Brazil Day 6: Rhythm

We jumped into our day with a rhythm set. Everyone took their positions and we saw more patients, but today seemed to be full of more interesting medical cases. The doctors saw a man who had experienced his 2nd stroke and almost called for a helicopter to fly him out. He had weakness on his entire one side to the point where he could not walk down to see the doctors and had to be carried. I did not hear the details of their decision but no helicopters were brought in.

We also had a baby who was very lethargic and who would open his eyes. He was 4 months old so we sent him down to be seen immediately by the doctors. I had the privilege of spending time with this mother and baby since I walked them down and waited with them. I sat in while Dr. Glynn examined the baby. All of his reflexes were intact including sucking, startle, and pupillary reaction to light. He also moved his eyes side-to-side. He reacted to pain, although his cry was weak. This poor baby just could not open his eyes all the way. The baby was an appropriate size for his age and did not look malnutritioned. Dr. Glynn thought that he may have botulism. He explained that there have been cases where botulism was found in dirt. He told the mother that it could take many months for this to clear up. I added that if his reflexes, like reaction to pain or sucking or following her with his eyes to take him to a hospital.

Everyone loved holding this sweet little boy.

The doctors also saw a man who sliced his hand with a machete. Dr. Glynn stitched his hand.

The triage team. Amanda RN, Rai, Julia RN, and Dawn RN.

Carlos and mom

During downtime Carlos was really good at reading to children are talking to them about proper nutrition.

Carlos's wife teaching about dental care

Dad moved to the bottom part of the boat where people were waiting to see the doctors to make balloon animals.

Check out this guy's belly....I'd say he had a major surgery.

Such beautiful little children! I couldn't get enough of them.

Dad up on deck later in the day...he had a line pretty much all day.

Acai berry juice. These berries are only found in the Amazon rainforest and have the highest concentration of antioxidants in the world. I could not acquire a taste for it though...not so yummy. If you see me or mom wearing beaded jewelry those are acai berries that were dyed.

Pam was blowing bubbles with the children. The little boy on the right was one of my little buddies. Something about his face just melted my heart. I played balloon sword fighting with him too.

Alexandro. Every time I turned around he would be standing beside me and just looking at me. I wondered if it was my funny English or if he had never seen a white American before. I called him spiderman all day. He also had some form of dwafism.

She hung out on the boat all day as well and made friends with all of us, but she especially liked Carla :)

I got to hold this gem after Amanda while her mother was being seen....talk about melt your heart!

Once we were finished triaging we went on a walk through part of the town.

"The Girls" as my aunt would say

on our walk through town we discovered a walled in soccer game going on with a bunch of men.

Mom, dad and I walked through town and found Cicero hanging out with these kids. We prayed with them before heading back to the boat.

We saw lots of patients today with back problems, GI issues, and lots of women with GYN problems. For some of the women with the GYN problems we had to educate them on what norms are. They had the HCG pregnancy test on board which we used for a few women who weren't sure if they were pregnant. For the men with back problems we had to decipher if it was from labor or kidney. They had a simple urinary analysis lab test that we had some of the patients do. We also had a few men that definitely had enlarged prostate. We were limited with how we could treat BPH so we did some teaching. One man though insisted that he see a doctor because he wanted a digital rectal exam. Kevin was lucky enough to receive him as a patient and Kevin refused to do the DRE because there was no way of treating it at this point. Although this man was insistent, and even argumentative, Kevin stood his ground on this one.

We noticed some kids climbing up a boat that was docked beside us. It was another story higher than ours and they were jumping and diving into the water off the top of the other boat. This made for some entertainment since we were finished triaging for the day.

Diego, Carla, and Isaias joined in on the fun.

The doctors finished late again tonight at about 7. We hung out on the deck of the boat and a few people went fishing off the dock. They caught this nasty piranha not too far from where those boys were swimming earlier.