This week went by so quickly, and Andrea just left yesterday. I can’t believe that I have already been here for three months…it feels like I only got here a couple of weeks ago. It’s really weird having Andrea gone, but TJ came in yesterday, and he seems really nice, and I am on my way out to go meet the new attending, Becca. This week was pretty uneventful, and things were slower in the clinic since there is a new Cuban pediatrician that just opened up another pediatric outpatient clinic. It was good that things were a little bit slower, though, because Dr. Gross was gone, so it was just Andrea and Lydia. Our dehydrated, malnourished baby was doing better this week. We weighed her again and by Friday, she still only weighed 1.2kg, which is what she weighed when she first came in, but she still looks a lot better. She is now tolerating 10cc of fluid at a time, which is great. I am amazed that there is no scale in the pediatric area, at least no infant scale. They weigh the babies on a normal full size scale, which definitely doesn’t help when you are trying to see a difference of a few grams. We have been bringing in the scale from our clinic every day, and we are working on trying to get one donated.
On another note, I have been working with Peggy when I get out of the hospital, and I just got the amazing news last week that my fire department back home is donating 3 AEDs to Clinica Esperanza, along with a whole bunch of other medical supplies. There is only one AED on the island, so this will be really helpful. This coming week will be very busy, with the new doctors. I will also be doing a bunch of planning and organization in the afternoons, as I am going with a few doctors from Peggy’s to Cayos Cochinos next weekend, where we are going to set up a medical brigade for two days. I am really excited about that, as Cayos is supposed to be gorgeous, and apparently there is pretty much no medical care now. Anyway, the new Global Healing docs are waiting for me for dinner, so I need to go, but this should be a great week!
