Edredones, Manuales, y Utila

Hola amigos!

So my time here in Honduras is coming near to an end, only one more week left till I return to the US. This past week has kept me busy. Julien and I were able to attach blood pressure cuffs to donated vital signs monitors, deliver them to the nurses, show them how to use them, and write guides for them in Spanish. We also visited our friends in Maternity who are currently expanding their facilities. They now have acquired new machines for the department, including an electrocardiograph, a fetal monitor, and a defibrillator. However, the machines were donated with only English manuals and no one knew how to use these brand new machines (as is common with most donations, the people don’t think things through and just give them away thinking that it’s going to make a difference). We spent most of last week and part of this week translating them, printing them out, and laminating them so they last for a long time.

During my free time at home, I was busy making quilts. I started sewing the patches together by hand, but this was taking a long time. Jackie, our house mom, let me use her sewing machine after she saw me struggling after a couple of days (better late than never). Once that was done, it was back to hand sewing the cotton insert and back to the patches. After countless finger pricks and over days of constant sewing, I have finished two quilts. The plan is to bring them into work on Friday and give them to two new mothers. I hope they appreciate all the time and effort I put into them because I will probably still feel the pain for days.

This week, we were shown another part of the hospital I never knew was there, the clinic. We were told that there was a machine that was broken and we were to go investigate. After waiting for an hour to talk to the nurse (as usual), we were shown to the vasectomy operating room (YIKES!!!) where the operating table would not elevate. The doctor who performed these surgeries was very tall and the table was very low and it hurt the doctor to operate. At first, we were skeptical if we could do anything other than put something underneath the legs of the table since this thing weighs a ton and we didn’t know how to take it apart without taking possibly days. After talking to Rigo, who is now warming up to us, and troubleshooting further, we were able to replace a tube that was leaking and refill it with hydraulic fluid. Now the doctor can perform his surgery pain free (I can’t say that much for the patients!).

Unfortunately, we had an unlucky incident occur to us today. When we went to grab our tools to take to the operating room, we realized that they were light. When we opened them, we realized someone had stolen almost all of our tools, the soldering irons, the wrenches, wire strippers, pliers, basically everything but some useless stuff. We had hid our tools out of sight on top of lockers where no one could see but someone managed to steal them anyway. We told Rigo about this who informed us that someone has been stealing many tools in the department. That discussion brought in some nurses and other technicians who were very passionate about the matter (they were almost yelling about the situation, not at us but how someone was stealing from the hospital). We felt kind of awkward but we only have a couple of days left and Rigo and the other technician offered there tools to us too.

This weekend, most of us went to Utila, one of the other Bay Islands. That weekend they were having a 24 hour techno party on this private beach that some of our friends wanted to attend. We spent the weekend relaxing, kayaking around the island, attending some of the activities from Sunjam (the techno party), and of course scuba diving (my new hobby). These dives were very well organized, I was able to see a wreck, turtles, eels, sting rays, and even swim through caves! I’m very glad I was certified so I was able to do all these things. The only bad part of the weekend was the ferry ride over. Unlike the one to Roatan, the ferry was much smaller with one enclosed story. Apart from the ferry almost tipping over several times (and having people lose their breakfast), the air condition broke and they couldn’t leave the doors open since they were in the front of the boat where the Captain was. Needless to say it was a rocky and hot ride but it was well worth it.

Our main mission for this week is to figure out how to work a ventilator in recovery, tinker around with the anesthesia machines (being extremely cautious), and hopefully finishing our inventory if they aren’t too busy. We are planning to go to Tela this weekend, a beach town on the northern coast. Not too much longer before I return home and my journey ends. Adios!