Wednesday, January 7, 2015

¡Gracias a Dios!

Wow. Just wow. We have had a long day today (Tuesday) and had a nice, deep group meeting after dinner, and all I can say is we have an amazing team. Whoever's reading this has probably heard this before that we've got a good team, but I want to emphasize how awesome everyone I'm surrounded by is. Tears were shed, we shared some laughs, and threw some shoutouts to each other. Our day today just shows that even more.

Dr. Lauri and Richard were each asked to come to do a house visit. Dr. Lauri, our "Nigerian Thunder" Stephanie I., Farwa, Dakota, and Shannon stormed to the house to see a young patient who had come in earlier and that I saw while shadowing Lauri in the morning. He had really gotten a lot worse from when we saw him earlier with the possibility of influenza which may have brought out the pneumonia that he had already had a month ago. Without a word or thought, they headed down there to help him which was fantastic. Also, Dakota and Shannon had to run up the steep hills to get Dr. Eric before he left to get the prescriptions they needed and to actually make them. Without question, Eric and those two hurried up the rest of the hill to the pharmacy in the clinic and back down with the medicine he needed. It was awesome to see them go down even after such a long day to give back to the community and show just how much they genuinely cared.

Richard, Adam S, Ashley, and Rabbi Abie left to go see Richard's "girlfriend", Valentina, an women in her 80's that they just love to see and check on. I've got to mention that I kind of "volunteered" Ashley to be the translator for this visit because Stephanie I. was gone with Lauri. She did spectacular and is great at Spanish (even if she says she's not). I would have felt bad if it hadn't gone so well (check out her blog!) since she had to translate in Spanish about someone's health which is so important. Richard has seen this patient since their first trip to Patanatic and has been making home visits once she couldn't make the trip to the clinic anymore. The way Richard and Abie describe and discuss her is one of true caring. It's incredible. We've got so many people running up and down hills to make trips and interpreting in another language to ensure that someone is taken care of even though you were volunteered by someone else. It's amazing!

Everyone is so willing to go the extra mile. This has been happening the whole time we've been here. In glasses, some of us have gone through 30 pairs to see if we can help get that vision corrected to 20/20 or as close as we can with the stock of donated glasses we have on hand. Everyone's gone around and blown bubbles or played soccer with the kids at least for a tiny bit to make it less of the general doctor's visit. Some of us even just waited to let the others go on the bus first to check on Valentina while hanging back at the clinic to wait for Lauri and her team to return so we could head to the hotel.

It's been a true blessing to experience this united front to not only just get people through our clinic but to go even further to truly help change and affect their lives as much as we possibly can during our limited time in this beautiful country. I hope this attitude can serve me further along in my days whether that is in medicine or whatever I choose to do in my future. Gracias a Dios!


Adam Purvis

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