You Better Belize It! : Day #13

Today was very relaxed...it rained most of the day, so I think a lot of patients stayed home...Monday will probably be extra busy! Dr Camel took the day off so I worked with Dr Hailu (ortho); he is just hysterical to work with! He's a tall Ethiopian man with a large gap between his front teeth...he always wears some sort of colorful tie and rolls his suit pants up at the waist so that they don't drag on the floor. He speaks English with a very thick French accent and as for Spanish...his accent is almost as bad as mine! You can tell that his patients can barely understand him, and often times I would have to clarify what he was saying. He also tends to cut you off mid-sentence and say "yeesss" in the funniest way. I wish I could voice record him! I try to ask him yes and no questions just to here him say "yeeesss". I LOVE just hanging out in his air-conditioned office, asking him about his child hood, dating life in college, and of course, his favorite...American politics. Very interesting man--he was born in Ethiopia, grew up in Lebanon, went to college in Berut, studied medicine in the Philippines, and now lives in Belize.

Our last patient was a 74 year-old man who was in a car accident 13 days ago; he went to the hospital in Belize City where they told him he had a small fracture to his left ankle, but that it would heal without issue. They placed a full leg cast on his left leg and told him to return in 6 months to have it removed. He came in today because of pain to his left shoulder and he needed a doctors note to send to his insurance company. When we pulled back his shirt to look at his shoulder, we noticed that his clavicle was displaced--something the other hospital hadn't even addressed. No wonder he was in pain. We ended up repeating the x-rays and he definitely needs surgery. He has a severely displaced lateral malleolus fracture and distal fibula fracture, which will require a plate and pins. I'm excited though, because I get to help with his surgery on Tuesday! :-D

I decided to take it easy this evening--its been stormy all day and I didn't really need anything from town. I thought I'd maybe watch a movie and log all of my patients on Typhon....but my sweet Gia showed up outside my window. I didn't play with her most of the week since my ankle was unstable; Wednesday I told her she could come over to my house and we'd play Snakes 'N Ladders, but she never came. The next morning, her mom told me that Gia had gotten bitten by ants and fell asleep...when she woke up it was dark outside--she was really worried and told her mom, "I promised Melissa that I would come play with her, and now she's gonna be upset with me!" So of course, when her sweet voice was calling me form my window, I couldn't say no. She showed up with a backpack filled with biscuits, Snakes 'N Ladders, a puzzle, and her most treasured toy, a light-up figurine of Olaf. We spent the next hour and a half playing games and singing along to the Frozen soundtrack. We made a trip back to her house to get a machete so that we could open up some coconuts--but its way harder than it looks! She started laughing and was like, "Um, Melissa...your really bad at this!" I got one open just enough to pour the water out into a glass and then I gave up before I chopped off my toes.haha

Not the evening I had quite planned, but I wouldn't change it for anything!