Thursday, March 26, 2009

Peru 7

This first picture is of a Quechua woman working in her corn field with the beautiful snow-capped mountains in the background. This field was 1500 feet above the town, but at least it was flat. So many of their fields are on sharp inclines mainly because there is very little flat land here to grow crops. This only adds to the already difficult work.

This picture is from Angela examining a young local boy with his father. He had fallen on his arm 6 days ago and had received an ACE bandage from the local Peruvian clinic and instructions to see a Pediatrician. It took them a few days to make it to Diospi Suyana, but he was found to have a displaced radial and ulnar fracture. It is different being in a place where 2 broken bones is not an emergency and it takes 5 days for you to come to the doctor.

This next picture is of Chuck bringing a patient back to the exam room in the "consulta". As we have mentioned before, the patients often arrive the day before to get a ticket to see the doctor and then wait patiently until it is their turn. We also wanted to tell you about an interesting patient we saw yesterday. She is a 47 year old lady with significant swelling of both of her legs for 6 months. We did a full evaluation and found that her kidneys ok. Her thyroid, although not normal, is likely not the problem. Her heart was large on xray, but her echo was ok and her ekg was ok. A rheumatoid factor was sent (we are not sure why exactly), but was very positive. She does not have rheumatoid arthritis, but may in fact have lupus as the cause of her swelling and joint pains. She is going to come back in a week for more evaluation. It is truly a blessing to have the ability to do lab testing in a area that is so otherwise remote.

This picture is of the chapel where the morning devotional time of prayer, singing, and a message is done before the clinic day. On this day, one of the local hospital workers was speaking about his experience with God.


The last two pictures here are of local people that we have seen around and near the town of Curahuasi. The people here are kind and grateful for the care that Diospi Suyana is providing. The first guy is a local farmer who we have seen multiple times on short hikes around the town. Despite being 75 years old, he can hike much faster than us. The funny story about the last picture is that Alex and Chuck were hiking up one of the smaller mountains near town yesterday late afternoon when they passed this group of people. They saw Chuck´s camera and were asking him to take a picture of them. It turned out to be a great shot!

2 comments:

Juli said...

Hey guys, Juli and I just discovered your blog! Ahhh...makes me miss being in Peru. It's the exact same problems and patients I saw. Sigh...maybe I can go back again soon. Miss you guys! Hope to see you soon! You need to come see our daughter!! Praying for you both...

The Parsons Family said...

What a great trip! see you soon! J