Monday
The roach has been vanquished. Nurse Audra, the newest addition to the team (and also my new roommate) cornered and killed it after I saw it flying around the room. Who knew that cockroaches could actually fly? I thought they were like turkeys or ostriches- winged but only decoratively. That cockroach zooming across the room today will definitely haunt my nightmares for a long time to come.
Other than that, clinic was absolute chaos today. Children everywhere, parents suddenly appearing in the doorway demanding that their kids be seen, the odd Global Healing staffer showing up to use the printer and complain about our/the island’s/the country’s lack of resources. Two kids came in with sebarrheic dermatitis and one who potentially had diabetes insipidus, a condition where you’re constantly creating urine and are unable to control its flow. Nurse Audra, who works in obstetrics, told me about a pregnant woman who had the same condition who put out a liter of urine while trying to deliver her child and then another liter immediately after the C-section; it’s a condition that can easily lead to dehydration and other problems but can be ameliorated with medication. The kid in our clinic was thirteen and had been wetting the bed every night for the past five years. He’s definitely won the prize for oldest patient I’ve seen so far and had the most unique pathology of the day. Lucky kid.
Audra also helped manage the flow of charts between me and the doctors so that there is a more efficient and less confusing system. She reorganized the shelves and has a few more clinic improvement ideas she’ll be putting into place. I put the invaluable (yes, that was sarcasm) skills I learned while temping to use in putting file folders in the drawer in place of the stack of manila folders laying there haphazardly. Hopefully I’ll come up with some kind of systematic way of dealing with the random scraps of paper that have been accumulated and that no one seems to use.
After clinic I headed over to Miss Peggy’s clinic to learn about The Project (capital T capital P) and how I can pick up where Jess left off. Unfortunately, Matt and Miss Peggy had forgotten I was coming and Matt- who I guess was supposed to show me the ropes- was in West Bay. We decided to talk again tomorrow when Miss Peggy and her entourage come to the hospital.
On the non-business end of things, I got to go swimming for the first time in a week and then had my first shower with a continuous stream of hot water. Reena, Audra and I made a pot-luck style dinner- including the newest menu item I have in my arsenal of culinary catastrophes/experiments: eggplant with black beans and onion- then got dessert at the Argentinean restaurant with Leonel and his three friends from home who are visiting for the week.
Tuesday
Nothing super-exciting in clinic today but everything seemed to go so slowly. Part of this was due to the nearly constant stream of non-patients that came in and out, including Nurse Peggy and her crew. Nurse Peggy’s resident, Matt, briefed me on The Project that Jess was involved in and that I hope to do something with. The only trick is, the way things progress here, the turnover of the people involved and the current unavailability of internet just about everywhere on the island, there aren’t concrete dates set for Project meetings. So I volunteered to hunt down internet access and obtain information on diabetes and hypertension for the community health initiative in Flowers Bay.
Nurse Audra continued her streak of resourcefulness and ingenuity. I thought the baby scale had miraculously fixed itself when it was no longer registered 1 lb of weight when nothing was resting on it. When I announced to the room the magical self-correcting abilities of our scale, Audra told me she had calibrated it with a dial on the back. That one had stumped the docs for weeks. She even managed to make friends with someone who works in the hospital with the willingness and the resources to make a curtain for the window in the clinic’s door. Now, hopefully, people won’t keep just barging in. Like I said before- lots of optimists in this crowd.
Lack of internet is beginning to frustrate me. I have no idea what’s going on in the world beyond Roatan and have lost touch with everyone back home. My family has given me up for dead. Audra and I were talking about The State of American Politics while sitting in our newly cleaned living room today and I tried to make a point about Harriet Miers, then realized that I had no idea whether she was confirmed to the Supreme Court or where that whole issue stood. I would do a lot for steady access to CNN right now.
Tonight was Night of the Burning Basura. All throughout the island a thin glaze of smoke hung in the air from people burning leaves and other detritus that Wilma left in her wake. Apparently since it’s the first clear night since the hurricane, without wind, everyone decided it was time to start fires.
Wednesday
Three interesting things in clinic today- first some good news: gastroschisis baby went home after only five or so days in the hospital. Second, a girl with abnormal bone growth in her legs. Rodney said it may be rickets- a lack of vitamin D- or childhood rheumatoid arthritis. Third, a baby with a cough, whose mom had a cough that had lasted a year, including coughing up blood the past two weeks. On top of this, they lived with the mom’s grandfather, who had been diagnosed with tuberculosis. The docs didn’t think the baby had TB but they got the mom into the system to be monitored/treated.
The biggest news of all- Casa Calico now has internet! I’m absurdly happy about this. Here’s hoping it will last.
Thursday and beyond
Today was Reena, Rodney and Leonel’s last full day on the island. It’s going to be very quiet around here after they take off tomorrow morning. The basic plan for the day was to rent cars and travel around to the far-away parts of the island. Although the steep rental fee (we ended up paying 70 dollars each for two Jeep Wranglers, although they initially charged 85, plus gas) would have been prohibitive for a smaller group, three of Leonel’s friends from home were visiting this week and helped offset the cost. We drove past Coxen Hole, through Los Fuertes, past Jonesville and into Oak Ridge. Driving around today opened my eyes to the places where the people who come into clinic are coming from; before they were just names to me.
In Oak Ridge we traveled through the mangrove tunnels, in the slowest speedboat on the island. Pirates carved out the tunnels (although our guide didn’t think so), using them to hide from law enforcement. Before we went exploring, however, we had to get the car to start.
“Don’t worry,” Leonel said, “It did this the last time I rented it, too.” (Yes, everyone’s favorite sentimentalist knowingly rented a broken car).
It took a handful of the dozen taxi drivers waiting by the dock to push the car downhill, open the hood and bang on the parts, then push the car back up the hill and repeat the whole process. It was comical, especially when the car started (rather than the alternate ending of having to get it towed).
Two of Leonel’s friends, Nora and this girl one of Leonel’s friends had met all went to Camp Bay Beach in lieu of joining us in among the mangroves. After we piled back into the Land Rover, we took off in pursuit of them. We passed each other as they were coming back towards the main road from the beach; a storm was coming, they said, and they were advised to get to the road. Naturally, we kept going towards the beach, determined to see it quickly then be on our way. Leonel planned to keep the car running while we were there, just to make sure we weren’t stranded. There was no one else around but he got paranoid about leaving the keys in the ignition without someone standing by the car and decided to shut it off. The beach was pretty and completely deserted, but the waves were growing, the sky looked like it was about to storm any second and the water was coming far up the beach. After five or so minutes, we decided to be on our way. The car had other plans. The engine would not engage. We began to push it towards the road, periodically attempting to start it and trying not to get too worried about the situation. Luckily, after a few minutes, the car started, we all jumped in and roared off.
The next day, Hurricane Beta, our newest friendly neighborhood weather disaster, had been pummeling Nicaragua and wanted to visit Honduras but changed its mind at the last moment. Instead, it has sent its emissaries- heavy rain, high-speed winds- our way. As a result, Audra and I spent the entire day inside, reading and listening to her ipod. Leonel’s friends and Reena successfully left Roatan, Rodney and Leonel- who were supposed to take the oversized model airplanes that fly out of the airport into San Pedro Sula and El Salvador respectively- proved not as good at being gone. Rodney was told flights were taking off tomorrow but Leonel decided to stay until Thursday, eliminating my need to say anything nice about him in this journal entry.
