Duyure Honduras: Day 2

Honuras Medical Mission Trip
Day 2: July 12, 2011


We are in Honduras in the rainy season and had a torrential downpour last night that made travel up the mountain today scary for our bus of gringos….but we made it without a hitch! We started a bit earlier today and had 250 scheduled to see.

I had a new translator today and it takes a while to get in sync with each other and find a flow that works for both of us…but we came together quickly and I was thrilled with our day of seeing patients. I saw lots of ringworm on the body and scalp today as well as fungus on the feet (athletes foot). We had a patient with blood sugar of 408 and BP of 160/102 who walked 2 hours to get to the clinic today! I brought Dr. Stephens in on her consult and we are so limited in diabetes medication that we gave her what we had, but are hoping that Mission Lazarus can find her the Metformin that she needs to help bring her diabetes in control….the Honduran diet is not diabetes friendly at all. Therefore speaking to the patient about a low carb high protein diet is not beneficial. They don’t have fresh vegetables like us and have a bean, rice, corn tortilla diet. The teaching is challenging and frustrating as a provider!

My favorite patient today was a little boy whose mom is very concerned because he doesn’t’ seem to “focus” in class and has a hard time getting his homework. She has taken him to several doctors and no one has addressed his issues. She wanted to know if he was “born this way”? He was clearly not focusing on our visit, but when I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up he told me a “pilot” and wanted to learn his lessons. This is another case of no way to really change his diet, and put lots of good vitamins and minerals in his body as well as get him the help he needs to be able to focus. I felt so sorry for the mother who clearly wants to help her child learn and do well in school.

Of course as we were getting ready to leave the clinic today, we had another downpour and we were all piled in the bus for our 90 minute ride back down the mountain when we got stuck!!! All the men got out, the women went to the back to weigh the bus down (no jokes please)….and 20 minutes later, several wheelbarrows of sand, some wood planks later we take off and then slide sideways and busted the top off the water line and up shot a flow of water that who knows how long it took to turn it off! When we pulled out of the clinic, the men were working frantically to turn off the water from the street! Seems that nothing is easy!! And we slid back down the mountain!

One scorpion on the back of one of our leaders at dinner and a nice thunderstorm later….we are ready for bed and day 3 of this adventure!!