Meat - It's what's not for dinner

Tonight I opened my dinner box to discover another night of gluten stir fry. Uhgg, I’m really starting to dread the stuff. When I was researching into La Loma Luz Hospital I didn’t think much about the hospital description when it mentioned that the cafeteria only served an Adventist vegetarian diet. I’m now realizing how grateful I am for a generous portion of meat with my meals. They are strict vegetarians here and don’t serve any meat whatsoever. What I don’t understand though is why they try and make things look like meat from plant products. If you’re going to be a vegetarian why go half way and try to pretend you’re having meat occasionally? If you choose to go without meat, be a man, and don’t try to pretend you’re eating meat by making gluten chicken strips or oat hamburger patties. The gluten chicken is starting to get on my nerves. They made a huge batch and have been serving it over and over the last 4-5 days. The first day I thought it was pretty good, though a paltry attempt to mimic the real thing. Now I may start skipping dinner if they keep serving it. Then the other night I had vegetarian hamburgers. They were actually pretty good, but loaded with spices to give it that meat taste. Like I said, I don’t understand the meat mimicking, but whatever. I’m not trying to mock them or anything because I can understand the idea of prescribing to a health code because of your religious beliefs and I respect them for that, but it’s just not for me. I’ve lately found out that vegetarianism is more of a choice among Adventists and not really a rule in their church. The funny thing is most of the Adventist staff here eat meat, but for some reason, the cafeteria won’t serve it. Otherwise, the food here is great and I really like the cooking staff. I’m buds with one of the cooks, Ignacio, and he always boxes me up my dinner and leaves it for me in case I don’t get to the cafeteria in time for dinner because of work. He’s a great guy and tells me he’s going to take me around the area some time to see the sites. That’s three people now who have told me they would do that. I guess I just need to find a day to do it.
I realized today what a high maintenance pretty boy I am. I never thought I was before this experience. In fact, I had always considered myself the tough, outdoor type, but I’m not so sure that is the case. I’ve been to yucky places before. The Dominican Republic mission had some gross conditions for sure in the bathroom and lots of bugs, but looking back that was only for a week. I knew that it was only a week so I didn’t worry about it. Now that I’m here in Belize and knowing this is going to be for a whole month, it is a different story. My previous apartment wasn’t really that bad. I mean, it wasn’t like a hut or something where some people live. And now I’m in a place with a TV and considered a fairly nice place by Belize standards, but I still think its ghetto. I still don’t take my sandals off to shower and I’m very grateful for the mosquito net. I kind of dread going number 2 because I never know what’s lurking under the seat. It’s usually nothing or an ant. And knowing that I’m going to be here for a whole month all these things have become apparent to me. Then again, maybe it’s just something I have to get used to. Missouri was pretty ghetto in our old country house, but I got to where I really liked it there, even if there were ants crawling around in our balsamic vinegar. My mission had some ghetto apartments, but was overall pretty clean. Here though, being in the jungle, things just always feel wet and dirty. So, I’ve come to the realization that I’m kind of high maintenance, but I think I’m okay with that. I can’t wait to get back to Utah where the air is dry and the bugs are minimal.
In the hospital today was a sweet day; quite a learning experience. Dr. Gamero was back from being home in Honduras and he let me work with him today. We were seeing patients in the clinic and managing the ER. We saw some routine stuff in the clinic, but the ER is where the real action was today. At about 10 am the nurses called Gamero in to see a patient. As he was interviewing that patient one of the nurses came up to me and said, “Dr. Crapo we have another patient if you’d like to see him.” I never have considered myself as being one who cares about the prestige factor of being a doctor, but I have to admit, I like the sound of Dr. Crapo. This patient had managed to shoot a nail into his is forearm. It was going all the way through, but toward the surface. I tested his strength and sensation and determined the nail had missed vital structures and I was sure it didn’t go through a bone. Dr. Gamero wanted to do an x-ray though, but I was trying to save the guy money. We got one though and it showed the bone was okay thank goodness. I numbed him up and went to pull out the nail. I was shocked at how much it was stuck in there. I pulled and pulled and it wouldn’t budge. I had to get a nurse to hold his arm and then I grabbed a pair of pliers and finally got it out. It was a pretty cool experience overall. The crazy thing was is how he got it in there. He said he tied fishing line around the nail and was trying to pull it out and when it finally came it shot out and went through his arm. That must have been some pretty hefty fishing line!
The next case was crazy. The nurses called about a foot burn and Dr. Gamero sent me down to check things out. I couldn’t believe the extent of this kid’s burns! It was only his feet thank goodness, but the burn was really gross and has an interesting story. This poor 17-year-old is a paraplegic. Two months ago he fell out of tree and landed on his back and ever since has been paralyzed from the chest down. His family is from a local village and fairly poor. They wanted to try anything to help their son so they took him to the local witch doctor. Interestingly, I guess there are a number of “witch doctors” around Belize that stay in business fairly well. I’m not sure of their exact translation, but that is what the locals call them in English. Anyway, they took him to the witch doctor and he had the idea that he would “shock” the boy’s feet and that would magically cause his nervous system to start working properly. Well, what better way to shock someone’s feet than by putting them into a vat of boiling hot water? And since this kid can’t feel anything, he can’t tell the guy that he is burning the soles of his feet off. This thing occurred last Wednesday. I guess the “doctor” wrapped the feet and sent them home. Since that time there has been no medical care whatsoever. So, when I get in there I remove the wrappings and I’m disgusted at what I find. The poor kid had severe 2nd degree burns throughout the soles of his feet that are all infected and they totally stink like bacteria having a fleshy feast. Luckily they were only second degree burns and not third or he would have needed surgery. Once again, we are limited by the cost of medical care and there is no burn unit in Belize. I had never seen such a bad burn let alone managed one so I went got Dr. Gamero. He said, well just debride them and get all the dead skin then admit him to the hospital. He didn’t really explain well how to do that very well, but I got the general idea. This obvious benefit to getting the debridement was that the patient couldn’t feel anything in his feet. If he had sensation we probably would have had to put him to sleep, but luckily we could just take care of it without anesthesia. The nurses and I set up a sterile field the best we could and I began scrubbing away with an iodine soaked scrubbing pad. Layer after layer of skin peeled away. I had to puncture through the many blister and cut away as much dead skin as I could. The whole process took me forever, but I wanted to make sure I did a good job. In the end, it turned our really well, and besides being a little gross I loved it! J You can see from the pictures the before and after product. Sorry if those pictures are gross to everyone, but I think they are really cool. I know Jessica will be able to appreciate them. Afterwards, we got him bandaged up and admitted him to the hospital. I put him on some pretty strong antibiotics and got some labs. He had a catheter in that they said had been there for 21 days! I tested the urine and he had the worst urinary tract infection I had ever seen. It’s just sad that this kid has had such poor medical care up to this point. He was in really bad shape and it’s lucky that they brought him in when they did. I worry about him being septic, but I’m limited on how much money I can spend. That’s the biggest frustration; not being able to run all the testing that is really necessary for the patients. Hopefully things will be okay, but he is going to have a long road ahead of him to get his feet healed up. The sad thing is they can only afford to stay a couple days in the hospital so we’ll have to train his family how to change bandages and clean the wounds, but I don’t know if they’ll be able to care for him properly.
Well, three people have voted and it looks like so far going to the bigger island is winning. I’m thinking that’s what I’m going to do. I should be able to take a fishing trip by going there and at least there will be some restaurants around. The bad thing is I was planning on going over the holiday weekend, which I discovered is this weekend. I was looking at the weather though and it’s supposed to rain all weekend. Grant told me rain here is really unpredictable and it may just rain for a little while, but I would be disappointed if rain ruined my trip to the coast. I’ll probably just risk it and go, but I’m hoping the rain will be minimal.

Foot before

Foot after

All in a good days work.