3-24/25-26. Days Three and Four
“There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed”
Woodrow Wilson
It is remarkable how quickly this has all come together.
It’s mid week and our processes and communications feel fine tuned. The clinic is operating smoothly and everyone seems comfortable in their routines.
As mentioned previously, our clinic is being held on the grounds of an elementary school. Our photographer, Tessa, met a patient today who turned out to be the principal of the school. She told Tessa that this tiny school has 33 teachers and 506 students in attendance. The classrooms are small, without blackboards and often without desks for the teachers. What desks the students do have look to be 60+ years old, single piece metal framed chair/desk combinations often bent and with chipped paint… But it seems teachers are the same everywhere… when it comes to the kids, they’ll find a way to make it work.
It turns out the timing of our visit was fortuitous. The principal told Tessa that just last week there were torrential rains and the entire school courtyard was under five inches of water. That would have made for a challenging week for us for sure!
Traveling around Guatemala, it is obvious that motorcycles and scooters are the most prevalent form of transportation. They are everywhere and driven by seemingly anyone of any age. While they are primarily designed for one person, in Guatemala they are sometimes the equivalent of the family minivan! It is not unusual to see 3 people on a motorcycle, including small children and even babies in the arms of a mother as she pilots her bike down the road. I’ve even seen a mother, two toddlers and a small dog on a single small Yamaha!.
With all that traffic, however, accidents are unavoidable.
In orthopedics, Jimmy has seen his share of motorcycle related cases this week. One of his patients was a young mother who presented with paralysis on her left arm. She was holding her baby at the time of the accident and, rather than using her arm to break her fall, she held on tight to the child and took the full brunt of the fall on her arm and shoulder. By the time she came to our clinic for treatment the damage was over a year old. While there would have been hope for recovery or at least improvement had she gotten help right away, the passage of time has rendered her permanently paralyzed on that side.
In mobility, Phil estimates that up to 25% of all the patients they see are motorcycle accident related.
One of those patients was Erik, a 19-year-old young man who suffered a motorcycle accident a year ago in which he fractured both his femurs. Since his accident he has had several surgeries, with bone grafts taken from his hip to help heal his broken bones, and metal plates, pins and rods installed in his legs. Erik arrived at the clinic in a homemade wheelchair constructed out of a plastic patio chair bolted to a homemade wheelchair frame someone had welded for him. While an ingenious contraption, it was unwieldy and really inefficient. In mobility, Sunny and Jaime fitted him with a brand new “real” wheelchair and a set of crutches. His mother and younger sister came in after his appointment and their joy at seeing him zoom around the clinic in his new rig was evident on both their faces.
The impact of our ability to deliver wheelchairs cannot be overstated. The truck we unloaded when we arrived on Sunday contained 101 boxes of wheelchairs waiting to be assembled.
These wheelchairs are donated by FREE WHEELCHAIR MISSION, a remarkable organization that has already donated over 1.5 million wheelchairs, with a goal of donating 10 million. These wheelchairs are truly life altering for people like Erik. We’ve seen patients carried in on the backs of family members or on old rusty lawn chairs, or like Erik, in homemade rigs. When they leave the clinic in a new chair however, they leave with increased mobility, personal freedom and independence. It is truly life altering.
The wheelchair assembly station was one of the first areas set up when we arrived on Sunday. A core dedicated team composed of Lou, Dale, Michael along with Jackie, an experienced assembler as well one of our interpreters from Guatemala (she also just happens to be an immigration lawyer!) began assembling as soon as we arrived on Monday. Each chair costs about $100 to make, all raised by donations (https://www.freewheelchairmission.org), and are provided for free. It is obvious that a lot of thoughtful engineering was put into the chairs to make assembly, use and maintenance practical and efficient. There is a learning curve when it comes to assembly, but the team quickly mastered it and in short order was assembling wheelchairs in under 15 minutes each! This week we will have assembled and distributed over 90 chairs.
In addition to wheelchairs, mobility also provides walkers, canes and crutches where appropriate. These too can deliver a significant improvement to the patient’s quality of life.
Maria Louisa is 81 years old, a tiny kindly woman, who surprised our mobility team with trying out a little English! Since her two children passed away, she lives alone in Puerto Barrios with no other support. About a year ago she began to experience leg pain and became unsteady walking. To help her stand and get around, a neighbor gave her a very odd-looking old walker. The walker had had its back legs cut down by a third to lower the handle to make it reachable for Maria Louisa, but the front legs were left long, making them stick way out in front. Obviously, this was unsteady and difficult to maneuver. Through sheer effort, though, she was making it work. We were able to provide her with a brand-new walker, set to the appropriate height (front and back 😊) for her. She left with a wave and a smile.
For the first time, we were fortunate to have an audiologist on our team, Dr. Jose Pablo Ascencio from Quetzaltenango Guatemala. His turned out to be a very busy clinic and provided a couple of amazing stories. The first is that of a middle-aged man who came in virtually entirely without hearing. The doctor performed a few tests and then fitted him with a set of hearing aids. Once turned on and inserted, the doctor spoke to him and his eyes lit up… he could hear! Though a stoic, gentle man like so many of the people we meet, his eyes watered and he wiped tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. I can’t help but tear up myself when I consider the impact his visit had on his life.
A similar transformational story involves Iris, a 66-year-old teacher and bookstore owner in Puerto Barrios. Her hearing loss had started to impact her work in both the school and her store. She told us that the students had started taking advantage of her handicap, becoming unruly and acting disrespectfully. In her store she found herself unable to hear what her customers were saying and felt that she was going to have to stop working.
Jose Pablo fitted Iris with a pair of hearing aids (along with a 6-month supply of batteries). When she tried them out Iris was immediately overcome with emotion. Tears and laughter were followed by a big hug for Jose Pablo. Iris told him that she felt he had given her a new lease on life.
It turns out that there are only 4 audiologists in the country. We are exceptionally fortunate and grateful to have Jose Pablo on our team!
The weather on Thursday was particularly hot and humid. Around 5 o’clock though, we began to feel a breeze and you could smell the ocean in the air. And then… the skies opened up and the rain poured down! Thankfully the courtyard area was sparsely populated by then and everyone was able to stay dry undercover. The remaining patients and Red Hats had to dodge raindrops when moving from one area to the next, but everyone who came through the door still saw everyone they needed to see. No way a little rain (okay a lot) was going to slow us down.
