Wandering with Tedder and Tamara

* Tamara posting *

Just a quick update about my volunteering this week. It is my last week, and I am sad that it will be ending - I've had a good time and feel that I got a lot of valuable experience. It was great to be able to help out so hands-on and with poor kids.

I've seen some interesting cases. The first one is a boy whose face was covered in sores. They were all scabbed, oozing, infected and crusty. My understanding is that the problem began as allergies, then the sores got infected, and now it's really bad. He had to get a shot of penicillin and a bunch of other medicines for the allergies and pain. He also got a good talking-to about keeping it clean and all that.

Another boy had chicken pox. It actually didn't look too bad and wasn't much of a concern. I don't remember, but I think he was given something for the itching and maybe an antihistamine. There was a case of a boy with chronic sinusitis and he was sent to get some x-rays done of his sinuses. Most likely he will need to have an operation to remove some of the cartilage in his sinuses or have his adenoids removed if they are the problem.

The most interesting case was a boy who had fractured his radius in May. He didn't have anywhere close to full movement of his hand, and didn't have as much strength in that hand either. Doing some symmetry tests when he had to push against my hand it felt as if he wasn't even trying to push against me. Compared to his other hand it was a huge difference. Unfortunately he will need some sort of operation to straighten that out and some serious physical therapy. I really hope he gets it fixed because if not it will become a major handicap in his life.

I also saw a girl that has esotropia (cross-eyed). This one was a little confusing to me - I'm not sure how long she's had it, but the doctor did send her to a specialist. It seems that she's had glasses to help with it in the past, but for some reason wasn't wearing them today. I didn't hear much about therapy for it, but my research indicates that this is necessary, so I'm not sure how well it is being treated. With my limited understanding of Spanish and medical treatment, it is hard to have these questions answered in the clinic. In any case, it was interesting, but sad.

Lastly, I got more pictures of kids at the clinic. Some of them are really eager to be photographed, even coming up to me and asking me to take their picture.