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 View Nicaragua 2011 Project Video
Today we set up a new clinic location at a fairly rural hospital in El Veijo. It doesn't really look like what you would think of as a hospital, but is really closer to something like a farm, and we set up in the main barn. Crazy. After Marina left, our team kind of banded together and alot of people stepped up their game, so to speak. We all worked ourselves at maximum capacity, and it is inspiring to watch people work so hard just to try and be of service to as many people as possible. We saw 750 patients today.
Most of the people we saw have never had glasses before, and you never really lose the joy in helping someone see for the first time in a long time. One of the most touching moments of the day was when an elderly couple, both in their seventies, found their way back to me in the chaos of the clinic just to thank me and touch my head and ask God to bless me. They both only needed reading glasses, which really is quite simple from my perspective, but to them the ability to see was amazing, and the dignity they felt at being individually seen was unusual enough for them to be really touched by the experience. When they both touched my head they looked so happy, and i felt very touched (and blessed actually) by the experience myself. They left me holding hands, and all of a sudden I felt a wave of my Dad's presence.
 Something about how the two of them, and how they were taking care of each other reminded me of my mom and dad, and it made me feel honored to be part of taking card of them. It was an added bonus of this whole experience to remember my dad so vividly at that moment, and feel his presence in such a far away place.
Tomorrow we move our clinic into the city of Chinendega for the last few days. We have been told it is the "hottest city in central America", and we will be working out of a Red Cross center right in the middle of the city. They are expecting over 1000 people to be there in the morning, and our local "host" Gerry said that every person that leaves the clinic with a free pair of glasses and new clear vision will create 30 more people that will want to get in. We are going to be there for 2 days in a row so he said the second day will be really crazy, and will "involve machine guns". While that was funny, and we all laughed, we also felt it settle in that he wasn't really kidding. The next few days are going to really test our nerves, our stamina, and our patience.
One of the great things about this trip is not only being able to help people in their day to day lives, but it is also a great opportunity to feel proud of yourself in a meaningful way. Today not only did I practice optometry in a language I don't really speak, but at one point (by channelling the power of Marina from afar) I controlled a group of about 200 people that were getting very unruly with our line up system using only 3 of the dozen or so words I know in Spanish. "sientisay por favor, muchas gracia" ....a few words can go a long way, as long as people feel you are in control....but it is hard to feel in control of the situation when you can access a very limited vocabulary!
Two of them most memorable patients from today were both little children. The first little boy and his mother didnt arrive early enough to be included in our cut off point....which was the first 650 people as that is really the max we can see in a day. Especially on the last day, we are very careful to make sure to tell people waiting past the 650 in line to not wait all day in the sun, and still not get in......really one of the worst jobs for one of our team members to police this policy all day.
 But this little 7 year old boy was obviously blind, and essentially the whole line of people waiting begged our group to please let this boy and his mother in to be seen. It is inspiring to see people empathize with each other, and his mother was crying just from the support of the line up.
The boy has been blind since birth, from hydrocephalus (pressure on his brain) and congenital cataracts and nystagmus. The is no surgery in the world to help his vision, and regular glasses will also be of no help at any point. We are fortunate as group to have a supply of donated low vision equipment (magnifiers and other rehabilitative vision devices donated by blind Canadians who can no longer use them). I was able to find some incredible devices that he may be able to use, particularly when he is older, to provide him with some near vision out of one eye.
This is where the magic (or spirit, or God, or karma) really happens on this kind of trip... His right eye is completely black-blind, and his left eye only has what we call "hand motion" meaning he can only perceive movement at about 3feet from his face. Only the left eye. When I went to our box of supplies I found and incredibly strong device called an 8X spectacle-mounted microscope, for the LEFT eye!!!, in a frame with is perfectly suited for him. Likely from a Canadian child with a similar condition. Unbelievable!! In Canada this would cost about $1500.
Because he is so young (and we are so pressed time) we taught his mother how to use the devices, and a couple other magnifiers we found for him. We also did our best to explain what is called "orientation and mobility" training, which is how to use a white cane to get around outside of the house (he will start with a stick)... And she said he is already ok around his own house with his arms out stretched, so that is a very good sign that he could pick up the use of a cane, with some coaching from his mom.
Thank God we have some incredibly bright young interpreters with us to help explain all this to his mom. I actually hold quite abit of hope for this really cute, happy (!), young boy.
 Another memorable encounter was again with a mom and child, but this time the child was a cute 4 year old girl with a majorly turned in left eye. This is called strabismic esotropia, and some times the eye just turns inwards a bit, or maybe just occasionally. But this little girl had a defect (overly short) in her medial rectus eye muscle that made her eye turn in all the way to her nose. Constantly, since the day she was born.
It makes her look crazy, and otherwise she is such a cute happy little girl. But because of how she looks the stigma for her is already great, and will only get worse as she ages and goes to school. Kids are mean universally. Some of you might remember a similar story from my trip to Ethiopia, where we found a young boy with a similar look, but in his case (accommodative esotropia) it only required a strong pair of glasses to correct his turned eye, and that was resolved in a matter of 30 minutes of him wearing glasses. This girls situation in Nicaragua is different in thy surgery is the only option to re-position the muscle on her eye (sounds gross but is really pretty basic). But the stigma she would face is the same as in Ethiopia, where it is relatively common belief that she is either crazy, or that the devil has cursed her or her mother in some way! No!! Simply, her left medial rectus muscle is 2 mm too short.
We learned through the interpreters that the mother had paid a significant amount of money a year ago to see a surgeon to see if anything could be done, and he told her no. That is simply not true. It may be considered a "cosmetic" procedure, because the goal is just to normalize the look... But that would be like considering a cleft palate repair simply cosmetic. Looking like all the other girls could make all the difference in the world, in so many ways.
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