Brigada

Yesterday I participated in another Medical Brigade in a small indigenous community about 45 minutes away from Ibarra. It was put on by a group of faculty and students from the University of Kentucky, and was covering just about everything from Dental to Physical Therapy.

I spent the first few hours translating for a doctor (and former Peace Corps volunteer from Thailand) named Gill. Since the community is populated by indigenous people, a lot of the time we needed someone to translate from Kichwa to Spanish, and then Spanish to English. Although I´ve heard a lot of Kichwa briefly, it was interesting to listen to it extensively for the first time. It sort of sounds like an Asian language being shouted. Certainly nothing like Spanish. What was interesting about these patients is that many of them could not connect their symptoms with something that they might be doing in their life to cause those symptoms. For example, a man about 55 years old came in complaining of back pain. When we asked him when this pain occurred, he said that it only happens when he is carrying a giant load on his back, and that now he can’t even carry more than 5 bags of anything at one time. Well, imagine that. Another 18 year old boy came in and explained that he gets headaches, dizzy and sometimes even faints….when he doesn’t eat in the morning. Gee. It was a busy morning, and Gill was very kind and helpful with all the patients.

And then there was Dr. Bob. Let’s just say, Dr. Bob introduced a new idea to the top of my list of possible vocations, that is…Dentistry. I was hanging around the Dentist room, I´ll admit, trying to get a look…when he asked me if I wanted to help. ¨Well sure!¨. I suited up in a little dentist surgery robe, mask, gloves and eye ware (¨So no blood squirts into your eyes¨, explained Dr. Bob.) He was working on a 15 year old with an abscess and tooth that needed to be removed. The extent of my help involved holding the patients tongue back and shining the light in his mouth. Other than that I just watched in amazement as Dr. Bob sliced open the side of his gums, dug around trying to find the tooth (which was deep down in there, and removed in two pieces), and then fished out all the remnants of the abscess, four tiny pieces in all. Surprisingly, I was doing ok! I never even felt the urge to vomit, although towards the end as we were sewing up the gaping hole in the kid’s mouth, I started to feel hot flashes and light headed. But I made it through with a new appreciation for Dentistry. When he was finished, the kid looked elated as he stood there smiling with bloody gauze in his mouth. I think he was probably just enjoying the fact he couldn’t feel a thing.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with the Dentists, which aside from Registration and the Pharmacy was arguably the busiest department of the day. I helped Dr. Judy (former Peace Corps volunteer from Grenada), and filled out dental forms as she examined each patient as they came in. Almost everyone needed at least one tooth pulled. One 90 year old had all of the only 6 teeth left on the top of his mouth pulled out…and if it weren’t for lack of time they would have pulled out 3 more on the bottom. I finished the day with a great appreciation for Dentistry. If it weren’t for the science/math part of the education process, I might just take my potential seriously.

It was a great day overall. The group will be back in August for another Brigade and I´m oh so much looking forward to pulling out some teeth. And for my day´s hard work, I received an awesome new bout of diarrhea and stomach cramps! Oh well, I made it 5 months, that’s the record so far.