Holding hands
Today with Floating Doctors I had a first. This one was not on my bucket list but it should have been. Dr. Ben was giving his insight to new volunteers this morning and made a bold statement that actually is a window into his character. He said that if you do not enjoy going to the Asilo and giving health care to these elderly, handicapped, and mentally challenged patients you should not be in health care. Ben began years ago providing health care for these less fortunate and now makes it an everyday part of the team’s duties. The government gives these places such little funding they run on pennies compared to the nursing homes in the US.
But here the residents stay more mobil. There is no one to lift them out of bed so the residents help care for one another. Sometimes they run out of food but through God’s grace the residents eat better when that happens. Local families, restaurants and hotels take over until funding is received again from the government. Government doctors rarely, if ever, visit these homes and when an individual has to go to the hospital they have no advocate other than Dr. Ben and his team. The typical hospital view of these patients is that they are old and will die soon anyway so it’s a waste of medical resources. How sad! The indigenous Ngobe-Bugle are treated the same way in the hospitals here. Often turned away from hospitals because they have no ability to pay.
Ben said the people in the Asilo benefit the most from just the companionship of other human beings. Sometimes the best treatment is to just sit and talk with them for a few minutes. Care enough to touch them and engage them in conversation or take them for a walk. Today I held hands with a lady who had leprosy. I have heard of this disease in the Bible but this disease is still in third world countries today. This lady suffered with this disease from the time she was 24 years old until she was 42 years old. She was cured but it still left her body deformed. When she came to the Asilo she was living on the streets, malnourished and struggling to survive.
The first few days she was in the home they scrubbed her for hours to remove years of street grime and filth from her body. Today she is most proud of her nice clean dress and new pink and blue shoes that she was recently given. She has a tumor growing from beneath her eye and through the advocation of the Floating Doctors she now has an appointment for surgery to remove it. When I asked her about the leprosy she removed her shoes to show me the toes she lost on her right foot. But after all the tragedy in her life she is still filled with joy – just happy to be alive. We take so much in this life for granted!
Then I met a gentleman in a wheel chair. He once lived in the mountains with his family. They farmed rice and vegetables until he contracted polio. Another disease we have vaccines for in America but here polio still alters the course of a life forever. He said it was only a few years and he was bound to this chair. Eventually he lost his parents who had cared for him and that was how he wound up here in the home. One of the medical students did range of motion exercises with him as she translated for me while we talked.
Towards the end of the day I sat out back on a bench and looked at the bedsheets on a clothesline and listened to the surf roll in. That’s when I bumped into Duke or should I say he bumped into me. Duke is blind but he’s the coolest blind guy you will ever meet. He wears reflective sunglasses and has a white beard and a gold tooth. He could be mistaken any day of the week for a jazz musician. He whistles when he walks and is just as content as can be. I asked if I could take his picture and he joked he would like to see it. He has been blind for a long, long time . When he still had his sight he was a carpenter for a man who would buy and sell properties. He loved working with his hands. When I asked him how he got here he remembers the day 17 years ago. His neighbor said he wanted to take him for a ride and he brought him here. Duke waited for him to return and every day looked for him but he never came back. “Just as well,” Duke said, “I like it here”. Duke is fiercely independent and does everything himself. He has a way about him that just makes you feel good about life.
Before we left I wandered through the facility checking out the many rooms. In the kitchen they were making fry bread for dinner. It smelled delicious and the cook offered me some. They are even better than they smell, but an important safety tip is to wait until they cool little. Next I looked in another room and Dr. Margarita was going over the results of an ECG she had just done on one of the residents. The beds are in two large rooms, ladies on one side of the facility and men on the other. I asked if I could take a photograph and every lady wanted their picture taken. They do not have any mirrors and seeing themselves on my iPad was a big hit. One older woman in a colorful dress looked at hers and just shook her head and said she looked old. She had limited English but I had to agree with her. I think I am really going to enjoy spending time and getting to know the residents of the Asilo.
Another adventure this week was Bahia Honda. We loaded up the big 45 foot cayuco and went to a small Ngobe village near Bocas. Youth With A Mission Christian volunteer organization had just visited this village and found a terrible outbreak of lice so they called in FD to help. We found the friendliest village with some of the most beautiful people. The girls had the longest, most lovely hair you could imagine. It’s such a shame head lice had affected everyone here. 
The school teacher brought all the children to the community meeting area, an open air patio with a roof made from palm fronds and a few tables and benches. The children were first each given a quick exam and there was no doubt – every child was infested with lice. The next step was to have all the girls take out their braids. And then everyone got their hair wet and sat on a long bench with a back. The volunteers carefully washed the children’s hair with a medicated shampoo . One of the doctors went around to each home in the village with a local translator and invited anyone who wanted treatment to come. Next thing you know the community center is filled with mothers and young children walking around with wet hair.
At all clinics the team also make sure everyone gets a deworming tablet and they give the children multivitamins. The multivitamins taste good and it’s the reward for chewing up the other tablet that isn’t so good. Dr. Margarita showed the children how to chew the medicine. The clinics also include counseling for the young ladies about reproductive health and they give them the opportunity to have depo-provera shots if they would like them. This is a shot that gives them three months of contraception. Many of these girls become mothers very young (mid-teens) and child mortality is so high it gives them a few options they would otherwise not have.
I watched an entire family unload a cayuco load of fire wood – no child labor laws here, everyone works. Then I had the pleasure of watching the children play a game together. It was a sleigh ride of sorts. They used an old water drum made of plastic with a rope and a stick of firewood tied to the end of it. They pulled each other around in it, everyone running and laughing and just having fun. The grass was thick and wet from so much rain so it must have been a bit easier to pull. We’re told the Ngobe don’t have store-bought toys in their homes but they don’t lack imagination and you’d be surprised at what is used as toys. By late afternoon we loaded up for the trip home through the mangrove bays. It was a quiet time to reflect on life and just think about all that I had witnessed over these last couple weeks.
Before we arrived in Panama, Dr. Ben suggested it might be worthwhile at some point to take the volunteers and staff out on our boat for a little R&R. So Saturday we did just that, even though Ben could not make it. He left early morning to take a trip up a river to a remote village and provide follow-up care. The rest of us went sailing, had a BBQ and played in the water for hours until the sun went down.
We noticed an important bit…Dr. Ben (the founder of floating Doctors) leads by example and is an inspiration to everyone around him. No one works harder or longer than he does.
Thanks Ben and the whole team for all you do, I wish the world could witness all of your efforts…you are making a difference.
Wow! We do take so much for granted here in the USA. It is humbling to think how minor our inconveniences are compared to the challenges faced by the people you are serving.