Feliz Dia de Acción de Gracias! Happy Thanksgiving!

http://picasaweb.google.com/Geedz913/ThanksgivingDinner?feat=directlink

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends! I'm sure everyone ate until they were miserable which is always great but terrible at the same time! Although I missed being with my family to celebrate Thanksgiving, I had a fun time with the kids this evening as they came over to celebrate with us.

Back up a little to tell you some about the day. This morning I started working on the Adult Medicine Unit and got the objectives set, now just have to work on the resource materials for the objectives which is what takes so long!

After this, we headed back into the hospital to finish filming. We ran into a guy from town that had a 25 day old baby girl in his lap. She was all bundled in pink and very precious! We said hello to Dr. Garcia, and then started taping. It started off a little rough because I asked him if we could tape a chart and he said that was illegal. I guess there are some privacy laws at least here. I was pretty sure none of that existed but I guess it's good to know patients still have a little privacy. So, we moved on to the ER which was pretty busy and I went inside to ask if we could film. They said we had to talk to the director, which I explained we had, and then she said we needed a note from him. So, we pitched that idea also.

From there we headed out to the lobby area and taped some of the basic exam rooms and then headed upstairs to the HIV/AIDS ward. This was interesting because I had never been up there. It is only about 2 years old. As we came up the stairs, a young girl about 8-9 was at the top outside the door singing and dancing. She continued as we were standing there watching and we talked to her. Then her Mom came to get her to go back inside. We walked in, introduced ourselves and were told to ask the doctor if we could film. They walked us into a consult room where the doctor was with the dancing girl and her Mom and we just interrupted them, upon their request, and asked. The doctor was very friendly and said tape whatever you want, and told us we weren't a problem at all being there. As Bryson filmed, I stood at the front desk area and ended up talking with a lady that lives in Batey Madre. She saw my OO shirt and recognized it, saying we help out a lot in the bateyes.

From there we walked around filming so it looked like we were walking thru the hospital. We saw the guy with cast on, talked to a guard from the jail that was there guarding a patient, and then went upstairs and saw the same 16 year old girl from yesterday. As we were talking to her, her Mom came down the hallway with the same doctor we had spoken to in the HIV/AIDS ward. Makes me wonder if that is what she has??

The end of the hospital tour was the best. We asked the people in the chart room if we could take a picture and they invited us in. Imagine the size of a sitting room in an average American home and the room was maybe that size. In there, they have stored 40 years worth of manilla folders that serve as the patients charts. It was a mad house! People were stepping over charts, shelves had charts basically falling out of them, stuffed to the brim! It was an OCD person's nightmare and even was overwhelming for me who we all know is not very neat! They had drawers with letters on the front and each drawers had 100s of index cards with the patient's information and file folder number. They'd find these cards, find the number, and then go searching for the chart. So, every morning patients show up wanting to be seen (no appointments made), and the get their names, find their index cards, pull their charts, then staple a small square with a number on it and give the patient a matching "ticket". After receiving their ticket, the go sit and wait for their number to be called. INSANITY is all I can say about that! I'll have to post a link to the video once it gets finished!

From there we headed out of the hospital and back for lunch.

After lunch I went to help Coco set up for our make shift dental office. The Reilly's are both dentists so they offered to help do some extractions on two of the kids that had really bad teeth. Little Ari was first, the twin with the rotted broken front tooth. She came upstairs a little frightened and by the time he finished just looking she was ready to go. As TJ numbed her from the back (the palate), numbing medicine came squirting thru the front where there was an abscess.They got her front tooth out, with a little crying and holding down and then moved on to her brother who has about 4-5 teeth rotted to the gums.

He was terrified because he had heard his sister crying and he took a little more convincing to get numbed. Bribery with some play trucks helped! He screamed so loud as they were numbing him and it was breaking my heart. I had the job of holding his head still while Pastor Ramon held the flashlight and his arms. There were 3 others helping hold down legs and hands also. As TJ pulled out the first tooth, he was amazed at how big it was and it had an abscess on the bottom! For being 5, and terrified he did excellent. He was still a little dazed and fussy even an hour or so later just from the shock I think.

Next they started screening the other kids that weren't at school and found several cavities in most of the kids teeth, but small ones that can be fixed in the spring when we have big clinics. Pili and Edison also had to have teeth removed and they both did well. They were scared but held their mouths opened and were very brave for what was going on!

After doing the orphanage kids, Caela, the Hopkins daughter actually had a baby tooth that didn't fall out and needed removed so they moved on to her. And from there, they took out a tooth of the guy that does everything around here for us, like drive the bus, run errands, repair things, fill up water jugs, basically anything that needs done! It was interesting because he had a tooth next to his canine (which was missing) that was leaning over sideways because of his severe gum disease. They told him it needed to come out and he at first refused. His reasoning wasn't because of pain but because of what people would say. He didn't want people to comment on his appearance and he wasn't sure when he'd have time to go get a partial denture made so he could cover up the missing tooth. After some convincing he allowed them to do it, and it saved him 500 pesos. Yes, an extraction back home is about $160-200 dollars, and here it is $15!

Once our dental clinic closed, I went and hung out with the kids a little, checking in on the former patients who all were well and had forgotten! Ari was even showing off her new missing tooth. One interesting note, as she was getting her tooth removed, her twin was outside the door and knew something was going on. She was crying I think more than Ari, and continued to cry for about 10-15 minutes afterwards, even though Ari was calm. It was bizarre how upset she was and it wasn't even her being worked on!

I got to talk to my family today which was great to hear everyone's voices and after that I spoke with Coco who had gone to the post office and I had a package! Thanks to Laura, I received a box full of chocolate Halloween candy! It took 22 days to arrive but I've already had and shared several pieces and the wait was worth it! THANKS SO MUCH SMITH FAMILY!

I went and hung out for a bit with Jennifer, Joanni, and Mineli. They were braiding a Barbie doll's hair, one that Ari had won as her reward for being a good patient.

We got to "dress up" (not wear OO shirts) for dinner so I went to shower and get ready for our big Thanksgiving feast. The group made placemats with all the kids names on them and we set out crayons for them to color their placemats when they came over for dinner. The kids were all anxiously awaiting under the tree and kept inching closer and closer waiting for the bell to ring. Pastor said a few words, prayed and then we enjoyed a little skit done by 4 of the girls. They did a pantomime to a couple of songs but the CD was skipping so it got cut short a little. It is always cute to see them perform for us! Then, everyone sprinted to the front. We helped the little ones get their plates and the others were served buffet style. On the menu tonight was: mashed potatoes, chicken, yams, carrots, peas, stuffing, sweet bread, and cranberry sauce. I had a little bit of everything except cranberry sauce! I sat with the older girls and had a great time! As I was waiting for the orphanage kids and staff to go thru the line, I snapped some shots of the kids enjoying their huge plates of food. It is amazing how much they eat here, even the 3-4 year olds!

After dinner we had the Dajabon talk with the group, as I'll be headed there again tomorrow to lead this team because Heather has to teach at the Institute. Good night!