Guatemala Day 4

March 6, 2013 (Wednesday)

            Well today was an incredible day.  We followed pretty much the same morning routine as the other days.  Then we headed over to the Hope Haven wheelchair factory (we had Clay and Jonathon as our translators).  Our job for the day was to fit some children with new wheelchairs.  We had three kids to do so we broke into groups: Fio and Carissa worked with a boy named Lester who had severe cerebral palsy, Olivia and Rachel worked with a little gal named Maria-Celeste, then me and Alicia worked with a gal named Teresa and her mother Ethel.  Teresa, is fifteen years old and has never had a wheelchair in her whole life.  Her mother has taken a lot of care for her, and has always had to carry her wherever they would go, which has resulted in recent years her not being able to do much or get out much.  I did not pry into the home life, but it has just been Ethel and Teresa for awhile.  When we got there she had pretty much already been fitted for a wheelchair, there were just a couple of modifications that would help in her comfort and we got them taken care of quickly.  I spent about 15-20 minutes just talking to her and trying to let her get comfortable with me.  She had a stroke a couple years ago which has left her right side a little bit spastic so I worked on calming down that spasticity and loosening up her hand and wrist.  Our goal was to start teaching her how to move the wheels a little bit, and then help Ethel on any other care needs she had.  Teresa’s condition is bad enough that she will probably never be able to wheel herself around, but even the ability to maneuver the chair a little bit and look around can be a huge improvement for the kids.  We worked on that for about ten minutes, giving Ethel instructions on how to help Teresa develop the ability to perform the task.  From talking with Ethel she described that she has to lift Teresa to do everything and at times her back gets really sore, so consulting with Alicia we decided to help teach a stand-pivot transfer.  So we instructed/demonstrated to Ethel the proper set-up and body mechanics.  Following the preliminary instruction we showed Ethel how a proper transfer with Teresa.  That was a lot of hard work with all of the spasticity that she has, but finally we were successful.  We then gave Ethel the opportunity to perform the transfer and she now has a new technique that hopefully will help the two of them out going forward.  It was an incredible experience something as simple as a wheelchair and some basic techniques totally changed their lives.  Ethel was so incredibly grateful and broke down to tears a couple times when she thanked us, and Teresa was so happy.

            Probably the hardest part (yet most growing) of the whole trip occurred following working with Teresa and Ethel.  There was a lady that had been waiting all day to have a consultation with one of us, and since the other guys were still finishing up, it fell on my shoulders to visit with her.  Her name is Flora, seven years ago she was in a car accident which left her paralyzed, and she also has a left femoral amputation, she also does not have usage of her left arm.  She did physiotherapy for four years, and has not been able to regain any usage of her left arm; however she has done a good job keeping the ROM up and has not developed any contractures.  She wanted to know if therapy or some sort of surgery would be able to help restore function in that arm.  After the assessment it was evident that she likely had a peripheral nerve injury and that function was not going to be able to be restored.  So for the first time in my young PT career I had to deliver the devastating news that nothing more could be done.  This is a hard enough thing when you have command of the language, but I think was even more difficult where it had to go through a translator.  She broke down a bit and I just tried to encourage her to not give up hope.

            We finished at Hope Haven around 1300, and headed for lunch.  Following lunch we had been tasked with going to purchase more shoes.  We had about $800 from donations and such that we had brought down, so we headed to the street market.  With Jonathon and Clay translating we were able to do some wheeling and dealing and ended up getting around eighty pair of shoes that would be distributed up at Santa Maria de Jesus.

            Tonight we had an awesome dinner.  We all went out to eat at a restaurant called La Pena.  It was an awesome dinner, I had the mixed plate which had carne assada, grilled chicken, sausage, refried beans, guacamole, and some sauces.  I also had a strawberry smoothie drink…which was the only non-alcoholic beverage on the table.  We had a really good time and just relaxed and enjoyed hanging out with each other.  Clay and Omar accompanied us to dinner.  It was also Alicia’s birthday today, and Chris’ and Jonathon’s birthday so we celebrated with them.  There was this really cool traditional band playing.

Guatemala Day 3

March 6, 2013 (Tuesday)

            Today was day two of the Guatemala excursion.  It was definitely a different day for my group.  We had our regular morning routine, breakfast at 0700, meet and load up at 0745, and on the road around 0800.  Today we went to the Hope Haven wheelchair factory and did a quick tour of the facility; tomorrow we will be going for a whole day and fitting people for chairs.  We spent the majority of our day at the hospital with the children with developmental disorders.  We worked on fixing up some of the broken down wheelchairs and helping to fit other wheel chairs a little bit better.  I was working on one with Alicia for the better part of the day.  She is very good at assessing the needs of patients for their wheelchairs, and had me on quite the project.  It was a very interesting experience there.  We worked until about 1230 then headed out for lunch.  We walked up to central park for the lunch.  It was a beautiful day, weather was super pleasant prob in the low 70’s and sunny.  It is was awesome, while we were sitting there eating our lunch, I was just kinda chilling with my boots kicked up and one of the shoe shiners roaming the park picked right up on them.  He came strolling over and was like “your price” to which I replied “no gracia,” to which he replied “they are very dirty,” to which I heartely agreed.  So I decided to support the local economy and had the fellow shine my boots, and he sure put a nice shine on them!  We then finished up lunch and proceeded back to the hospital to finish out the rest of the day.  We left around 1515 and headed back, I was able to get a nice shower in before everyone else got back.  Following my shower I took all of my dirty laundry (which there is quite a bit due to how dirty the conditions are) to a little Laundromat across the street.  As I was heading across the street the other group was just pulling up from their day.  They went to a village called Santa Maria de Jesus (where I will be going on Thursday).  They had a very busy day and saw around 100 patients! And gave out as many pairs of shoes.  We then proceeded to have our dinner at 1800.  Following dinner the majority of us headed out to meet to locals (Mark and Dale-and yes she is a she) they are an awesome couple who moved down here from Minnesota a few years ago.  Two nights a week they go out and take soup to the homeless people around town.  As part of what we are doing we also took some shoes and did some feet checks.  We saw a lot of issues with sores and infections in peoples feet, some of the sores were quite severe.  There was also a gentleman with a broken foot, one that had a very high fever, and one that had a broken hand that we were able to splint up.  It was a pretty crazy experience (I actually commented at one point to a couple of my classmates), we were in the middle of a third world country, in the middle of the night hanging out with and caring for a bunch of the most humblest of folk…definitely brought thoughts and feelings of gratitude for all that I have been blessed with for my whole life.  We finished up around 2230 and headed on back to the hotel.  When I got back I had a good chat with Gary for a little while…and therefore it is now quite late (2350).  He asked how the night went, and that lead into caring for the needy, to welfare and how crappy it is in the US, to politics and the crappy state the country is in, presidential elections, to the what its gonna take for the country to get back in shape and how that is probably not gonna happen too easily…needless to say an interesting conversation to have with one of your professors…I know this is a huge run-on sentence…what an interesting yet good experience it has been to share a room with a professor.
            Just a few thoughts, today was pretty hard.  I was trying to have a good attitude but was probably not very successful.  Working at the hospital with the wheelchairs and the kids was difficult for me: A. because I have always had a hard time with that patient population and B. I just felt that I was not being that useful; I mean I probably knew more about and was a good resource for putting the chairs together, but I just feel that I have been developing a special set of skills and knowledge that could help and bless peoples lives a bit more effectively.  I just had to keep reminding myself that this trip is not for me, but for the people that we are here to work with.  Well it is getting late, I am very tired, and we’ve got another long day tomorrow.

Del Fuego still steaming from the eruption

The Aggie Bull all the way in Guatemala

How they leave your laundry after they have washed it....





 

Guatemala Day 2

Monday 4, 2012 (Monday)

            Well today was our first official treatment day.  We were up and breakfast by 0700, then rolled out at 0800.  We split all of us into two groups.  I was in a group with Gary Austin, Alicia Spiro, Jen Crane (resident), Steve Fiorenza, Olivia Durning, Carissa Brailsford, and Rachel Tarini.  For translators we had Sabina (petite little mayan gal), Omar (Guatemalan with glasses), Isai, Addison (17 year old gal from the states that her family moved down here), and Suzy (a gal down here from Germany).  I worked a little bit with Isai and Suzy as translator, but mostly Addison.  She was really quite amazing.  Her parents moved down here two years ago, they have a large family and she’s the oldest down here.  They are all home schooled and she helps with the missionary work.  She has a great control of the language and was very helpful to work with…I am really just amazed cuz I know at seventeen (even though I wasn’t a real hooligan) I would definitely not have that same poise and ability.  The clinic we set up was in the village of Pastores.  It is about thirty minutes north and west of Antigua.  The clinic we set up was in a large open building with a stage…similar to an LDS cultural hall.  We had an in-take table then four treatment tables.  We were kind of paired up early on, I was with Jen to start out with then I kind of ended up on my own with just a translator and the patient.  That was actually quite intimidating and I really realized how far I still have to go in becoming a good clinician.  Throughout the day I can’t remember exactly how many patients that I saw but I think it was about six or seven.  We saw a lot of patients who had diabetes and so we had to do a good sensory screening of their distal extremities, especially their feet.  All of the patients that I saw were in their 60’s or older, and all women except one older gentleman who was about to turn 90.  They are a very strong and labored population.  Many of them are of Mayan descent and small in stature.  I was amazed at just how incredibly strong they were as I would examine them.  There was a lot of overall muscular pain, some osteoarthritis, diabetes, neck and shoulder pain, back pain, etc. 

I think one of the crazier things that I experienced today was a lady that had ALL the red flags for active cancer (previous history, had lost 20 pounds in one month, pain at night keeping her up, point tenderness in vertebrae and ribs, etc).  She also had a lot of musculoskeletal pain as well; she told me that she has to do all of the work around the home while her husband is at work (chop and haul wood, clean, cook, repair, etc).  With her it was very hard to send her on her way because I don’t know that she will get an opportunity to go see a physician and get things checked out.

As part of our work here we are providing some quality footwear to the people.  We did a shoe drive and brought down like fifteen suitcases (not sure how many but I would say between 100-200 pairs of shoes).  We also brought a bunch of socks and shoe laces.  These people walk everywhere and quality footwear is not always very available.  As part of fitting them with shoes and socks we also washed their feet; not to be degrading but their feet are not in the best and cleanest condition.  It was an incredible blessing to be able to serve them in such an intimate way, I can say this, performing that symbolic act definitely makes the experience that much more poignant.  I truly hope that in some small way I was able to give back what I have been so abundantly blessed with, especially to give back and follow the Master healer.

Following our day we packed up and headed back around 1645, we got back to the hotel and helped unload all the gear at the church.  We had about thirty minutes to settle in then had dinner at 1800.  Following dinner we came back to the little courtyard and had a debriefing between the two groups.  The other group went to a local hospital for children with developmental problems and also to the wheelchair manufacturing plant.  That is what I will be doing tomorrow.

Brett goes to Guatemala

Brett has the wonderful opportunity to go to Guatemala with his school during Spring Break this year. They went to provide Physical Therapy (PT) services to people in remote villages that are surrounding the city of Antigua. There was a group of 15 people, 10 students, 3 Professors, and 2 Residents (all PT) that went down. It was a great experience for Brett and he was able to help those people who are unable to receive the medical attention that they need due to health conditions of the country beyond their control.

To really help you understand his experience, and more for us to remember his experience, I have attached his journal entries that were written while he was down there. Sorry for the length but I hope that as you read you will be able to feel the blessings that were brought to these people in just a short amount of time.

March 3, 2013 (Sunday)

I am currently sitting in my hotel room in Antigua Guatemala.  We left yesterday morning from Sacred Heart at 0530.  We flew from JFK to the San Salvador, El Salvador airport, then caught a plane to Guatemala City.  The San Salvador airport was incredible, we started making the descent and when we broke out of the cloud cover we were in a mountainous/volcanous region with some beautiful lakes.  As we descended we came to a flattened plain then all of the sudden we were flying right over the Pacific ocean and some incredible white sand beaches.  We made a loop over the ocean and came and landed pretty much right on the beach…it was pretty awesome.  After a short 45 minute flight we made it to Guatemala city where we were met by some of the people from the mission Iglesia del Camino (Clay and Isiel?).  We loaded all the bags onto a truck, hopped in a van and took an hours drive to Antigua.  On the way there, I don’t remember the city but I did see and LDS chapel right off the road.  We arrived in Antigua about 1630.  We got unloaded, checked into our hotel then went and had dinner at the church.  The hotel we are staying at is a pretty nice little place, very nice woodwork and well kempt.  I am in a room with Gary Austin one of my professors.

            This morning we woke up about 0630 and myself, Gary, Phil, Chris, and Fio went for a little walk around our neighborhood…mainly for them to go get some coffee, but it was a nice way to start out the morning.  We came back had some breakfast then went to the church services for the Iglesia Del Camino.  They are a non-denom Christian church, so we had a little music to accompany the service.  Following the service we had a walking tour of parts of the town.   We went to the central park, then over to the markets.  Following the guided tour we came back to the church and did a clinic for some of the parishioners.  We worked on them for about three hours.  Following the clinic we went and watched a procession to celebrate lent and symbolize Christ carrying the cross.  It was pretty crazy with a lot of people crowding the streets, and these huge raft-like platforms that were being carried by the townspeople.  Following the procession we had a dinner and hung out for awhile.  Then we started sorting through all the shoes and socks that we brought down to get them in order for tomorrow.  In the middle of sorting, one of the church ladies told us that the volcano (Del Fuego) was erupting and you could see it well with it being dark.  So we all dropped the shoes and headed over to our hotel where on the roof there is a patio that you can see well from.  We sat and watched it for about half an hour.  It is a long ways away, but that was a truly awesome sight.  They were saying it hasn’t erupted like that for about a year now, so we were very lucky.  We went back and finished sorting the shoes and now we are back at the hotel finishing up for the day….and I am concurrently facebook messaging Chels, whereas it is about our only means of communication right now.

            Just some personal thoughts on everything.  What a truly amazing experience this has been to this point.  It is a very different world down here, but one that I really like.  It is very laid back, yet the people are incredibly hard working people…kinda reminds me of home.  I have felt very loved and appreciated up to this point.  With all of the hustle and bustle of everything going on right now with school and everything I have not been taking the time to just clear my mind and ponder.  It was really nice today to do just that and realize all of the incredible blessings I have received up to this point.  It was really cool to get to work with and treat a few people today.  I was able to co-treat an older lady and a younger lady with some low back problems.  Then also helped a gentleman with neck pain, and another gentleman with some shoulder impairments.  It was a bit of a whirlwind, and I think I pretty much forgot everything that I have learned to this point…but I guess I just hope it may have helped even just a little bit.  I am very excited for tomorrow…I really just hope that I have some strength and inspiration from the Lord to help me in blessing these good people’s lives.

 

Nemo 2013

Since moving to Connecticut just over a year ago we have "survived" two hurricanes and now a Nor'Easter. We are no strangers to snow but holy smokes! This is the most snow I have seen fall in one fell swoop. It was insane!
Here's our version of what he experienced as the snow fell. They started calling for some pretty severe snow fall on about Tuesday and really started talking about it on Wednesday. Everyone gets all upset when there is snow here - you'd think we lived on a tropical island somewhere that never sees snow because people really do start freaking out about snow. But this was pretty legit - On Thursday evening after Young Women's and school we headed over to the Hogan's house because Dave and Teresa went to NYC for their anniversary and we were "teen tending". Their school was canceled on Friday morning so we stayed up late Thursday night watching TV. Brett and I had to go to school and work on Friday. Brett's school was shut down at 11 am and my work shut down at 1 pm. I finally made it back home about 2 pm, at which point there was about 2 - 4 inches on the ground, and we settled right in. We watched the first 3 Star Wars movies and by the time we went to bed at about midnight there was at least a foot to a foot-and-a-half of snow.
When we woke the next morning it had thankfully stopped snowing and the sun was starting to come out. We had about 3 feet, 3 1/2 feet in some areas of snow! It was truly amazing to see. We started "digging out" at about 10 am and Brett didn't finish snowblowing until about 2 pm. He was beat.
We had the driveway cleared but the cul-de-sac that the Hogan's house was on had not been cleared yet. Dave and Teresa arrived home, parked at a neighbors house and then proceeded to hike through the snow to the house - which I might add was quite amusing to watch. Dave was determined to get the van into the driveway so he plowed himself a tunnel from his driveway to the street. And he did it!
Back at the house, we had heard from our landlord's that their roads weren't clear and there was no way that we were going to make it home unless we wanted to hike through the snow. So we stayed one more night at the Hogan's. Church was canceled on Sunday and the girls decided to make the most of a chick flick day and watched the 6 hour version of Pride and Prejudice. It was perfect!
We got word that the driveway was being cleared and the street had been somewhat plowed so we decided to brave the elements and head out in the snow. We made it the 3 miles to our house but just barely! We shoveled some more when we finally made it home and are now enjoying an additional day off of school and work! Yippee!  What crazy things we have experienced while living in CT.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays!

Brett and I were able to go home for the holidays this year and boy was it a great reminder how much we are truly blessed with wonderful family members. We absolutely love being home for the holidays and hope that we can continue to go home - even if we don't live there year round. We were able to spend lots of time with family and friends and just enjoy being home in Cache Valley. Of course, the weather decided to greet us as well and we enjoyed some snow and some really cold days.
We spent Christmas Eve and morning with my family and then headed over to enjoy the Petersen's and the Anderson's at the Petersen's. Christmas morning we decided that having only adults in the house makes for a fairly "boring" Christmas so we headed to Les Miserable at noon on Christmas day. It was wonderful - I cried and was amazed at the acting and singing. It was well worth it.
The days following Christmas, we managed to squeeze in quite a few things: sledding with the nieces and nephew, skiing with the brother, horse races, a few more family parties complete with bowling and games, a few game nights with friends, the lights at Temple Square, a morning spent at the Fun Park with the nieces who had been praying every night that we would be able to go with them, and lots of snuggle time with the kiddos. Here's a few pictures of some of the adventures.

Grandma Suz helping Abby change the naughty sign to nice

The Petersen Men

Uncle Brett doing his best to make all the kids happy...
 and make them all cry before the end of the day

Abby making a snow angel

Not having our winter gear in Utah we had to borrow a
 little bit from everyone and boy did we find some dandy stuff....

Garrett loved making himself a Santa beard by covering
his face with snow and then licking it all gone.

Me and Abby on the sledding tube

Another look at the most incredible outfit I have ever worn...
Thanks Suz for the furry hat.

A beautiful but cold night on Temple Square

The Maynard Family

Brett all wrapped up enjoying the lights

Another look at the beautiful lights and Temple

Sparks and Suz at the lights

Me and Brooklyn roller skating

The Petersen's at the Fun Park

Grace and Ella in the soft play at the Fun Park

Ella with her Bling

I realized I didn't get any pictures of my Falslev Family.... I promise we saw them and we had a wonderful time. I guess I never pulled out the camera while I was with them except when we went skiing and I forgot to take my battery off the charger so I couldn't take any pictures.... Oops! My lack of pictures does not mean I don't love you family - it just means there are no kids to take cute pictures of while we are there... perhaps we'll have to do something about that....
My flight home was not one for the "fun book" - I was supposed to leave at 11:59pm on Jan 1. I arrived with perfect timing to the airport, didn't have to wait in any lines, got right to the gate and 11:30 comes around and no one is boarding... We sat until about 11:40 pm when they announced that the crew was on another flight from Arizona and wouldn't be there for about an hour. They also stated that once they landed we would need to board the plane as quickly as possible because the pilot was going to time out, meaning that he would have been flying too long and they wouldn't let him take off. Luckily, he got there and we loaded the plane as quickly as possible, got out to the tarmac to de-ice the plane. And then we sat.... A few minutes after de-icing, the pilot came on the intercom and said that we'd be going back to the gate because his partner was going to time out mid-flight and they would not allow us to take off. So back to the gate we went. I was one of the first off the plane so I was able to get to the front of the re-ticketing line. However, there was a computer re-boot at 2 am, which shut all of the computers down for about 15 minutes. Then they couldn't find a flight to put me on. By the time they found a flight and got me a hotel voucher it was about 2:45 am. Got to the hotel about 3 am and finally made it to sleep on a rock hard bed only to have to wake up about 3 hours later in just enough time to eat something quickly and get to an over-crowded to do it all over again..... And come to find out my ride got called into work that day and wouldn't be able to pick me up. So I had to hurry and find the shuttle company's number, call and reserve a spot before I got on the plane out of SLC. Once I arrived in NYC, one of my bags got put on a different carousel then the other one and I stood there for probably 20 minutes waiting for it to come out. Then the shuttle company was about 30 minutes later then they originally told me, now putting us into rush hour traffic out of NYC. Once I arrived home about 6 hours later than I originally planned, I took a hot bath and went to bed. It always feels good to sleep in your own bed after being gone for awhile but last night felt exceptionally good.
It's always sad to leave but it's nice to get back to a routine. Because of our busy schedules coming up this coming year, it's very unlikely that we will be able to make it back before the Christmas Holiday next year and boy how I can't wait for another fun time next year!

5 Whole Years

Click here to view these pictures larger

5 years ago today I married my best friend. I know everyone says this and it sounds a little clique but in my case it's totally true. I am one lucky girl to have been so lucky to have such a wonderful man in my life. Not only did I marry a wonderful man but I think it's safe to say that I have the BEST in-laws ever. I am very grateful for them always being so welcoming and putting up with me. They are the best. 

I was thinking about this the other day and I think that Brett and I make the best couple for lots of different reasons but we have such a great balance that it's kind of ridiculous. Brett is so laid back and easy going and I am mostly up-tight all of the time - because we are somewhat opposite in some areas, we make a great team. 

I am grateful for his hard work and diligence and once he FINALLY makes up his mind on whatever he is doing (this boy takes the longest time to make any sort of decision that sometimes it drives me bonkers!) but once he has decided he sticks by those decisions 100%. 

In our First Five Years we have done a lot! We have lived in Alaska for two summers in a row, working to put ourselves through school. I graduated with my Bachelors in Psychology in 2009 and Masters of Marriage and Family Therapy in 2011. Brett graduated with his undergrad in 2011 in English, an emphasis in Technical Writing. We have moved 3,000 miles across the country to attend Sacred Heart University's Physical Therapy Program. While in Connecticut we have got to see and experience so many wonderful things that I didn't know if I ever would experience in my life time and we got to do it all together. We've had our bumps and growing pains along the way but I am forever grateful that I made the decision to get married for time and all eternity to my best friend and I am sure glad he said "yes"!!

Just as a note, I am spending this anniversary alone - don't worry we celebrated plenty before he left. Brett decided to fly home earlier than expected in order to be able to attend the Aggie Football Famous Idaho Potato Bowl Game vs Toledo in Boise, Idaho. I was able to go home last year for it but was couldn't take that much time off of work so I stayed home to work while Brett got to enjoy some time with his family and the Aggies. Some people have said that I deserve a lot or that I am Saint for "letting" him go, but the way I see it, we've been "celebrating" our anniversary for 5 years and there's no reason why I should "make him stay home" just for one day. He gives so much to me and asks for so very little in return and sacrificing for each other is what a marriage is all about. So I am willing to sacrifice a "celebration" dinner so that he can enjoy time with the Aggie Football team. I know if the situation was reversed (and it might be in just a few years when he's at work and I go off with the kids somewhere fun) he would do the same for me. Marriage is about the give and the take and Brett and I have figured out just the right amount of give and take from each other. 

Happy 5th Anniversary Sweetheart!