We hit the ground running as soon as our board members arrived! Sunday was a full day of work. Tony and Ben were running around working on several different projects, Kelly began work on a new mural in the hospital, and the interns and Tabby worked on cleaning up the hospital and organizing it to help us prepare for our first team coming at the end of the month. It was great having some of our board back in Rio Viejo and having them jump right in to help!
Monday was quite chaotic at the hospital because we had a dentist come to the hospital who was visiting Give Hope 2 Kids, the orphanage that we often partner with that is further up the mountain in Urraco. The dentist came down with his wife and used our facilities to see tons of patients from the orphanage for two days. He was even so gracious as to take one of our patients who happened to come in to clinic desperately needing dental work. It was a blast having them with us for two days, and having the hospital so busy.
Tuesday, the work continued. We still had all of the extra people here from Give Hope to Kids, and the board members all working on different projects, so that level of chaos continued with some addition. We also saw two patients after hours who were both injured in machete accidents. The first patient was a seven year old boy who was playing with a toy machete and nicked himself in the knee. He took three stitches very bravely, and we sent him home with instructions to come see us again soon.
The second patient was not so lucky. He was a sixteen year old, and he came in with a large slice across his pointer finger, middle finger, and palm. It was a miracle that his pointer finger was still attached, and as we later discovered, he was still able to move it slightly. Sadly, we do not have the resources to perform the tendon and ligament repair he needed, so Doctor Martin gave him some stitches to stabilize the finger until they could visit the emergency room in La Ceiba the next morning. Wednesday evening he returned to us because the hospital had not been able to perform the surgery due to them having more urgent patients that needed surgical care. We bandaged his wound again and sent him to stay overnight in Rio Viejo and checked it again in the morning. Over just a few days, his finger was already looking better, so the doctor asked him to return for one more checkup on Monday. More updates on him later!
Wednesday and Thursday were a return to calm and normalcy for the most part, as we had regular clinic and the projects that the board members were working on. We said goodbye to them early Saturday so they could spend the night in San Pedro Sula before their flights on Sunday. We were sad to see them go, but were able to pick up Dr. Eric Sales (3rd year pediatric resident from Our Lady of the Lake in Baton Rouge) and LSU medical school student Tucker Doiron for brief stays with us. We are very excited about working with them over the next few weeks!
