Cuatro Dia

Day Four

The poor are many

and so-

impossible to forget.

      Roberto Soasa, Honduras Poet

We woke today all excited and full of energy as we prepared for our last day helping the

people of Honduras. The medical team went to a new site today in the small village of Chilupa. About a hundred people lined up outside the church where children were running on the street and climbing on the grating of the window. Mid-way through the day, we heard screams and a woman was carried in, head bloodied. As we got her story we learned that her boyfriend had hit her in the head with a rock. There police were outside, having been called to an assault. While we were assessing her gaping head wound for suturing she slumped over, limp in our arms, then started to seize. Her arms became rigid and her head arched back. We lifted her from her seat and laid her on the floor. The church was cleared of patients. She then stopped seizing, mumbled a few words, and a minute later started seizing again. The team held her head, was ready with an emergency kit of diazepam, and waited to see if the seizure would stop on its own, and after a few minutes it did. She was able to respond only with a few words. Knowing she had sustained significant trauma, we where able to get the police to agree to take her to the hospital. We carried her out to the police car through the throngs of people. Putting her in the back seat, we then walked back into the church. There was still work to be done - so after a few brief moments to process the event, it was back to seeing the next three hundred patient to finish the day.

The week is done. We all have that end-of-trip tired feeling. As the sun is beginning to rise over the mountains in the distance, as the birds are chirping in varied rhythms, a dog barks. The overhead fans cool the morning air. The good that transpired is clear, the work that remains is unending. As a group of doctors, nurses and others involved in bringing health-care to the people of this country we have shared an experience that is profound and will affect each of us in different ways. We have made connections with the people of Honduras, individuals - an old woman sharing her lessons of life, a young boy jumping up and down for a picture - we have created bonds with each other - and leave this country with lasting, sustaining memories of a land of immense beauty, strength, and resilience as well as a land of the poor. If there are lessons from this trip, the lessons are to believe in one's ability to do good; that people are people and that despite different cultures and backgrounds we share a common human connection; when we sit down across from one another we can smile together and cry together; that and when you reach out with your hands and minds and hearts and you can do things large and small; that when you open yourself to experience and when you make an effort and do something for another human being you can not help but to grow and learn and leave feeling better than when you arrived.

Our last day in El Progresso was, as always, bittersweet. Though we take pride in the work we've done so far, many still line the halls that we will not be able to care for. One such patient had a complex leg fracture that could not be repaired due to a lack of proper equipment. Having waited days for our team to heal him, the despair on his face as we explained the situation to him was heartbreaking.  

Such is the eternal dilemma faces that our group each year - lack of resources. Even with the selfless donations of friends, colleagues and vendors very generous to our cause each year, there are only so many supplies we can bring with us. Even though our team accomplishes so much with so little, It is frustrating to know that treatment exists for a patient here but simply can not be obtained.  

Still, we brought new life into the world, we mended limbs, we fixed hernias, we took away pain, we tense smoothed the brows of patients and put smiles back on the faces of their families. 

The flexibility of our team in the midst of the dearth of our first world comforts is one of greatest marvels of this trip. Memorable this year events include performing a surgical scrub without running water, one of our dedicated translators would pour water over the hands of a surgeon prepared to operate. Our surgeons would generally assist in OB cases and our OB docs would scrub into surgeries encountered that they have not seen since medical school. Even one of our audacious anesthetists stepped out from behind the curtain and scrubbed sterile OB With His Counterparts in a C-section. Their acumen and dedication to a positive outcome in any situation was apparent.  

Another trip to Honduras and for all those Involved, it was an experience infused with comraderie, compassion, fulfillment and a new perspective, that will continue to enrich our own lives as much as we have hope those we have touched this week.

Tres Dia

"The delicate balance Between human hardness

and the weeping of things. "

      -Roberto Sosa, Honduras Poet

Today was very different than the previous two days, although it started with a delicious breakfast like always. The van Traveled through a windy road all the way up in a mountain and arrived at a school yard. Were the children out in the yard playing soccer on a field. About a hundred people waiting outside the church Were as we set-up the table and chairs. It was a day of variety, and insights into the again of the beauty, hardship and resiliency of These people. We listened to Carefully Their Stories:  

   The 78 year-old woman who had pain in her side, who has worked for forty years making tortillas, who shared That When She does not Have the strength to go one she kneels down and prays to God for strength, and then she is able to get up and she has the strength again.  

The two children, 4 and 6 years old, who had poor appetite, one serious and sad, the other silly and laughing. On further questioning it was discovered That Their mother had abandoned them a few months ago and now being and They Were Brought up by Their aunt.

The forty-five year-old woman with the withered hand and an arm Which three inches above her wrist her arm came together narrowed to one-inch in diameter, the size of her radius bone, wrapped in tape. When asked she shared That was from raising her hand up to protect her face as her husband Toward a machete swang her head, instead slicing off the muscles of her arm, before she was able to flee. When asked if her husband went to jail for this she said I did not but That, "God will punish him."

A fifty-year old male who has been on dialysis for the last eleven years, disfigured with blotches of dark and white skin over his face and body from vitiligo, and huge bumps all over his arms from failed venous ports, who felt lucky To Have had discovered his kidney failure, and attributes his life to the "Glory of God."

The ninety-five year old woman with a wooden cane who had trouble walking from the door of the church to the medical stations When It was her turn to be seen. We picked up our chairs Quickly Brought to the medical station to her so She Could sit down. Her knees Were riddled with arthritis, her skin was dark and leathery, but her eyes and her smile bright Were beamed. Her only complaint, que was hard to believe, was a pain in the upper part of her back and neck. We asked her what she Might want to teach us as younger people with Less expeience. She said what she wanted to pass on was, "Healthy eating, hard work, exercise, and have faith." Not a bad lesson for the day.

Then the team, tired and hot from seeing approximately 400 patients, drove through the mountains to spend a half-hour acerca enjoying the beach, then drove back to the Andrew Clinic for dinner.

Another morning at Andrew Clinic, our home for the week, and another hearty breakfast.  In fact, our gracious hosts, Drs. David and Florence Yoon and their talented staff of cooks, have made sure our bellies have been full all week with delicious local fare and even a delectable Korean-inspired dish.   

On the way to the hospital, Dr Yoon shared with us a parable Which illustrated the ideas importance of our work here. His interpretation of this ancient Was That take even though at times we feel our work Seems of little Consequence in the backdrop in Widespread poverty and lack of healthcare, our service Provides a critical function in the villages in El Castano in. That it Gives witness to the messages of the missionaries who spend much of the year here, nurturing a fledgling hope for a better future.

After stopping at Dunkin 'Donuts (yes, they are everywhere) to pick up sugary sustenance for the hospital staff, we where off to work. Much to the chagrin of our staunch colleagues back home, an on-time start in the OR is a luxury in El Progresso. A 7:30 start soon Became an 8:39 start but from there, the day Quickly Became an exercise in distilling order from the chaos.      

Patients, toting x-rays and surgical supplies Purchased With Their own Lempira (the Honduran currency), lined the halls of a makeshift triage area Which was nothing more than a waiting room, some had been there for days hoping we could care for them.  

From hip replacements to toe amputations to c-sections to gall bladder excisions to hernia repairs to bone fixations to cystecitomies, we changed the course of lives and saved the Most lives of others.

And though we Accomplished so much today, so many still Waited on stretchers, in wheelchairs, leaning against the cracked-tiled walls as we made our way out of the hospital. We help as many as we possibly can. And though our time here is finite, Luke World Mission has created a lasting bastion of hope in El Progresso and we are privileged to be a part of it. 

Segundo Dia en Honduras (Second day in Honduras)

The day started early, with a breakfast of scrambled eggs, beans, tortillas, mango and cantaloupe, then we left for the hospital and the mission medical clinic at 7am.  There was a bit of trepidation amongst the medical team as we were headed to care for the people in a neighborhood church built three years ago in a poor area of San Pedro Sula, a city known around the world for violence.  We were assured by our hosts that the church would be safe.  Driving first to the hospital to provide a medical consultation,  it was impossible not to feel awe in beholding the cascading green mountains, lush in green palm trees, the streams and the rivers we passed, with children fishing from the side of the river.  It was equally impossible not to notice the poverty - the emaciated man walking on the side of the road with a plastic bag in hand, the mud streets coming off the side of the main road lined with small wooden shacks with tin roofs, the rusted gutted cars on the side of the road, the signs for Coca-Cola and Pepsi on so many buildings and stores tempting people to spend money that they did not possess on soda that they do not need; the military men carrying machine guns who must be on the street corners for a reason.

The whole team arrived at the hospital, the medical team consulted with the surgical team on a difficult case,  and the surgeons were told that the power to the hospital might be cut off at 8am, as part of routine rotating power outages.  It turned out by 8:30  that the power was not shut off to the hospital so the surgeons were able to operate in three operating rooms.

The medical team then continued to the church clinic.  The bus turned into the narrow two-lane dirt street that was barely wider than the bus itself.  Abject poverty stared at us from a foot-and-a-half on each side of the bus.  We looked in amazement at the small huts lining the dirt street, the children looking out the doorways as the bus it passed,  a pig crossing the street in the distance, an old man with leathery skin and a straw hat leaning against a metal pole.   We parked in front of the church, got off the bus and there were about a hundred people, young and old, sitting patiently in the chairs in the church waiting for us. The team saw about 400 people - injected knees and shoulders, treated pneumonia in a young infant, gave prednisone for asthma, counseled an elderly woman with depression, gave antibiotics for wounds, saw a young child with club-foot, and many many others who were tired, poor, had headaches and joint pain, and who clearly all shared one thing in common with each other and all of us - a concern about their children and themselves and an ability to tolerate the troubles of their environment and strive for a better tomorrow - as was manifest today by their ability to wait a long time to be seen to receive the medical care we could give - vitamins, anti-parasite medications, anti-biotics, skin cream and others - medical care that would not fix their lives but would make their lives in some way a little bit better by virtue of medicines and knowing that someone cares enough to be there. Their smiles and their “gracias” connected them to us and told us a part of their story that could be told no other way.

Then the medical team visited an orphanage where we witnessed selfless devotion to the good of others. As the incredibly selfless couple who have moved from their home in Brooklyn, NY to run an orphanage, and thier mission was, “To raise the future leaders of Honduras.”

Clinic

San Pedro Sula

handing a lolipop to a little girl

Our second day in El Progresso proved challenging from the start as we faced a possible power outage, a common occurrence here, even before our first case.  The threat passed and, having our equipment organized the day before, we got right to work (even though we did lose power momentarily later in the day :).  

A wide variety of cases were performed on patients of all ages, from 8 months to 94 years old.  Some procedures, such as a congenital trigger release on an 8-month old boy, considered a fairly routine operation in the states, become life-changing interventions here.  

Our intrepid OB/GYN team, braving the twisting corridors of Hospital El Progresso on the way to the obstetrics unit, were also on point.  From hysterectomies to cystectomies to c-sections, if there was something inside of you that needed to come out, they had you covered.  

And of course, the success of this day would not have been possible without our unsung heroes, our translators, who seem right at home in a very foreign place. 

Another amazing day.  We look forward to, and are ready for, whatever tomorrow brings.

Exciting first day!

Wow! What an exciting first day we had at the clinic (hospital for updates and read below ...). We started the day bright and early, loaded the bus With All of the medical supplies, and then drove to our location of Lima. On the way it is enjoyable to glance outside and see the surrounding scenery. Pulling up to the clinic we saw how the people lived in the village. We saw small huts, With roosters, chickens and dogs roaming free in the muddy yards. Clothing hanging outside each house, with children playing in the streets.  

When we Reached the clinic Were Already 100 people waiting to be seen. We unpacked the supplies and Quickly Organized ourselves into teams. We met our translators, high school students who Attend an American school, and Quickly got to work. Total In over four hundred patients seen from newborns to Were In Their patients eighties. What was Their foreign language was familiar but was what was the look of concern on mothers' faces acerca Their children, the tears of a wife Concerned about her husband, and the smiles, laughter, and "thank you" from so many.

Exhilarating first day for the surgical team ...

The return to El Progresso was a welcome and, not surprisingly, exciting home (away from home) coming. Grinding through the surrounding villages on our way to the hospital in our stretch bus-thing, we smiled at local family, regaling in reminiscence, and were delighted at the sight of new construction and a burgeoning prosperity in a place blighted by poverty for so long .  

Our arrival at the hospital owner also brought similar feelings of reminiscence as we reunited with old friends and remarked that, as a place that has become so dear to our group, has continued to grow Also.  

After a slow start, the surgical team mercifully gave the team time to organize, we welcomed our first patients. The first day was mostly as expected, performing surgeries That would seem fairly routine in the states, yet become exercises in improvisation in El Progresso.  

Still, the passion and experience of our dedicated team, made the day a success, helping and healing, one patient at a time.

We've Arrived!

We've arrived at our beautiful stay for the week at Luke's World Mission. After an early start This Morning, it was exciting to finally touch down. We met our hosts who started this mission, Florence and David. They welcomed us with open arms and inspired all of us. Told the story of David How this mission was started. A little thought can blossom into a beautiful (much needed) clinic. It started with the Pastor at Their Church in NY. David and Florence visited Honduras and saw an imminent need here. The healthcare system. There was a gap, and took it upon Themselves to create a mission and clinic to help ease the needs of the Honduran people. Tonight is full of excitement and curiosity as we are acerca to experience the first day in the clinic tomorrow . Can not wait for the start of healing and adventure tomorrow! 

The whole gang is in Honduras! 

Some of us enjoying delicious fruit before dinner

What we are

Operation Heal Honduras is the culmination of 9 years of medical mission trips.  I tagged along on a trip with Rita Morgan, CRNA, to Choluteca, Honduras in 2007.  Since then we have been returning annually to different locations in Honduras, and the group has grown from 8 to 22-24.

What started as a small surgical team has blossomed into a multidisciplinary group, with Family Medicine going to rural villages, and a hospital team with General and Trauma Surgery, Orthopedics, and Ob/Gyn.  In addition to the 5 attending physicians, there are 5 residents-in-training, 3 CRNAs and multiple RNs and translators.  Honduras is one of the most impoverished countries in the Western Hemisphere and basic health care is absent for many.  While they do have hospitals and operating rooms of varying quality and cleanliness, obtaining the disposable items needed to perform operations is difficult or impossible due to lack of money.  So we bring sterile gowns, gloves, suture, gauze, mesh, casting material, ACE wraps, laparoscopic ports, drapes, etc, as well as bringing approximately $2,000 worth of medications..  Virtually all of our supplies are donated by our generous vendors who supply Abington Health.  Most of the team works at Abington Health or local area hospitals.

In addition to helping those patients we see while we are there, we are also able to leave supplies so that the doctors and nurses there can continue to work after we leave.

This will be our third year staying in the Andrew Clinic in El Castano, and they are wonderful hosts.   If you want to find it, its not the El Castano you’d find on Google.  Look for El Progreso and then its a 20 minute drive north.  While the medical teams go out to the villages, the hospital team will be at Hospital El Progresso, and we will reconvene at Andrew Clinic each night.  This is a true team effort, and a true joy, and we look forward to sharing it with you!  Thanks for following along!

- Seth

Here we go!

Hi Readers! Thanks for joining us as we are about to embark on an incredible journey!

We are a group from Abington Memorial Hospital heading to heal and help individuals in Honduras for a week-long mission trip.  Follow this blog as we learn about the country, ourselves, and others along the way.

Countdown to take-off: LESS THAN 24 HOURS!!!