing over the years; potentially being true descendents of the people of Lehi. Among other things they are small in stature and have a very dark skin. They are incredibly hard working people spending their lives working the land and producing beautiful and vibrant cloth.
We set up shop in one of the local churches. We organized the clinic a little different today. We gave out a certain number of numbers and that was the cut-off of how many we would see; we also separated the people between those who needed treated and those who were just coming for shoes. We ended up handing out I believe around 100 pair of shoes, as well as seeing around 30-40 people. I was working with Nadia and for the life of me I can’t remember our translators name but she was dutch. We mainly saw UE/cervico/thoracic issues; also, there was a lot of people who displayed signs of dehydration so we did a lot of educating on proper hydration. One lady we saw had classic T4 syndrome which I had never experienced so that was cool to go through the diagnostic process and then be able to get some positive results with treatment. Probably the highlight from a clinical perspective for me was the last gentleman that came in. He had complaint of LE and LBP. After a thorough history and assessment we determined that he had an MCL and medial meniscal tear. He also presented with SI instability, tight hamstrings and tight quads so we were able to give him some exercises and educate him on what would help him return to health. After treating we went for a bit of a driving tour around town and out to a building the mission is in the process of constructing. The building will serve as a place with fresh water and that they can do some feeding/clinics for the village.
We had the typical dinner tonight then went out on another soup run for the homeless folk. The word must have gotten out on the street that we were giving out shoes, because when we got to the first stop we were completely mobbed by people. We were able to hand out a lot of soup and quite a few pair of shoes. By the time we were done at this stop we had pretty much run out of shoes that would fit the people, and only had larger sized shoes. During that stop I helped prepare the feet of a gentleman whose shoes had almost completely served their purpose. As part of giving them shoes we would clean and assess the health of the peoples feet. To not get into too much detail his feet were healthy, but he had some of the most foul material caked onto the souls of his feet to the point that I couldn’t even scrape it off, and the smell is one that I will never forget. The last stop was definitely a memorable one…this is the stop by the street markets and the one that the gangster guy who always causes trouble inhabits. When we got there we distributed the soup and tried to distribute some shoes but they were all to big to do any good. While we were distributing the soup we assessed a few of the people. Fio, Cri, and I helped a gentleman who had an abscessed tooth. The abscess was so bad that it had perforated his cheek. So we did the best we could to clean out and disinfect the wound and get it bandaged up, followed up with educating him on the importance of trying to see a dentist. Then the highlight of the night was visiting with good ol Marco Toolio. He was this hilarious older gentleman that came up to us. He was a traditional shorter guy, missing his front teeth, and had an awesome wide-brimmed hat, with an infectious laugh. He wanted us to look at a tooth of his that was aching, and he was determined that we were dentists. We had some really good laughs with this jolly old fellar.
We had the typical dinner tonight then went out on another soup run for the homeless folk. The word must have gotten out on the street that we were giving out shoes, because when we got to the first stop we were completely mobbed by people. We were able to hand out a lot of soup and quite a few pair of shoes. By the time we were done at this stop we had pretty much run out of shoes that would fit the people, and only had larger sized shoes. During that stop I helped prepare the feet of a gentleman whose shoes had almost completely served their purpose. As part of giving them shoes we would clean and assess the health of the peoples feet. To not get into too much detail his feet were healthy, but he had some of the most foul material caked onto the souls of his feet to the point that I couldn’t even scrape it off, and the smell is one that I will never forget. The last stop was definitely a memorable one…this is the stop by the street markets and the one that the gangster guy who always causes trouble inhabits. When we got there we distributed the soup and tried to distribute some shoes but they were all to big to do any good. While we were distributing the soup we assessed a few of the people. Fio, Cri, and I helped a gentleman who had an abscessed tooth. The abscess was so bad that it had perforated his cheek. So we did the best we could to clean out and disinfect the wound and get it bandaged up, followed up with educating him on the importance of trying to see a dentist. Then the highlight of the night was visiting with good ol Marco Toolio. He was this hilarious older gentleman that came up to us. He was a traditional shorter guy, missing his front teeth, and had an awesome wide-brimmed hat, with an infectious laugh. He wanted us to look at a tooth of his that was aching, and he was determined that we were dentists. We had some really good laughs with this jolly old fellar.
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