An interesting week

Hello all,

Reflecting on this week it has been a really good one and then I remembered I have only managed 3 half days in hospital! Maybe that is why it has been happier. Not a great attendance record. I have been ill, with a high fever and a dodgy stomach. Luckily the fever has gone now. Today I managed to eat breakfast which shows an improvement as I haven´t really eaten since Wednesday. I have some vague recollection but Kat likes to remind me when my fever was bad I told her about 25 times that I didn´t want to eat any more rice!!

Exams results were celebrated with Guarana ( A fantastic sugary fizzy drink I discovered in Brazil) and a twix bar. It felt good. I still can´t quite believe. It is great to come to the internet cafe today to find out my other two medic housemates passed as well.

Some of you have asked how Kat is; apart from spending alot of the last 24 hours vomitting she is fine. She has an impressive bruise on her face but otherwise has nothing wrong. I really do thank God for that. The people here are fascinated by the bruise due to her white skin and the story has helped to form conversations at hospital with both patients and staff!

The girl with the tropical disease Chaggas is back. It is sad story and without a miracle I wouldn´t be suprised if she dies before we leave. Have started to develop a relationship with her and during the ward rounds when the scary doctors aren´t looking we make silly faces at eachother. She has the most beautiful and warm smile and doesn´t have a clue what is round the corner.

Another little boy came in this week. He is 15 months old but could be 7 months. It is sad seeing so may malnourished kids here. His parents moved to Spain to earn money and left him here. He is under the care of his uncle, who doesn´t seem to know how to look after him. The boy has little muscle tone, fungal infections all over his skin, a chest infection, a gut infection and not even enough energy to cry. It is heartbreaking. I spent a while hugging him the other day just trying to show him the desperate love that he needs. I want to try to hold him everyday he is there. I don´t know if he knows what love is.

Spanish is improving. I participated in a medstudent teaching session on blood results and knew alot of the answers which certainly gave me a confidence boost. Bolivian definitions of conditions are a bit different than English for example to have anaemia your haematocrit has to be below 33%.

The best part of this week was getting to go out on the mobile unit. This really excited me and I knew it was important to go. The unit goes out every afternoon to different poor areas surrounding the city. Each place gets visited once a week. We went to an international rubbish dump, which reminded me alot of Malawi. The people are starting to get quite ill but the land is so cheap that people keep moving there. When they go out they concentrate of four things (This may not be 100% accurate as is relying on my Spanish translation!)

1) Medical Care
Every child gets a free health check and dental check. The state of their teeth is awful. I´m so glad I´m not training to be a dentist. It was great as the Dr got Kat and I to do all the examinations. He hardly checked any children. It was the most medicine I have done since I got here. Asking the children if they are ticklish before palpating their tummies always breaks the ice. We were asked to examine all the boys to check they had two testicles. This was my job; I understand that this is important but if they had two testicles last week then I´m not quite sure how they could loose one!

The mothers get health promotion lessons. This week it was on different ways bacteria and parasites etc get into food. They were teaching the women to wash their hands and wash, cook and store the food properly. They were told if they didn´t they or their kids could get quite ill. IT could be as simple as get someone to build you a long drop. This still hasn´t been successfully implemented in the two years they have been going to this area. It seems when people need to go they just go!

2) Spiritual Care
In the hospital vision statement the hospital says it aims to give hollistic healthcare. This isn´t really seen in the hospital but it is fantastic to see it is done in the community. The villagers get taught about Jesus and how he can help them in their daily life. They sing songs and share the peace. I don´t think I have ever kissed so many toothless people in my life!

3) Physical Care - Working
The women get taugh crafts and other skills, including cooking, so that they can help make a life for themselves. This week they were being taught how to make baskets out of news paper it was impressive.

4) Social Care
The families are encouraged in community. They go on excursions and do things together, both the people that live in that community and the people that come from the hospital.

This for me was a fantastic afternoon, this gets me so excited. They are trying to do make a hollistic difference, I see it that they are taking Jesus to the people.

I switch to OBs and Gynae this week, so it should be fun!

God Stuff
Having been ill alot this week, I have spent alot of time with God. It has been great, I have been reading about Mother Teresa and it has been really excitingly challenging. I would like to share two quotes with you that have really got me thinking:

"We are not called to be succesful only faithful."
" We can do no great things, just small things with great love. IT is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it."

Jess and I have a tradition of giving eachother cards when we go away but not being allowed to open them until we are on the aeroplane. This year Jess´ card was all about love. She wrote the passage in 1 Corinthians about how not having love is like a crashing cymbal.

Medicine is so based around success, it is so based around knowledge. I am learning that knowledge can stop love, that success can stop love. My elective is about being faithful to God, showing his love and not whether I get to do as much as some of my friends are doing. I want to be Jesus to people, to show them complete dignity, to treat them as if I am their servant and they are my master. I pray that they look into my eyes and see Jesus and I pray I look into their eyes and see Jesus too. That is what love is. Thank you Jess for reminding me.

Praise and Prayer points:
Please praise God for vaccinations, otherwise the likelihood of having Hep A is so high!
Please pray for health, my stomach really isn´t happy. It makes me feel weak and not want to eat.
Praise God that I may officially be here on elective but that he is more concerned with my heart than anything else.
Pray that I will be like Jesus and show his love and aim to primarily faithful.

Thanks for all your love, care and encouragement.

Lots of love Zara