Dr. Kevorkian

Wednesday was my first day in the full swing of things, like actually trying to serve at the burn clinic. Around 8:30 I managed to walk from the guesthouse to the clinic by myself just using Google Maps, which was surprising given my sense of direction. Once there, I sort-of introduced myself to some kids watching tv (kids' tv shows are so dumb now) and played legos with them until lunch. Jen was also there, and got to observe some surgeries. I'm still not sure if I can do some things that go along with medicine, like scraping off layers of burnt skin or sections of good skin to graft to the burnt places. Also giving shots or putting in IVs. That's probably a big one. Eva also joined me later, and I think she's a favorite of the kids, as she was frequently shouted for. One of my fellow lego aerospace engineers was Alex, with a burnt foot and leg, who couldn't quite master the art of attaching lego pieces together, and often resorted to using brute force. When medicine time came, he put up a valiant fight, forcing the nurse to punish him for not drinking his vile concoction by taking away his legos, and while she was distracted he dove under the table and crawled commando-style into another room. Unfortunately crawling like that is slower than the nurse's gait, and he lost in the end. We had some really good spanish-sounding somethings for lunch, that were like orange bread pockets full of meats and vegetables and soup that you bite open. Afterward, Eva and I went to another clinic downtown, which is a lot poorer than the Viedma hospital. It's called something like Clinica Boliviana Americana. Sometimes I felt in the way, just following Eva around because she understood their directions, but eventually I felt like I was serving and getting my hands dirty. Literally, because I don't think anyone in the clinic wears latex gloves, which is fairly crazy. Soon after we arrived, we reported to a room that was calling for help, and found a man who's IV bag was empty and his blood was going through the IV towards the bag. This set the eventful tone of this clinic. We responded to a few more rooms in response to calls of help, and I helped move a few immobile elderly people from their bed to their chair and back again. I saw the grossest things in my life that day. I'll just leave it at that. God has to give me a capacity for taking care of the suffering and sick if there will be consistent medical missions in my life; it won't originate from myself. One old woman came to us in the hallway confused, who had apparently ripped out her IV without feeling it (I assumed since she was smiling) and walked out of her room. The doctor or nurse we were following around, Leo I think, (probably not-that doesn't sound Bolivian) who seems to do almost everything for the patients besides surgery, cleaned all the blood off her arm (no gloves) while she continually asked where she was and told us about the homes she previously lived in and I think what to tell the taxi driver. Despite the humor of her obliviousness, it was pretty depressing. I can't help but think that if I were in the position of this woman or the people I helped move, I would rather be done with this life than suffer or linger more. When I've lost my mental faculty or clarity and my ability to control my body or take care of myself, I don't think I'd want to keep dragging on. It seems like medicine is prolonging life for the sake of prolonging life. I realize that their families don't want to see them die, but it's inevitable and I think less painful if you haven't seen them in a degenerated, physically and mentally crippled, or almost vegetative state for years before. And I realize too, that I should desire for people to have as much time as they can to be reconciled to God through Christ, but for some it seems like they wouldn't understand or grasp that. But of course it's possible if God wills it. Who knows, I could just be speaking out of momentary fear and revulsion, and I might think differently when I'm there.