Welcome sign at the orphanage

"The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity."

--Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

Our mission team consisted of myself (professional organizer), my husband Doug (Internist) our 16-year-old daughter Carly, fourth-year medical student Meredith Pierce (who also went on the mission trip with us last year), our good friends Dr. Scott Smith (Emergency Medicine physician) ) and Dr. Cathy Sandstrom (pediatrician), and their two teenage kids Devin and Tynan. 

A week before we arrived, a two-month-old baby was brought to the clinic, malnourished and weighing only six pounds. He was the 5th child of a 22-year-old woman.  Baby Mario’s mother and father were migrant workers who had to work in the fields six days a week. Just days after he was born, Mario was being cared for at a “day care” with 40 children and two caregivers at the migrant worker camp. His parents brought him to the orphanage when he was two months old because he was not gaining weight and they were worried about his health.  When we arrived at the orphanage, Mario was being cared for by a wonderful couple, Greg (the clinic nurse) and his wife, Lisa. The eight of us offered to take care of Mario over the weekend to give Greg and Lisa a break. Mario stole our hearts.  He had a wonderful disposition and he craved being held and fed.  We all took turns feeding him around the clock over the weekend.

Dr. Scott with Mario	Dr. Cathy (Pediatrician)	My daughter Carly feeding Mario

On our first full day, I got started organizing the warehouse, where many donated medications and medical supplies were stored.  The three teens took turns assisting me with this throughout the week.  Sometimes they also assisted in the clinic by running lab tests, searching for medicine or supplies needed by one of the medical team members, or entertaining children in the waiting room while their parents were seeing the doctor.

The orphanage medical clinic's "pharmacia" when we arrived

Pharmacia after it was organized

The medicines were organized by type, and then key words were entered into the Paper Tiger software that described the medications on each shelf (example:  Tylenol for Children, acetaminophen, non-Aspirin, pain relief).  Each shelf was numbered, and the numbers correspond with information in the Paper Tiger. Now, if someone types in any of the words associated with a particular medication (such as "pain relief"), the Paper Tiger will bring up a listing of every drug that has those words associated with it and will give the shelf number(s) where all "pain relief" medications can be found. Or, if someone is looking for one specific drug (Tylenol for Children), one item will appear after doing a search for it by name.  In the photo (above right), the little white dots on the edge of the grey shelves are the numbered labels.

The medical team saw about 25 patients on the first day. Meredith and Doug worked together, as she speaks very good Spanish and Doug doesn’t. The first day they saw an amazing site.  

Flash back to a year before:  While Doug and Meredith were there working in the clinic, they saw a young woman who was blind from bad corneal ulcers and whose face was disfigured by a rash from Systemic Lupus Erythematosis (SLE or ”Lupus”). She was scheduled to see someone else in the clinic that day, but when Doug saw the rash from across the waiting room, he asked the nurse about her.  The clinic nurse told Doug she was being treated for acne. She had no other diagnosis. Meredith and Doug asked if they could see her. During her clinic visit, she would not look at either of them, but held both hands over her face to hide the disfiguring rash. They diagnosed and treated her with appropriate medications for Lupus.  When they said goodbye, Doug asked Meredith to tell her she had beautiful hair. Meredith told her, “The doctor wants me to tell you how beautiful your hair is.”  With that, the woman started crying and her hands came down from her face. She looked at them and smiled.

Fast forward to this year: Meredith noticed the same woman in the waiting room with a young man, and learned that she had come to the clinic this time – not as a patient – but to accompany her new husband to his clinic visit. Her skin was beautiful…without any rash. She was smiling the whole time and could see out of her right eye. (She’d had a corneal transplant several months ago through Operation Blessings, an international program where surgeons donate their services to provide needed operations.) The confidence she carried was wonderful to see, and Doug and Meredith were so pleased to have the opportunity to witness the difference their diagnosis from a year ago had made.

The second day we were there, a patient was waiting when the clinic opened. He was one of the teenagers from a church group volunteering at the mission. He hadn’t slept all night and he was in the midst of a psychotic break.  He had been suicidal, so our medical team was very worried about him. Fortunately the orphanage clinic was well stocked with the psychiatric medications they needed, and the adult leaders from this young man’s church group stayed with him at all times until his parents arrived to take him home.

That night we went on an outreach experience to a migrant worker camp.  This camp was home for hundreds of people – babies to elderly adults. Those of us who were not part of the medical team were there to play with the kids, and the medical team offered health screening and treatment for what they could treat in their makeshift “clinic” office, which consisted of tables and chairs in a building that had no electricity. They saw several people with pneumonia, poor nutrition, lots of aches and pains, and skin fungal infections. We had to leave when it got dark, because there was no light in the "clinic."

Medical team (Cathy, Meredith, Doug, Scott) at the migrant worker camp	Meredith seeing patients at the migrant camp

Carly & Kathy playing with kids at the migrant worker camp	My daughter (Carly) with a little girl who just wanted to be held

The following day, among the many patients seen by Doug and Meredith was a 17-year-old young man who had been blind from birth due to congenital cataracts. In the U.S.he would have had cataract surgery early in life and would have had good vision. His surgery did not occur until he was 11 due to lack of family funds.  Because the part of the brain responsible for vision has matured by age 7-8, removing the cataracts at such a late age makes no difference in one’s ability to see.  The family reported that this young man spent every day by himself in a room while his parents worked in the fields. He had recently stopped eating and wanted to die. He had been waiting for six years, because the doctors who had done his eye surgery told him he would be able to see after the surgery -- so here he was six years later still waiting to recover his sight. Our medical team had to explain to the young man and his family that he would never see. They got him hooked up with a mission outreach team, who will visit him at home and help him learn how to function as a blind person.

Sunday was our only day off the whole time we were there.  We had taken care of baby Mario over the weekend and he had gone back to be cared for by Greg and Lisa.  We were just returning from an early dinner when an ambulance pulled up in front of the place we were staying.  Greg came running out of the ambulance to report that the director of the mission (whom we’d met our first day there), was in the ambulance and was having chest pain.  Doug and Scott went inside the ambulance to evaluate his condition (with no EKG or other diagnostic tools available).  After a quick three-minute assessment, Scott and Doug agreed that he was having a heart attack and needed emergent intervention with high-tech cardiovascular medicine that was not available locally.  We threw them their passports and they were off to San Diego – a good five hour trip north. Before they left, I asked why it was necessary for both of them to go.  Doug replied, "If we have to do CPR on the way back, it would be exhausting for one person to do it without relief, and the defibrilator doesn't work."  That's when I realized how serious the mission director's condition was.

The ambulance blew a tire out on the way up to San Diego -- fortunately in a rare area where there was a shoulder to pull onto.  This was a drive that we all feared under the best of conditions, so going 80 mph on a two-lane winding road was a harrowing experience.  They lightened the trip with humor.  Doug took his patient's pulse about every 10 minutes, although he figured if he was still groaning at their jokes he was still alive. They heard all about his remarkable life and how a few years ago he had been called at the age of 55 to become a missionary and leave his Hollywood job as a movie producer.  All turned out well.  They made it to the hospital in San Diego, where he was able to undergo the procedure needed and get appropriate medications.

With half of our medical team in San Diego, the rest of us spent Monday morning finishing our work in the clinic – Cathy and Meredith seeing patients, and me and the kids completing our organization of the medical supplies and training the staff on how to quickly find things with the Paper Tiger.  We drove back to San Diego in our rental van and met up with Doug and Scott that evening.  Just as last year, we were all grateful to return home safely, and grateful to live with the many privileges, benefits, and choices that we have.

What was so special about our experience again this year?  Each of us made a difference to someone else.  Our lives counted for something important.  We definitely plan to go back again in the next year or two.  Meanwhile, we know that we can also make a difference without traveling far.  Each of us can make a difference every day – right in our own back yards. 

Hear Kathy interviewed live on KKNW Radio -- 1150 on your AM dial in the Seattle area.
I will be a guest on the Kevin McDonald Show on August 21 from 11:00 - Noon for an
interview about my work as a professional coach and an organizing consultant.

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