Day 6 – Thursday, 15 May
MORNING DEVOTIONAL:
Thursday morning, our last day of surgeries, began with Beata’s meditation. Dennis then announced that today was Open Mic morning, where he invited others to speak. Here’s a sampling of what transpired.
Tedd shared a story about his personal epiphany.
Emily spoke about how this week is the way medicine is supposed to work. That is, the lion’s share of your time and effort are actually with the patients.
Katie P. said that with all the bad news in the world, she was grateful for a week where she knew we are all doing some real good.
Tabitha recalled when a patient told her “you don’t have to be rich to help, you just have to have a full heart.”
Several others of us also shared.
Then Jay played “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire.
For his announcements, Pogo thanked several of the teams for their stand out work yesterday.
We then made our way to the hospital. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Please see the photo above of the palm trees. This is the view from the entrance of Obras Sociales Del Santo Hermano Pedro Hospital.
MORNING ROUNDS:
First, let’s follow up with a little girl I wrote about yesterday, SOFIA, and her mother Selsi, who had traveled 14 hours to get to Antigua. Yesterday I shared a photo of Selsi but couldn’t show you Sofia. This morning adorable Sofia was wide awake. Selsi was delighted when Dr. Pogo told them they could leave the hospital today.
(Please see the photo above of little Sofia with her mother.)
We were about to move on to the next patient when Selsi stopped us. She INSISTED on capturing a photo of little Selsi with Dr. Pogo. (Please see the photo above of Selsi snapping a photo of Dr. Pogo with Sofia.).
It became even more clear to me: these patients here are so grateful for the care they’ve received. And in this case, a mother who had a smartphone wanted to document the moment—that is, have a keepsake photo with the lead physician of the team who helped transform her child’s life.
Next Dr. Pogo visited JESSICA, a young woman who had rhinoplasty surgery yesterday. Today she was already finding her breathing improved. She was very excited and carried on a long conversation with Dennis, who was translating. Jessica was so excited and speaking so quickly, I suspect Dennis didn’t translate all of it. After Dr. Pogo told Jessica she could go home today, she pointed to Sofia in the next bed over and asked if she too could have her photo with Dr. Pogo. Dr. Pogo…you’re becoming a celebrity!
(See photo above of Jessica with Dr. Pogo.)
Next we visited JOAQUIN, who also had a tonsillectomy and had his adenoids removed. Joaquin wasn’t so interested in having his photo with Dr. Pogo, he wanted it with his mom. But wait, he told us, he needed to wipe the blue gelatin from his lips. Yes, all these tonsillectomy patients are on soft food for quite a while. (See photo above of Joaquin with his Mom next to a bowl of blue gelatin.)
The next boy, CRISTIAN, had a tonsillectomy and adenoids removed also, as well as fluid drained from his ears. Dr. Pogo got wind that Cristian is very athletic and so instructed him not to play sports for two weeks. Cristian wanted his photo with his mom and with Beata instead of Pogo, who was also with us to help translate. I think Cristian made the right choice, don’t you?
Finally, Dr. Pogo rounded on YEFFERSON, who also had a tonsillectomy and adenoids removed. Though Yefferson was going home today, he also got the same warning as other athletes: no sports for two weeks! Despite this restriction, Yefferson consented to having his photo taken with Dr. Pogo. He was a good sport! See photo above.
My final rounding visit of the morning was with one of Dr. Jay’s patients. TOMASA had her rotator cuff repaired. It turns out she spoke a lot of English. When I introduced myself as “Ricardo,” she said “Richard.” Dr. Jay told Tomasa she would have to work on physical therapy with Jose, who I introduced to this blog yesterday. Finaly, in English, Tomasa asked for a photo with Dr. Jay and Jose. Please see the photo above.
SURGERIES – THROUGH JEFF’S PHOTOGRAPHIC LENS:
For today’s report, I’d like to feature Jeff’s photographs. He is a much better photojournalist than I am. The next 6 photos above are a sampling of Jeff’s gems:
CRNA Kelly in action—documenting while monitoring a patient’s anesthesia during a procedure. Yes, it’s true, women are the best multitaskers!
CRNA Aaron documenting next to all the mechanical clutter of the OR. This is a good spot to emphasize that for these four days of surgery, the surgical teams were using equipment they were unfamiliar with and, at times, did not work correctly. But as mentioned previously, everyone has brought their A Game, and we achieved good outcomes.
Please see the shot of Dr. Jay ready to open a patient’s knee.
Please see the gynecology team once again performing a hysterectomy. L – R, Technician Carre, Dr. Kris and Dr. Mary.
Check out the profile shot of Dr. Pogo doing surgery wearing his specialized headpiece with the spotlight. No, he doesn’t wear it as a fashion statement.
Please see Dr. Tabitha’s team utilizing endoscopic technology. I think this photo is so cool because you can see how the whole team is focused on a screen that is not even in the shot. L – R, Dr. Tabitha, First Assistant Krista and Nurse Jen.
TODAY’S RELATED NOTES: HERMANO PEDRO FOUNDATION – A TOUR
Hermano Pedro is a nonprofit foundation centered in Antigua. Faith in Practice conducts its free surgical care for Guatemalans at the Herman Pedro foundation hospital, and that’s been the center of this blog all week.
However, our hospital is only one of FIVE facilities that the Herman Pedro Foundation operates in Antigua. For today’s RELATED NOTES I want to share the tour I was given of two other Hermano Pedro facilities right here in Antigua. Their endowment representative, Xiomara, joined our Team Pogo briefing on the first day and told us she was offering tours. I took her up on it, and today she took me to the Albergue Hermano Pedro facility and the Virgen del Socorro facility. Both of these places house cerebral palsy patients—patients who live here their entire lives.
For those who don’t know, CEREBRAL PALSY is a group of permanent disorders in movement and posture that inhibits physical activity. In addition to affecting physical movement, these associated conditions can often debilitate thinking, learning, sensation, communication and vision. There is research, but no known cure, and the causes are not entirely clear. What we do know is this: onset of cerebral palsy typically begins in infancy. As the patient ages, the best treatments have proven to be physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. Alas, despite our best efforts, cerebral palsy remains crippling and heartbreaking.
THE HARD TRUTH: Here in Guatemala, when a family discovers an infant or child is afflicted with this, the child is sometimes abandoned—sometimes right on the doorstep of Hermano Pedro. It sounds cruel, but what can most families do? A majority of families struggle to feed every member of their household, and they must count on every able-bodied member to help support the family. Moreover, they don’t have the wherewithal to administer the prodigious amount of care required for people afflicted with this incurable condition.
This is why two of the Herman Pedro locations offer refuge and care for cerebral palsy patients.
ALBERGUE HERMANO PEDRO FACILITY
The next four photos cover my visit to this small facility that houses 95 people with special needs. There is a small staff here of 60 nannies, 20 nurses, some therapists, and other medical professionals.
Please see the photo of a small grassy courtyard. All of the residents of ALBERGUE live around this one shared courtyard.
Their children’s area is brightly decorated. Locals come in once a year to repaint and redecorate. (See the photo above of the rainbow on the white wall.) Some local Guatemalans simply don’t have money to donate, so they donate their labor, and that’s how this hallway got decorated.
I was invited to say hello to a group of “grandmothers,” as Xiomara called them. (See photo above of women around a table.) They gave me permission to take a photograph. I was rewarded with smiles, thumbs up and enthusiastic greetings. I lost count of the number of staff and patients who thanked me for visiting today.
Finally, Xiomara took me to see one of the oldest residents of the group, MIREYA.
(Please see the photo of me above with a woman in a red shirt with a polka dot jacket.)
Mireya speaks quite well, and converses in Spanish, French and English! She wanted to practice her English with me. We talked about literature and poets. She was so grateful for the chat and insisted we have a photo together. Mireya has a daughter who now lives in the United States, whom she hardly ever sees. That’s the tragic situation with so many of the residents here. Their families have such meager resources and live so far away, they rarely ever manage to visit Herman Pedro.
VIRGEN DEL SOCORRO FACILITY
Next, Xiamara drove me “Socorro.”
The Socorro facility was built up in the hills over Antigua in 2016 after a wealthy local philanthropist gifted Hermano Pedro a huge tract of land. This facility houses 470 special needs patients. The difference between this and Albergue is that Socorro is able to care for those with the most severe or acute needs.
See the photo above of a ward with exercise machines. This is one of their physical therapy rooms. As mentioned above, PT is a proven therapy for cerebral palsy patients. There are 40 physical therapists on staff here!
See the photo of a ward with beds and some young men folding linen. This is one of the typical wards where residents spend their entire lives. I was able to take this shot because most of the residents were at Catholic Mass.
See the photo above of a huge kitchen. It’s immense, as the cooks must feed 470 people 3 meals a day, plus they provide lunch to the staff.
I got to meet a resident here who also speaks some English! (See photo above of me standing with a woman in a blue sweater.) This is a ROSA ISABEL. She grew up decades ago in the Guatemalan embassy in London, which is why she knows some English. Her family is all gone and so Virgen Del Socorro has given her a safe place to live.
Finally, here’s a photo of my guide, Xiomara, in front of a wall with photos of the residents. Xiomara told me the HERMANO PEDRO foundation is trying to grow its long term endowment which would provide funding far into the future. This foundation and the almost 600 residents who are dependent on it—as well as the hospital where Faith in Practice performs its surgeries—are utterly dependent on donations.
If you’re interested, here’s their website:
https://www.hermanopedrofoundationusa.org
With much thanks,
–Rich, Pogo Team Blogger
Photos for this entire week are by Jeff E. and Rich N.
