Day Six
There is something distinctly powerful about kindness from strangers. This week has held a multitude of experiences, from difficult cases to heartwarming moments, but one sentiment remains constant: We came here to serve the Guatemalan people, and to better the lives of as many people as we could. We have seen patients who haven’t been able to provide for their families, who have suffered in pain for years and years, who are in danger of losing a limb to infection, and we have done our best to ease their pain. None of them are perfect now, but with our best efforts we can hope that we made it better.
I did not realize when I came here how emotionally intense this week would be. By the end of the first day, after watching as patients came to our surgeons, explained their problems, and were scheduled for surgery, I sincerely wanted to help each one of them. I watched as kind nurses calmed frantic patients who were confused and physical therapists encouraged them and helped them recover from their surgeries. I was not aware of how much I would grow to love and care for some of these people.
I met a girl just a little older than me who had an external fixator on her leg, which was incredibly painful and also meant that she wasn’t very mobile, and my heart broke for her thinking about the hours each day that she had no books, no tv, nothing much to entertain her. In my broken Spanish one day, I tried my best to talk to her and gifted her some paper and a pencil. When I went to see her later, she had drawn me a picture, and I was so happy to have been able to do something – anything – for her.
My experience with many of the other patients was similar. I just wanted to be able to do something – anything – to help them. Surgery was a start to hopefully a new and more optimistic chapter in their lives, anesthesia, our pharmacist, and PACU eased the pain of the operation, and physical therapy helped them to become mobile again. But I wondered what I could do to deserve the many expressions of gratitude and well wishes that I had received from patients. My heart went out to them, so I did anything I could, whenever I could.
As Faith in Practice staff member Maria Jose thanked us tonight, she said something that resonated with me. She described how we did not know the people we were serving well, and yet we cared for them. We are all God’s children, with divine nature and eternal destiny, and if we can learn to see each other as such, we will care for one another, whether friends or strangers, we will uplift, and be uplifted.
It does not matter if you are a surgeon, a PA, a CRNA, a scrub tech, a circulating RN, a Zimmer rep, a pharmacist, a nurse, an anesthesiologist, a physical therapist, a coordinator, a translator, or even a blogger. We all can do something to help as long as we care. Whether you serve behind the scenes documenting medicine, perform the surgery, give the patients exercises, keep the surgical area clean and organized, or all you have to offer is a comforting hand for a person in pain, you can help.
Our team this week worked long, sometimes excruciating hours to provide 86 surgeries to Guatemalan people using donated materials and funds, sacrificing time, energy, and money for the sole purpose of serving and bettering their lives. In doing so, I believe our lives were better as well. We had the experience of witnessing what pure gratitude looks like, and joy among such hardship. We were able to interact with patients who had been relieved of debilitating pain for years on end, and give them the opportunities to walk, to do things they love to do, to provide for their families.
Many patients and their families expressed the sentiment “God bless you,” this week, and I believe that he truly did through giving us this opportunity to love our fellow man.
Maya Holmes
Team Blogger
