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.