Unprepared

Well, I haven't updated.....at all this summer, so I'll begin my entries with a trip I took my second week here. Alli was kind enough to invite two of the medical interns to go with her to Danli. This day was filled with unpreparedness (if I will be allowed to create such a word). It is much faster to drive through Nicaragua to get to Danli than it is to go through Tegucigalpa, so Alli reminded Rebekah and me to take our passports with us that day. Unfortunately, Alli forgot hers in Choluteca and we had the joy of driving through the capital city anyway. That was our first fun incident. The next was all my own. Being in a different country often messes with the digestive tract just a little. On our way, I decided it was going to be necessary to make a side stop in order to remedy such a problem. That was the good decision. The bad decision was not taking any or checking for any toilet paper in this wonderfully disgusting bathroom. What a predicament I was in. I had no choice but to resort to my socks, which wasn't necessarily a terrible option considering the situation, but I did have to trash the socks. So, that was incident number two. Finally we get to Danli, and I am once again unprepared for what I encountered. Ronnie is a 15 year old guy that Alli has taken on as a special patient. He has a colostomy and has basically had non-stop surgeries on his intestines since he was born. At birth, Ronnie had Hirschsprung's Disease, which involves a portion of the colon in which the normal enteric nerves are absent creating a bowel obstruction. The doctor did a biopsy, lost the results, wouldn't do another, so proceeded with an ineffective surgery which, after several other attempts to fix the problem, ended with Ronnie's greatly scarred abdomen and his final colostomy 15 years later. Alli is trying to cure the infection around Ronnie's stoma and send him to the States for laproscopic surgery that will correct the problem, which is unavailable in Honduras. Why was I unprepared for this? I just couldn't stop thinking about all the surgeries, all the pain, all problems that Ronnie has had to go through due to one careless healthcare professional. To me, this a constant reminder of why those that are privileged in certain ways have responsibilities to help those who aren't. We are capable of providing so much for people all over the world, but sometimes we just don't do it. That saddens me quite a bit. However, it also makes me so thankful for the people that are trying to do it. While I've been here, I also have begun to realize how unprepared I am to begin such a task. It is a huge endeavor, but I know it's definitely a worthwhile one. Therefore, I end this entry by saying, I refuse to be unprepared anymore.

-Tristan McPherson