Mission Day 4

This time we were in the city of Cuzco. Only half hour ride.

We had a lot more patients this time.

People were waiting in line for us. We had the exam rooms set up on the second floor and there was such a narrow corridor to get through we were tripping over each other. In another room

there were procedures such as ear cleaning, wound cleaning, and respiratory care.

There was a lady with uterine

bleeding. She had a miscarriage and continued to have bleeding 3 months later and the gynecologist referred her to me. Why was the gynecologist

referring a patient of her specialty to me. Just a testament to the possible discrepancies in their system. So I consulted with a Peruvian doctor and she said she needed

an ultrasound.

There was a lady with scoliosis. Her baby also had scoliosis. Her husband would yell at her because she couldn't do everything for him because of her pain and because of her time caring for her baby.

There was an elderly lady whose husband hit her and beat her and she lost vision in her right eye. She had other injuries, but was soo scared to leave him for fear he would find her and beat her more. I told her daughters that they should find her a new place and live with her. And she needed to work with the pastors and the church to find a way to be strong to leave him. But in his culture it is hard to do this. I had her pray with the pastor and have a private consultation. And talked in length with her daughters about the seriousness of putting her safety first.

MIssion Day 3

This time we went to a far mountain village called Colccayui. It was almost two hours away from our hotel. There were lots of very scary turns.

They were very welcoming to us!! They lived in little small shack like houses with thatched or tin roofs with wood stoves with the walls black from smoke with no windows.

One little girl would not let us in her house. We were strangers and they may have been ashamed or protective.

One family I saw three at once the mother and the two kids and their little lamb was in the exam room with us. They lived a hard life.

I saw a patient with a cough for 3 years. He worked cutting trees down with no masks on. He also fell and hit his leg on a rock and was in bed for 3 months. It probably was broken and may have healed improperly. I gave him pain meds and exercise teaching and masks and educated him.

Mission Day 2

Mission day 2

Wake up 6 am.

Breakfast is better today. More protein. Less Bread!! The massive amounts of bread yesterday began the start of my constipation which bags of prunes could not cure!! The lodging location supplied “continental breakfast”… This day was better, we had a Yogurt drinks, hard boiled eggs, oranges, and peanut butter. Helpful to sustain me for another challenging day!!

7am devotional was done by Alice. She tells a story of how her father worked during the war and would 'get rid of' outdated meds and slightly old bread and how it has influenced her for her travels on this mission! She is inspired by his stories and in turn inspired us…a very inspirational way to start the day!

Today we went to Patabamba, a village not as far up the mountain, which meant that more people spoke Spanish than the day before. The higher up you go, the more Quechua and less Spanish is spoken! There was still a lot of Quechua but less translation today. The ride however was much windier bumpier and scarier. But again the views were spectacular.

“QUECHUA, I NEED QUECHUA!!!” - was what you heard the nurses/doctors/nurse practitioner/optometrists/dentists yelling when they needed a Quechua translator.

One thing we all noticed was that they work incredibly hard. One girl Yenny, the optometrist on our team, told me that the farmers, or campesinos, get paid 10 soles a day, which is about 4 dollars. They work from sunrise to sunset and climb steep mountains with no paved trails sometimes to the top with a heavy load on their backs in the strong peruvian sun and very high altitude with low oxygen. And then you see this mansion-size house with several pools and lots of land and cars and then you realize that this is the house of the dueños, or owners of the farm plots, or chakras. It is unfair. It's akin to slave labor. You see a very large modern house with clean water and heat and electricity and they employ people and pay them so little that they live in small adobe shacks with no windows, no heat water or electricity and can only eat rice and potatoes and such…… How do these owners live with themselves?

The patients we saw today for me were much more complicated. These patients had multiple complaints and a lot of psychosocial issues such as physical and sexual and emotional abuse. A lot of patients this day came with multiple problems.

One patient - her husband went to work far away and came back once a month and when he came back he would be drunk and hit her. He kicked her in the chest. Hit her all over. She probably had more injuries but without tests we couldn't assess further for any internal injuries. So much more is needed for these people. (The picture above in this post is of our preacher praying with one of the abused ladies).

Another woman was hit in the stomach by her neighbors and lost her baby and her husband wouldn't allow her to go to church because he was jealous. She had lots of pains most likely related to the abuse. This was extremely difficult for me because in America we would have many resources for these women, such as women’s shelters, protection programs, restraining orders, a better judicial system to put these abusers away. And here our main source of hope to give them was to pray!! We had our own resources – our pastor with his words of hope and prayer, our integral health program to help the patients spiritually as well as physically. I just wanted to take them away from there with me!!

I hope and pray for permanent resources for these patients… and that is the goal for the Cuzco site - to get permanent care not just yearly care.

Meeting the wonderful world of MMI

The first couple days... all of our hard work and preparation was being taken to the next stage.

In preparation for the mission, at our own homes around the US, Canada, and Peru, we had fundraisers, prayers, collection of medicines and supplies, medical reading, travel and Peru reading, gathering other needed supplies for exams, tests, etc, many emails going back and forth.

The first couple days of the mission, the Cuzco team made their arrivals and we got acquainted with one another and then we worked together to prepare for the two challenging weeks and hundreds of patients we were going to see...

This is Yelina!!! She is a dentist from Peru... Here she is helping with the major task of setting up all the supplies before the mission starts...

These are the bunkbeds we stayed in.

The room was very warm and the blankets, alpaca wool and all, kept us very cozy at night, despite the freezing temperatures at night in the mountains! We had to walk outside (VERY COLD AT NIGHT) to get to the bathroom which had limited hot water in only 3 showers for many women!
But we soon learned that our situation was a luxury compared to all of the patients situations we would be seeing in the next two weeks...

Here is Yenny, a Peruvian optometrist, and Alice, our multi-talented translator and helper
putting together patient education hand-outs we all printed out from home. Topics included:
-parasites (VERY COMMON)
-asthma
-allergies
-fever management
-arthritis and osteoporosis
-preventing and treating dehydration
We glued these handouts to the back of old used greeting cards that some of us had collected from family and friends...

Here is Danielle, an ICU nurse and travel nurse, who is preparing the supplies for triage and screening patients.
-Finding out what the patient needs!
-Vital signs
-Height
-Weight
-Checking Hemoglobins, urine dips, blood glucose etc..




Here we have Sharon, a trauma/ICU nurse and Julie, an ICU nurse and an acute care nurse practitioner student, as well as Amy, a labor and delivery nurse... Here they are preparing medications to put in packets with labels... such as tylenol, ibuprofen...

And of course our many water bottles ... it was very important to STAY HYDRATED in the high altitude of Cuzco..

Mission Day One

Day 1 of mission

Yaraccunca - a small village almost 2 hours from our base camp in San Jeronimo.

This village is only accessible by winding dirt roads up the Andes mountains. And the bus is only 2 feet away from the edges of the cliffs. Every turn you feel like the bus may flip over. Despite that, the views are breathtaking, inspirational, educational, and unseen by tourists.

It is amazing how there are plots of farm lands covering much of the steep mountainside. After seeing where our patients live and seeing the environmental surroundings of their livelihood - farming, it was easier to understand how to assess, diagnose, and treat these Quechua mountain peoples’ ailments.

When we arrived to the village we were greeting by kids running down the hill toward our bus!

As we moved the equipment up the steep hills, we immediately felt the High Altitude... we only took a few steps, and were huffing and puffing... while the Peruvian men put the luggage on top of their heads and ran up the mountain!

Most of the complaints this first day were joint pains and muscle pains from labor and work, or fractures untreated, or stomach pains or ear pain or need for glasses (it was so amazing watching the patients finally be able to see!!!!) or urinary issues which needed further workup.

It is difficult knowing they won't get followup and they will run out of meds. Cuzco is in the process of creating a permanent center for these MMI patients. This is the goal.

But despite the lack of current permanency of Health care for these patients, you can tell the look of PURE RELIEF and HAPPINESS on the patients’ faces when they can hear after their ears are cleaned or they can see after they received a pair of glasses or they can finally breathe after getting an asthma inhaler or having a wound cleaned that had been infected... It was very rewarding.. and we wished we could do more..

This was an extremely challenging day for me. For Many reasons:

1) My first experience working as a nurse practitioner EVER after graduating and getting my license ...

2) Working in a foreign country on my first mission

3) Conducting all of my patient interactions in Spanish!!!! or in Spanish with a Quechua translator

But I did it!!

This was a young mother who was complaining of coughing and being short of breath and "having a whistling sound" for 2 years... She talked about how it was difficult for her to do to most activities and she had 2 kids to take care of... i diagnosed her with asthma and worked with the pharmacy to give her the appropriate inhalers that she needed.. one example of the hundreds

of patients we were seeing..

Breathingtaking skies during the sunset on the Andean landscape made the scary windy ride home worthwhile.

I am back. Photos coming very soon!

I have been back from my South American journey for exactly a month now, and I am settling into my new family nurse practitioner job now. I am going to be posting photos soon of my medical mission to Peru. Stay tuned!

Fundraising Update

I am still collecting money so that I can buy much needed supplies for the trip such as tongue depressors, vitamins, eye drops, antibiotics, etc.. So every dollar counts!!

Donations can be made out to me and sent to my address or can be made out to Medical Ministry International and sent Medical Ministry International; PO Box 1339; Allen, TX 75013-0022 if you want a tax deduction!

Any questions, comments, just leave a comment, send me an email or call me!!
Thank you!