Party in the USA

I've been throwing my hands up like Miley in the USA since Saturday night. I figure I should write a final post about my experience in Peru. I may have put off doing this because I feel like that means it is actually over. I have mixed feelings about being back. I was very excited to see everyone and enjoy the comforts of home, but now I feel kind of odd. It's that "post-mission trip feeling" that so many of you have probably experienced as well. First of all, I feel lazy that I'm not doing something beneficial to the world with my time. Second of all, the culture is so different and more friendly in Peru. For example, I stopped by the mall for a short time and found myself thinking "why does nobody want to say hello to me?!" this week. The whole thing just makes me feel like I don't belong in the U.S. a little. Before I left, I prayed for an open heart to show love to all who I would encounter. The thing is, these people of Peru now have a place in my heart that I don't know how to explain/share with everyone here. So here I sit typing this post while listening to Mueve La Pompa (a fiesta favorite)...
Let's rewind, here's what's gone down since my last post-
My final eval went just fine if anyone was curious. Also, we got a good grade on that 25 page paper! That evening, we went to fiesta #87685 (but probably more like 6). Everyone was so tired, but hey what's one more night of Peru "partying"? We started saying our goodbyes, which was sooo sad!

Here we are with Theresa, one of the nurses from the Oklahoma medical mission we worked with in the OR

After staying up too late (as usual), we got up before dawn to head to the Piura airport. Some of the parish staff and nurses we grew close to came along to see us off. After lots of hugs and some tears, we were off. We landed in Lima around 1000 a little unsure of what our next move would be, as our flight was not for 11 hours. We did end up having a tour scheduled (communication with Marquette had been scattered) that took up most of the day. We saw a little of this, some of that. In fact, I was personally invited to an ocean-side fiesta with some Peruvian hippies (yes, they do exist). Unfortunately, 'merica was calling my name.

In front of the governor's mansion

Pacific Ocean- our tour guide called this our "romantic" stop

After the tour, our group split. 8 of the girls were going on to Cuzco and a 4-day hike on the Inca trail to Machu Picchu. I skipped this part of the trip since I am probably still not quite there health-wise to make that and for my "big" plans this summer (more later). Kat & I headed back to the airport after the tour (on a wild and nauseating van ride, thankfully the last). I enjoyed Subway for dinner, which was great. Our flight was a little delayed, but we ended up taking off around 0030 (Saturday). We slept a lot of the way, as well as you can on a Spirit airplane. Spirit Air is advertised as low-fare air, which is true. Getting cheap means sacrificing on the comfort aspect though- not much space, non-reclining seats, no food (not even water on a 7 hour flight). Totally worth it for college students though! We arrived and were through customs in Fort Lauderdale, FL by 0830. I was dazzled by toilet seat covers, Dunkin' Donuts, air conditioning, and use of the English language. I sat in this airport until 4:30 PM, passing the time talking to everyone that would listen on the phone. On the flight to Chicago, I got to sit by a puppy! I was definitely ready to get off the plane and see my family by the time we landed. I finally got to Green Bay, WI at 11:30 PM Saturday night. My first meal home was pizza- exactly what I wanted. 

Since returning, I've just been unpacking/doing laundry, catching up with friends and family, and resting (I am way behind on sleep!). My mother insists I am "so skinny", but really I gained 5 lbs on my trip (too much cake). I have been so blessed by my month in Peru, and I sincerely hope to return. I wish I could say that it will be next summer, but by then I'll be looking for a big girl job and trying to pass the NCLEX (boards/exams to get an RN license), so who knows where I'll be. Anyone looking for a great mission trip (whether medical or otherwise) should really consider going through Sacramento Santisimo! It is a Catholic parish, but I am not Catholic and really enjoyed my time there.
The rest of my summer includes a long weekend at the cottage with my extended family and a gum graft (snatching some skin off my hard palate and sewing it on where my gums should be). I have serious dental anxiety and have already had nightmares... August 3rd is the day. My only hope of postponing is if I brought some of Peru home with me/the parasite is still inhabiting my intestines (I'll find out early next week).

Thanks to all who have read my blog and emailed, I truly had no idea the response I would get! I would love to hear from anyone who has more questions about my trip, I am in the Green Bay area until mid-end of August. Some have asked if I'm going to keep blogging now that the trip is over, and I am fairly certain the answer is no. Simply, my life is not that interesting. There was a time in my life that was pretty eventful, but I'm pleased to say that time has mostly passed.

Con amor,
Esperanza

"Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me Your love for humanity
Give me Your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see"

This will likely be my LAST post from Peru! It is crazy how fast the last month has gone, although at the same time we have done a lot and I'm ready for some rest.
Yesterday, I was with the Oklahoma medical mission in the OR from 8 AM-8 PM. A surgeon and anesthesiologist came down with the team to do hernia sugeries (a hernia is an abnormal sac that protrudes through the abdominal wall that may contain intestines, tissues, etc.). They have been doing 7 or 8 surgeries every day (which is a lot for the same team to do at once). It was a very interesting day but also a very long day. In the U.S., a patient will have different nurses for preop, surgery, recovery, and postop. Here we stick with once patient all the way through their time at the clinic, then take on another when he/she is discharged.
Here's a little summary of what we do where-
Preop: Check the patient in, take vitals, start IV's (I started my first "real" one here, but have practiced on several willing amigas before this), give meds (ex. Zofran for nausea), and get all paperwork in order.
Surgery: Mostly watching, some assisting but nothing huge. The surgeon and anesthesiologist were explaining things as they happened. My first patient had a laryngospasm when coming off the breathing tube- closure of the throat so that no air can pass through. He did eventually wake up with no problems
Recovery/Postop- Anesthesia slows everything down in the body, so it is important to maintain good vitals. Immediately, the patient receives oxygen via mask and is on continuous pulse oximetry. We take vitals every 15 minutes for an hour. Slowly we get the patient to sit up, drink some water, and have some crackers. Pain management is also very important (mostly just with Ibuprofen here). Some patients throw up, others are dizzy. Eventually the patient sits in a chair, at which time we bring in the family to talk about how to care for the patient once he/she leaves us.
Last night we went to a "fancy" place for dessert and cappuccino and stayed up too late doing homework.

This morning I was with social services, which today meant building a house. We were with a group of missionaries from California. The houses are made mostly of bamboo. It was a fun way to end my time here!

The three Marquette nurses who joined in on construction today

The team with the family we were building the house for- this was our progress when we left at noon. The CA group will go back to finish it this afternoon.

All I have left now is our final evaluation with the clinical instructor (in literally 5 minutes)... wish me luck!

Our flight departs from Piura tomorrow morning at 0800. I will be back in the U.S. at 6 AM Saturday morning, and in Chicago at 6:30 PM Saturday. I am excited to see some of you when I get back, especially my little dog ;) I recently received some pretty cute pictures of him via email from my family & realized that I miss him a lot!

¡Hasta luego!

Love,

Hope

Our Last Week Begins

I have an unexpected amount of time tonight, I decided to stay home from the fiesta that is happening tonight to catch up on some rest... plus our paper and presentation are completed!

Today some of us left at 0730 to help with a village clinic set up by a traveling medical mission from Oklahoma. I spent most of the morning playing pharmacist- handing out pills, constituting liquid meds, & teaching the patients how to take their new meds. It was fairly busy with just 1 doctor seeing patients. Lots of parasites (more on that later), respiratory infections, some pneumonia and asthma, and lots of runny noses.  In the afternoon, more doctors came to work and we were VERY busy. I switched to intake (where we do vitals & short health histories) and took more blood pressures in 4 hours than I can count. We saw over 100 patients today! One that stood out in particular was a 30 year old woman with severe lordosis & scholiosis. In the U.S. this would have been surgically corrected during childhood, but we are in Peru. It was very sad to see, her growth was majorly stunted and she was having significant pain.
After a 10.5 hour day, we headed back to the parish with plans to return to this village tomorrow.

So about those parasites... I have them/it. I am like 98% certain- I've had suspicions for about the last week due to some minor symptoms, but today I have white spots on my face and arm. Apparently parasites can affect the pigments in your skin (temporarily... I think). It really isn't surprising since sooo many people have them and we get so many kisses. I really feel fine so family who are getting worried please don't! I snagged 400mg Albendazole (a 1x treatment) this afternoon at the clinic so I expect to be rid of the problem soon.
Other health concerns include the possible closure of my nosering :( I am sure my family will be so sad to hear this news. I took it out for a night because it was starting to look infected and made the situation worse. I must be running out of interesting things to talk about if I'm mentioning this, lo siento si no le importa.
Thirdly, my blood pressure is in rebellion, which is why I'm resting tonight.

I GOT TO MEET MY FAMILY TONIGHT! :)
They are super cute- a married couple and twin 2 year old girls (but they want more kids). The little girls were very shy but I got to talk with the parents for awhile. The father is very involved in the kids' lives (which is rare) and was very kind.

 Meet my family! 

Missing from this picture are their 5 dogs

I have no idea what the rest of the week will bring with the medical team here. We only have 3 more days in Piura, which is so crazy. This time next week I will be eating pizza instead of chicken & rice...

Friday Night? Party at Hospice

Great news: we are almost done with our paper. Bad news: we aren't actually done with our paper.

With less than a week left, we are busier than ever. A group of doctors, nurses, and assistants just got here today to do hernia surgeries and some other stuff; we plan on working with them for much of the week (when we aren't giving presentations and doing final evals...). That means much less if any of our usual ventures to hospice, homes, and Pro-Life. Despite being way burned out on hospice, I realized I am actually going to miss seeing those patients. Luckily for me, we ended up having a mini fiesta at the hospice last night... to be honest my initial thought was that I would never be able to eat anything there (cake is at all fiestas) because of the various aromas and duties I have experienced there. The patients that were able (4 of them) came out for cake and music. Felix (he was pictured in a previous post) was absolutely loving it!

I would like to introduce you to Manuel:

He frequently yells, it drives some of the other patients loco. Really adds to the mood of the place.

Week 1: Manuel hits us every time we try to take his blood pressure or temp.

Week 2: We realize if we threaten to tell Padre Joe he sort of listens.

Week 3: Manuel is entirely inappropriate & sassy. But he is blind and can't walk so not threatening.

Yesterday: While I was at hospice in the morning we sang songs (he likes Call Me Maybe & La Cucaracha) At the fiesta he danced with me! (note how tall I look)

After our wild Friday night out, we had a relaxing morning at the spa... sort of. For reasons that will be forever unknown, we visited a "spa" at 9 in the AM. First the lady just talked really fast Spanish for like 20 minutes. Then we all stood up and did what was supposed to be Tai Chi and yoga. I usually like that kind of thing, but this was just weird and confusing. Once we were finally done with that we thought "oh well at least that's over with"... so wrong. We got put into separate areas and had "massages." Some of it was good, but the bad was just too overwhelming. We were put into weird positions and rocked/shoved back and forth. Some girls suction cups stuck to their bodies, others had to hold TENS units in their hands (these deliver a small electrical shock, often used for pain reduction) for "relaxation." It's all about experience I guess.

This afternoon we had off just to work on papers, a lot of progress has been made!

Here's some pictures from the last few days...

Anybody looking for a baby? She is looking for a family.

Braiding on a home visit. This patient had a positive Trousseau's sign (flexion of the hand/wrist when I inflated the BP cuff), which could mean she is very low on calcium.

More home visits

A couple nights ago they surprised us with a little "thank you" party. The dining room was decorated with blue and gold. They sang us a song and gave out cards to each of us. It was very sweet, some people cried. It's going to be hard to leave on Friday!

Papers & presentations are Tuesday night at 8 PM, so I will probably not post until after. We are all hitting the point of being a little homesick, but I think we're also going to be sad when Friday morning comes. I am already dreaming of how I'm going to sit in the Starbucks in the Lima airport for 13 hours...

¡Hasta luego!

-Hope

No mas violencia!

As predicted, my actual free time is starting to decrease a lot due to homework. Yesterday was my teaching project day (we were assigned dates on Sunday). Like I mentioned awhile ago, I had been planning on talking about violence against women. Initially, I was going to focus on sexual assault since that is where my knowledge mostly lies, but after being here for awhile I realized intimate partner violence (which can be a combo of physical/sexual/emotional abuse) is one of the biggest problems. This is not an easy topic to discuss in this “machismo” culture- where men are dominant and have power/control over women. While violence/abuse is not condoned, it is also rarely publicly discouraged. Then you add in the power and values of the Catholic Church in Latin America (where divorce or permanent separation are usually opposed) and you get a very delicate situation. I really did not know all this when I signed up to talk about this in May. I had to give the presentation in Spanish, which was hard but manageable. The main points I wanted to get across were that abuse is not OK and that there are resources the women can use to escape a violent situation (free legal, medical, & psychological services in addition to Casa Maria). I gave my talk and prayed with them, but no one had any questions... it was very quiet (another thing I expected). I had absolutely no idea if anyone was understanding what I was saying or not. When it was time to say goodbye, we hugged and kissed everyone. Two different women whispered thank you in my ear and said they needed to get help from the church- one was planning on heading over to the parish next week. If even one person is thinking about getting help, then I am thrilled I chose this topic and gave it a shot.

45% of women surveyed in Peru have suffered some form of intimate partner violence.

 20% of girls age 10-15 are sexually abused by family members or neighbors.

Clinical has been going just fine, but since we do a lot of the same stuff I've already talked about (hospice, home visits, clinic, midwife, etc.), you probably don't want the play by play of every single day (unless maybe you are my mom or nama). I had an interesting afternoon at the Pro Life clinic today- our first patient was a woman pregnant with her 2nd child, she had her 4 year old with her. Never in my life have I seen such an energetic kid, and that is really saying a lot. The exam room is very small, and contained 4 adults + him. He slowed down a little to see his hermanita on the ultrasound, but otherwise was a bull in a china shop! I ended up taking him into the hall... literally I was running at my full speed to catch him as he ran back and forth. His mom was actually taking him to the psychologist because she said he had no self control, aka ADHD. We also did some counseling on natural family planning and saw a newborn baby.

This evening was yet another fiesta in a village. Officially it was for the church group that is currently here, but today is also LISA's 21st birthday! Lots of dancing & confetti. And more cake- everyone is so concerned about me losing weight while I'm here, but I really have more cake and ice cream here than I do back home so it's really not going to be a problem!

In other news, I have decided to adopt a family. This means I will give a yearly donation that will cover a good portion of their food, school supplies, or other needs. I also hope to be able to write to them. I haven't met them yet, but will post pictures when I do.

This is the family Marquette sponsors- Christian, Erika, Jessica (named after a student), & Kiara

This is baby Maria- she is 3 months old today! She & her mom live at Casa de Maria

I have high hopes for the next few days being very productive as far as our aggregate project, so I'm not sure when I'll post an update again. Also, all my pictures are on facebook so if you want to see more look me up! Buenas noches!

Casa Maria y Construcción

Saturday, July 7-
The group of 50+ high schoolers left early in the AM. It is now peacefully quiet, which is strange and kind of nice. There is another group of missionaries from Oklahoma that arrived today, but they are all adults and there are only 15-20 of them.
This morning, we got a good start on our aggregate project. For the project, we take a specific population (through a parish organization) and learn about them so that we can appropriately determine interventions to improve the wellness of that group. This culminates in a 25 page paper & presentation on July 17 (in 10 days, yikes). Our group of 5 students is doing our project on Casa Maria, a transition home for young girls and women who are victims of domestic violence. Casa Maria houses two floors of young ladies- one for university students to live during their schooling (1-2 years), these girls mostly come from Madre del Redentor (the girls' home I talked about in a previous post); and one for women who need shelter from domestic abuse (for a couple months, longer if they are pregnant). While the community knows that Casa Maria exists, few know its location for safety purposes. One woman who has been there for a couple months is totally unable to leave the home because her husband is out looking for her and lives nearby. The women are responsible for cooking and cleaning, but have financial help. They receive all of the parish's free services- especially legal, psychological, and OB/GYN stuff. A lawyer and psychologist visit Casa twice a month. My initial thought is that they need way more psych support than they are getting... support groups? coping technique training? meds? PTSD management? We still have lots more to learn and research.

Also, we helped one of the moms give her little baby a bath :)

Some of the women/children and director of Casa Maria

We officially had this afternoon free. However, some of us heard that there were some food deliveries and a clothing drive, so we wanted to go with social services. In the end, we ended up at a construction site, building a chapel in La Legua. At first we were absolutely no help, but we all ended up doing some hammering walls and pouring concrete floors. 

How the chapel looked by the end of the day

The fun part of the day was playing with the kids in the area. The scary part of the day was when a 5 year old was bit by a wild dog. From a distance, we heard a scream and looked over to see the dogs way too close to a little boy. He had been running around playing and they chased him. We headed over to make sure he was OK... The dog bit his leg and broke the skin. I cleaned it as best I could with the alcohol wipes available (this wasn't a clinical day so no one really had supplies), put some bandaids on, and told him and his family he needed to go to the hospital to get a shot for rabies. They asked if it was "the pink medicine that goes in your tummy through a needle." So apparently this isn't an uncommon thing in the area- I looked it up after we got back, the vaccine is indeed hot pink and used to be given on the abdomen so as to give several injections in several spots. A few other kids had scars from dog bites. Who knew I would learn something when not in clinical?

 I know I post like a billion pics of Peruvian kids, but they are just really cute.

I am now officially up to date on blogging and am ready for bed, we get to sleep until 9 tomorrow!

¡Buenas noches!

Catching up

I apologize, I realize I'm a few days behind on blogging! Just a heads up- we legitimately have homework now so I'm thinking this might be a consistent pattern.

Thursday, July 5th-
Lauryn & I were in the Pro-Life clinic Thursday morning. A nurse named Cecilia sees patients here all day- many patients are pregnant or in between pregnancies, but we have seen a couple older women post-menopause. I have had a few OB  rotations here now, so I'm starting to feel pretty comfortable with finding baby's heartbeat, understanding what I'm seeing on an ultrasound, and determining the baby's position in the uterus. There is almost no concept of birth control here, as there is no separation between church & state (Peru is very Catholic)... many women have lots of babies very close in age. Unfortunately, it is also very common for fathers to abandon the pregnant mothers, especially if they are young. Cecilia serves as a huge source of support for these women, and refers them to psychological services if needed. We spend a lot of time at the clinic preparing women to be mothers.

Cecilia & I at the clinic

Listening to heartbeat- this baby was all the way on his mom's right side and moved around a lot!

(Don't even pretend you aren't jealous of my animal scrubs)

In the afternoon, more home visits. I'm amused at the things I'm starting to consider normal, such as:
-Chickens running across my feet while I'm taking vitals
-Having to walk around dog fights
-Nothing being clean, much less sterile
-Killing bugs myself
-Blood pressures over 200
-Muchos besos (kisses)
-Everyone wanting me to hold their child
-The paparazzi (everyone taking pictures of the gringas, which is actually an endearing term here I guess)
-Trudging through dirt and sand to get to a patient
- Bug spray as perfume 24 hours a day
I'm sure there are more, I'll add to the list at some point...

Friday, July 6-
We only had clinical in the morning on Friday, and class in the afternoon.  I spent my morning translating for a pediatrician from Arizona. This was interesting because I am still not fluent, especially in medical terms. We made it though, with a little help from a Spanish-English dictionary. My brain was definitely in overdrive from 9-1. By the end of the day I was getting much better than at the beginning. I have added lots of words about breastfeeding, vaccines, cold/flu, and child development to my vocabulary. Shoutout to my 2-year-old at St. Francis Children's Center (I volunteered there last semester) whose first language is Spanish: I appropriately used "kaka" many times (which means poop) thanks to her. I frequently heard "Hope, I kaka" during these last few months.
We mostly saw colds with bad coughs. One girl had recently had toxoplasmosis and came in to make sure she was still doing well. A lot of patients come in with a stack of papers of labwork done elsewhere for us to interpret. A baby came in with hand missing some bones- we took pictures to send to a surgeon who is coming down in August.
Another interesting case was a girl whose mother brought her in because she hadn't been talking much, especially for her age of 7. The ENT (ear/nose/throat doctor) removed some lovely chunks of earwax, so maybe it was partially a hearing problem which is what he thought. The psych major in me is kind of convinced she may have autism... 1. Her mom says she prefers to be alone when I asked if she plays with other kids at school or home. 2. She seems to hear and not respond to her mom. 3. She began talking at a normal age and was using sentences but no longer seems interested in talking. 4. She seemed more fixated than normal on playing with her fingers during the exam and didn't look us or her mom in the eye. OK maybe this is only an interesting case to me. And maybe I am wrong and have taken too many psychology classes/service learning (only one more til I'm done with the psych major).

4th of July

This year was the most I have celebrated the 4th of July ever, and I wasn't even in the U.S.! The kitchen/dining room was decorated red, white, and blue when we came down for breakfast.
We started off our day with a fiesta at a local school. The little kids formed a huge receiving line, they were all waving American flags and cheering when we arrived.

The kids (age 3-16 I think) put on a show for us with singing (Proud to be an AH-MEH-REEE-CAHN, national anthem, etc.) and traditional dancing. The highlight for me was the last act, where a group of 5 year olds dressed up like cowboys/girls sang and danced to Old McDonald in Spanish. It was sooo cute! I do have a video of it but I'm having trouble getting it to upload.

Even though it was a holiday we still had clinical in the morning and afternoon. Once again I was at hospice and did some home visits. Some of the patients at hospice are now recognizing us and are happy to see us. While hospice is probably the most tiring for me, it's good to see them when we go. One of our patients (a 22 year old with severe & multiple disabilities due to prenatal drug abuse) who is often fairly unresponsive gave us a huge smile when we got to him! He really likes when someone holds his hand. 

This is Felix- he loves having his picture taken. He is very happy hanging out listening to his radio all day. He has cerebral palsy and lives at the hospice because he requires too much assistance to live alone.

This is the hospice courtyard. The patient rooms surround this area like a square which you can kind of see on the left. All rooms have cement floors and would probably never pass a JCAHO inspection.

We did some wound care on home visits, always interesting. An elderly man with either epilepsy or Parkinson's (I know these aren't even close to the same thing but all we got was a description of symptoms) had taken a bad fall and sustained cuts on his face and legs. Hypertension, hypertension, and more hypertension.

Mass on the 4th was a healing mass, which meant doctors and nurses got up and prayed for the sick and had a candlelight vigil. The church was packed (which is really saying something because it's huge).

After mass, we headed to ANOTHER fiesta for some dancing and fun. In other news, I ate a burger and fries last night. Very American, very delicious.

Holy crap!

Anyone remember when the answer to one of Kevin Siebenlist's questions on a biochem exam was holy poop? This was my morning at hospice with Lauryn. We spent much of our time with a patient named Guadelupe. She had a stroke a while back and is paralyzed on the right side of her body. Additionally, she has lost much of her mental capacity. She currently has pneumonia and is receiving end of life care at the hospice. We got to use some of their masks (which are very in demand and limited) as it is possible that she has/had tuberculosis. Sadly, she has to have restraints on all the time because she pulls out her NG tube. She does have a urinary catheter but is incontinent of stool. When we got to her she was very soiled, as was her bedding. As a nursing student I have dealt with a fair amount of incontinence, but for some reason today takes the cake for one of my grosser experiences (including when I had to take a c.dif stool sample). Other interesting experiences at hospice include being swatted at by one of the patients while trying to get a blood pressure, more background recorder lessons, and lots of besos.

Mototaxi ride to get to clinical- this little cart is attached to kind of a mini motorcycle.

In the afternoon we went on more home visits. We were mainly doing blood pressure screenings. A lot of the people we saw today bordered on being hypertensive, so in a couple days someone will be back to take BPs again. I was feeling great since I'm like normal height here (Peruvians are pretty short!) until once again I was told by a patient "You could be 15" in espanol. I am 21. No big deal. Anyways, one of the elderly men we saw kept kind of asking us to live with him. After much deliberation, we figured you would all miss us too much if we stayed in Piura. Oh well. Our last visit included giving an older woman a haircut and cutting nails. She lived with several generations of family, and they were very inviting and wanted to talk and take pictures of us. So inviting that they gave us some homemade juice to drink. It's super rude to decline when offered food/drink. So Lauryn & I are kinda nervous about how our stomachs are going to feel about that juice tonight. We ended the visit by praying with the family and snagging another mototaxi back to the parish.

 

Hygiene Care

  Our last patient & her little grandson! All the babies I see around are really chubby, it's great.

After dinner tonight we walked to get ice cream. They had my favorite flavor that I can never find in the U.S. (coconut)

July 1 & 2 (warning: description of childbirth)

It has been another busy couple days in Piura!

Sunday started out with a bang, or should I say an HOLAAA! As previously mentioned, 50 missionaries (mostly high schoolers) are here this week. On Sundays, we usually get to sleep in an extra hour. The new group arrived a little on the early side... but they are very nice and will be doing awesome work here, mostly building houses. They actually remind me a lot of my youth group mission trip days.

After mass, we all (as in 65ish of us) went to Catacaos, a village just outside of Piura, to do some tourist-y shopping. We didn't buy a whole lot, but it was fun to walk around and see the area.
We spent much of the afternoon at Madre del Redentor, a home for at-risk girls who are mostly 12 and up. They may be identified as vulnerable because of neglectful/drug abusing parents, an environment in which physical/sexual abuse is likely, or inappropriate behavior themselves. The girls live and go to school at Madre. As soon as we got there, the girls grabbed our hands and wanted to get to know us. The girl I spent the day with is named Blanca, a shy 13-year-old. They danced with us (Shakira & La Macarena of course), and performed local dances for us. I hope to go back to see them again soon!
Sunday night it hit me. By it I mean traveler's illness. All that careful eating & brushing my teeth with bottled water didn't do the trick. I think at least half of us have been down with upset stomach problems since we've been here.

I woke up this morning significantly better but pretty dehydrated/dizzy. I was originally put on social services for the day (which would have been building a house), but thankfully someone was willing to switch with me while I was sick. I got to go to a clinic to be with a midwife for the morning. Marisol (the midwife) taught me to do Leopold's maneuvers (feeling where parts of the baby are sitting in the uterus), measure fundal height (to see how baby is growing for how many weeks gestation mom is), find & assess fetal heart tones, and check the cervix/do vaginal exams. I am about 86% sure I want to be a midwife at some point so this was very exciting! Most of the patients were in for prenatal wellness checkups, but in another room was a woman in labor with her 3rd child. 'Precipitous labor' is an understatement. We left her at 5cm to see another patient, but the appointment was soon interrupted by a nurse frantically pounding on the door. If my Spanish is correct, she said something about how the woman was going to deliver within 5 minutes. After rushing to gown up, we got there just in time as she was brought into the delivery room. Fathers are very rarely in the delivery room in Peru, so I gave her my hand. Also, epidurals are never used unless the delivery is by C-section. The baby was born in two short pushes, it was un hijo (a boy)! My instructor & I got a little splash of amniotic fluid in the process. Not to be gross, but a beautifully intact and large placenta followed. Unfortunately, the heat of the gown and dehydration was starting to catch up with me and I started feeling sick. Faint count is still ZERO, but it was a close call (I have POTS- google dysautonomia if you are really curious).
After our siesta, I was in the Pro-life clinic for the afternoon. A nurse named Cecilia sees women of all ages here for prenatal care, wellness visits, and any problems someone may have. When a pregnant woman comes to her and is unable to take care of her baby, Cecilia assists in setting up an adoption. Ashley & I did some exams and learned more about the women in Piura. All in all good day. Again I have no pictures, a combination of my camera dying on Sunday and it being totally inappropriate to take pictures today at the clinic.

¡Buenas noches!

Home Visits

SO here's whats been happening in Peru the last couple days-

Yesterday (6/29) Lauryn & I were on home visits. We went to the village of San Jacinto (on our typical back of the truck ride) to check up on some patients. The parish nurses make regular home visits to approximately 200 people in the Piura area! A young nurse named Jackie accompanied us on our visits, she is so sweet and helpful. A huge percent of the population have hypertension, so we did a lot of blood pressure screenings & checking on if patients are taking their meds. Arthritis is also very common here, sometimes the nurses give out pain medication on home visits. Everyone that we saw was so grateful for
Usual activities on home visits:

-Take vitals (blood pressure, heart rate, respirations)

-General assessment

-Wash hands & feet & do nail care (very dirty! huge infection risk as many go barefoot)

-Talk about medications they may be taking

-Assess environment/home

Two of our patients, married for many years :)

If I said we spent today doing something productive & beneficial to the community I would be lying... we went to a beach in Colan from 11 AM-sundown. It was a great day of relaxing, the weather was beautiful. For lunch, we tried some Peruvian food and drinks. We left browner/redder than we came. It was awesome to watch the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.

We have officially been assigned/picked our projects. For my teaching project, I will be talking about violence against women (a huuuge problem in this area). I'll be doing my aggregate project on Casa Maria, a shelter for abused women. I'll share any interesting research or interviews that I come across in the process!

Sadly, our family here (MU nurses support a Peruvian family) was robbed today. They have three young kids and struggle financially. They could really use your prayers!

Tomorrow 50 missionaries from the U.S. are coming to stay at the parish. We were told they are mostly high schoolers, so I may have limited internet access for a little bit!

Besos y abrazos,

Esperanza

P.S. Today is my mom's birthday! Be sure to give her a bday hug from me :)

Hospice

This morning we had our first official clinical day. Each group of students (we are partnered in twos) is assigned a different place every day. My partner and I were placed in the hospice run by Sacramento Santisimo. We spent much of the morning with an older man I'll call Max. He has a trach & NG tube. Max is mostly unresponsive and continues to aspirate and get pneumonia, so his doctors have said there is nothing more they can do for him. Things are waayyy different here than in the U.S. as far as sterile procedures. By that I mean there was nothing sterile about the procedures we did (suctioning and redressing trach). Throughout this time, the hospice kitten was sitting on my shoes. I am soooo very thankful that I had the experience of working with a patient with similar needs at St. Joe's last semester, because today the nurse overseeing us pointed at the suction and left us to it. We also gave him his breakfast- juice through his nasogastric tube. Also went a little different than my past experiences. We spent our remaining time doing morning vitals on the rest of the patients on our wing. They were all very kind and accepting of my not so great espanol. To add to the experience, there were music lessons for kids going on a couple doors down from some of the patients I was with. As much as I love the recorder, it was a little tricky to hear blood pressures and lung sounds!
All the patients are at the hospice for various reasons, some that I cared for today include...
-A young man with hydrocephalus and other physical disabilities who was found abandoned by his parents at the age of 10
-A very happy middle aged man who has CP, he loves to smile and listen to his radio
-An older gentleman who is blind and has no family at home to care for him
-Another elderly man who is fairly independent but cannot live alone, he loves sitting outside!

I have thought to myself from time to time in the U.S. that hospital supplies are low. This is a whole different situation here. Today, one patient ran out of incontinence pads- nothing could be done until his family could buy more for him. There were also no masks left for the nursing staff. I'm glad I was able to bring some gloves and alcohol swabs, I am hoping to leave some here when I go back home.

It wasn't really the time to take pictures of patients, but I did get one of this cute little guy (mentioned above)!

Not from today, but at one of the hospitals we toured. He was just born & muy adorable!

Los ninos!

Well... I had just began to write my blog for the night when I saw a trumpet peek around the corner of the computer room, which was followed by a mariachi band! They played for us for about a half hour and we danced, just what we needed! They came in honor of the girls whose birthdays are this week.

This morning we visited a Jesuit boys school. The school has students kindergarten-high school. Here are some of the kindergartners singing to us-

Some of our tour guides were seniors who were learning English and practicing with us. They definitely knew more about the language than I knew about Spanish when I was in high school.

This afternoon, we went to a Bible school for young kids. They were so sweet and happy to see us! We did some coloring (of Noah y el arco), made necklaces (for those of you who ever did VBS- the ones where each bead represents something biblical) with them, and played outside. It really struck me how much of the burden of caregiving falls on older siblings of the infants and young children. Several 8-10 year olds were carrying around infants. We had a lot of fun playing together. I believe we are going back another day (I hope so). Hanging out with kids has been an easy way to get comfortable with talking in Spanish as well. Below are some pictures with the ninos at the Bible school.

Tonight at mass, Padre Joe (father of Sacramento Santisimo) was there and did part of it in English. One of the missionaries (from the U.S.) sang Blessed Be Your Name (also in English). It was great to understand more of the service and sing to a familiar worship song!

¡Buenas noches!

Hello again!
We have been enjoying some down time and siestas the past couple days. I may be renewing my obsession with making friendship bracelets. It sounds like we are not starting clinical yet tomorrow, but are going to visit a local high school. Here's a bit about our last couple days-
Sunday 6/24-
On Sundays we get to sleep in until breakfast at 9, which was great. We went to mass at San Jacinto (a village a short way from the parish), and then had lunch with some of the people there. There was a celebration going on for the farmers, so we joined in on that.
Sunday night we had a birthday fiesta for our "family's" mom Erica. The CON at Marquette sponsors a family (money that goes towards getting them healthy food). Erica and her husband have three children: Christian, Kiara, & Jessica (named after a student that was here a couple years ago). We played some games and ate some pizza and cake. La familia is pictured below in their new Marquette gear.

Today (6/25) we started the day with a tour of another hospital. This one was through a university, so the students there have access to free medical and dental care there. The hospital was brand new (and air conditioned!), but did not have all the necessary equipment to be fully up and running yet.

Left: cardio echo at the hospital

Right: dental area, they have a dentist & hygienist

Both groups of students with our tour guides

This afternoon we met with the women's group at the parish. We led a group about exercise and talked with the ladies. For exercise, we did la macarena y la baila de pollo (chicken dance). Very fun! I'm looking forward to spending more time with the women, they were very happy we were there and seem open to working with us.

We kind of feel like celebrities... people take our picture wherever we go (hospital staff when we're touring, at the supermercado, etc.). It's very strange. Literally we walk through the grocery store and people start snapping some. I am thrilled that they want to interact with us though!

I hope all is well in the U.S.!

-Esperanza

P.S. anyone who posts stuff about The Bachelorette/PLL on facebook may be defriended promptly ;) Once internet is freed up a little I will upload more fotos on FB.

Hello again!
So before I talk more about our activities I figure I should answer some questions that I've received in multiple emails...
1. Weather- During the day, I'm guessing it gets up to 85 on average. When the sun isn't out it is very comfortable. Morning/evening are cooler (maybe 70?). No A/C but it is comfortable most of the time.
2. BUGS- I have like two mosquito bites. I am pretty serious about bugspray usage! I am thinking that there aren't any bed bugs, at least in our rooms. No bites or sights of them. To be safe I do have a mattress cover.
3. Water- We are provided with bottled water! There is a big freezer here that we can grab a bottle from anytime. There is usually Sprite and Coke out at meal times also.
4. Church- We go to mass every day at 7, on Sunday we go to a noon mass in San Jacinto. They are completely in Spanish so far.
5. Illness- So far we have had one from our group have some digestive issues, but I have been doing well. The food is thoroughly cooked and safe to eat here at the parish.


I will post more later tonight with some pictures hopefully when I have more time. 
¡Besos y abrazos!


Hope

We have arrived!

Hola from Peru!

First of all, it will probably be touch and go when I’m able to post, the internet has been unreliable here so far.

We arrived in Piura this morning around 0730, after 3 flights and a few hours of sleep at a hostel. The flights were pretty uneventful. Thankfully, all my medications successfully made it here. The spray I brought along for bed bugs, however, did not fare so well... On the positive side, my clothes will probably not get infested with bed bugs. Unfortunately they smell like Bed Bath & Beyond's finest cinnamon bug spray (the bottle exploded in my bag). 

We were greeted by some of the parish staff with a big Marquette banner! We got to Sacramento Santisimo (church compound we are staying at) just in time for breakfast. Pictured below is the parish's "guard dog", Beethoven. (Sorry mom, I know you said not to touch the animals but he is clean and cute!)

We have been pretty busy in this first day. We spent a good amount of time touring various sites that we will be working at. The hospital, which is located just around the corner, was first. We saw surgical, maternity, pediatrics, and some other units. Health care works very differently here than what I am used to. More details when I'm officially in clinical (Monday or Tuesday?).

 

Very packed part of the hospital, each tent is one of the categories listed on the right (GI, dental, OB/GYN, etc.)

We also toured the hospice we'll be spending some time at. Currently, they house 4 patients who are not terminal but are unable to care for themselves, and 2 patients who need end of life care. The hospice "Los Angeles" was beautiful, with the patient rooms surrounding an outdoor court with plants and a chapel.

Accommodations-

So far, the food has been great, lots of papas (potatoes), chicken, and rice. Fruit is always available but I'm a little hesitant to eat too much of it. Below is the room I'm staying in with 3 other girls.

Time for bed for us now, minimal sleep in the last couple days. Buenas noches!