On our third clinical day in El Salvador we left the
monastery sanctuary after a good breakfast.
Everyone was anxious to get to our next “clinic” site and finish our
last day of patient contact. We loaded
in to the trucks, buses, and vans and took off.
Up and down winding and steep dirt roads, we came to a school that was quite a huge contrast from the school we visited the day before. This facility was beautiful in comparison to the other facilities we visited.
The children were in uniform, the classrooms had fans, and the bathrooms were clean. The day had the promise to be very comfortable and all around rewarding.
Around lunchtime, our director Rob, stuck his head into my room and told me to grab my bag, “We’re going for a ride”. He seemed to know what he was doing so I asked no questions and hopped in the truck.
After a short discussion of whether or not we needed an armed guard to go where Rob wanted to visit, we took off up and down the winding dirt roads again (with two armed guards). A short distance from the school where we were working, we came to a road that was seemed to be guarded by some young guys in crisp clean clothes, gold chains and serious looks. The guys gave us and our guards a nod and we went up the hill to visit a man that Rob had delivered a wheelchair to a few years before. Rob just wanted to check on the guy.
We approached a small tin shack with the normal number of chickens running around and entered a dark entrance way to find a man lying in bed waiting for us. The man had surgery on his back years ago and was paralyzed from the waist down. He used a catheter to drain his bladder three times daily. This catheter he changed every two years...yes years.
He was very gracious and friendly and even played a song on his guitar that was supplied by MedWish several years back. He lived in this 8’x10’ shack with his wife who was out at work. Dirt floors and tin were all he had, except for that wheelchair and guitar, but he was happy as can be.
(By the way, the view from his “backyard” would rival that of any 4 star resort in the world overlooking the forest and mountains.)
We arranged for some more catheters and jumped back into the truck to go about the rest of our day, but this was the best part of the day for me.
Up and down winding and steep dirt roads, we came to a school that was quite a huge contrast from the school we visited the day before. This facility was beautiful in comparison to the other facilities we visited.
The children were in uniform, the classrooms had fans, and the bathrooms were clean. The day had the promise to be very comfortable and all around rewarding.
Around lunchtime, our director Rob, stuck his head into my room and told me to grab my bag, “We’re going for a ride”. He seemed to know what he was doing so I asked no questions and hopped in the truck.
After a short discussion of whether or not we needed an armed guard to go where Rob wanted to visit, we took off up and down the winding dirt roads again (with two armed guards). A short distance from the school where we were working, we came to a road that was seemed to be guarded by some young guys in crisp clean clothes, gold chains and serious looks. The guys gave us and our guards a nod and we went up the hill to visit a man that Rob had delivered a wheelchair to a few years before. Rob just wanted to check on the guy.
We approached a small tin shack with the normal number of chickens running around and entered a dark entrance way to find a man lying in bed waiting for us. The man had surgery on his back years ago and was paralyzed from the waist down. He used a catheter to drain his bladder three times daily. This catheter he changed every two years...yes years.
He was very gracious and friendly and even played a song on his guitar that was supplied by MedWish several years back. He lived in this 8’x10’ shack with his wife who was out at work. Dirt floors and tin were all he had, except for that wheelchair and guitar, but he was happy as can be.
(By the way, the view from his “backyard” would rival that of any 4 star resort in the world overlooking the forest and mountains.)
We arranged for some more catheters and jumped back into the truck to go about the rest of our day, but this was the best part of the day for me.
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