Mudslides

Day 2 in Alao

Today is my birthday! The ripe 'ol age of 27. To start the day off, Katty's sweet nephew brought me flowers in the shape of a dog. What a sweet little man!!!

We arrived to the village later than expected due to heavy rain in the night. As you would expect, the muddy roads became even muddies. It was a bit tricky. But, once again our amazing drivers got us to the village no problemo!

As we were setting up for clinic today, Alecita, one of our translators, grabbed me by the hand and dragged me into the clinic area. The military and translators lined up and sang some form of a birthday song. What a treat!

Houses In Alao

Clinic was not as busy as yesterday; we saw 52 patients in total. Multiple villages that had planned to come were unable to make it due to mudslides. I am telling you, I have no idea how the soil stays in place! The pictures and words cannot express the grandness of these hills. Have you seen Jurassic Park? I'm sure they could use this area for an alternate location if they needed one. Ayayay...

Although clinic was not as buys, we still had some rocking patients. Generally, the people are pretty healthy. Ears are fairly clean, teeth are mostly there (not mostly rotten per the usual. We had one lady in the beginning of the day, she complained of not being able to hear well out of her left ear, vision problems, and her back hurts. After a little digging I discovered she had experienced some head trauma a few years back. Head trauma like a big rock fell on her head. When I asked to look at it I could feel a divot the size of a silver dollar and about a half an inch deep. Holy crap. I have no idea how she survived that incident. She really should be dead. Thankfully, the skull healed nicely and she has had no major consequences from it. She was not please that we could not help her with her hearing though.

Minor Surgery

Our other crazy case was a little girl. She had stabbed herself with a pencil (the would 1/4" in length), she did things as normal; cleaned the house, played in the mud, handled raw pork. That happened two months ago. Now she has a nice pussy, oozy, seeping abscess in the meaty part at the base of her thumb. Dr. Hall did minor surgery on that trooper, who did not shed one tear. He took all of the dead and decaying flesh off, cauterized, and cleaned it up. Our amazing translator, Anna, distracted the girl the entire 30-40 minutes of the procedure. I think she will make a full recovery.

My Boys

Then, there was a party. I mean pretty princess hat, pretty princess piñata, streamers, and of course a face cake. The Ecuadorians have this great tradition, which I have witnessed a few time in the past, where there is a cake for the birthday boy/girl's face and one for everyone else. Well, I got a face cake (pictures to follow of Facebook). And, everyone loved the piñata. I felt like a fool and actually thought I was hitting the pillar that the piñata was hooked too. Way more than I expected! Such a special day!!!