Monday

Today was the first day of clinic. For the first time I got to see the operating room that was recently built onto the church by a group of ophthalmalogists from OKC. It was shocking. It was like a palace with gorgeous tile on the walls. There was a prep holding room and a recovery room. There was a spacious OR with a nice OR table and an anesthesia machine. There was also equipment for cataract surgery. They did their first operative trip here last month. They did 80 cataract cases in four days. It's amazing to see a state of the art surgery center attached to a church in an area where the surrounding homes have four walls and dirt floors without plumbing or electricity. Kelly and the boys delivered food to area families. She was stunned by the level of poverty the people live in. The poorest Americans would be considered wealthy here.
Today in clinic I saw a range of patients from a paralyzed lady with a spinal cord tumor to a little boy that two years ago had a completely displaced elbow fracture that was never treated because his mother could not afford the pins that a surgeon recommended. She said the surgeon offered to do the surgery for free in a nearby city but the mother had to pay for the pins and she couldn't afford them.
It's definitely a different world.
I did a lot of cortisone injections today on horribly arthritic knees and shoulders. Word got around the waiting room that the shots were "magic". Several patients literally cried with joy after they felt the relief of the injections. One blind elderly lady said she wanted me to go dancing with her after having both knees injected.
The young people here amaze me. These high school and college kids down here on mission trips make me optimistic for the future of our world. The sincere love these young people show for the people here is amazing. The children and adults just hug and kiss these young adults when they approach them as they are so grateful. I watched these young people interact with the children at another orphanage we visited today and thought how proud their parents back home would be if they could see their teenager now.
I had tremendous help in clinic today. Laura a Creighton accounting student from Kansas City volunteered to help interpret. She ended up lifting patients from wheelchairs onto tables to help me give injections. Daphne is a premed student from Cal Berkeley who has been here three times. She shadows physicians here and has ended up practicing more medicine than most med students will see in school. All the people from the area know her now. Shehugs and kisses all of the patients as they arrive. I've learned a lot from her as well such as the proper meds for the various parasites and the symptoms associated with them.
More college and high school kids arrived today to do mission work. I'm just amazed.