Last week in Belize!

Monday: Home Health Visits in town with Monica

Got to see some of my patients that I've been seeing in home health for the last time today.
One of the patients that has had the biggest impact on my frustration with the Belizean Healthcare who is still in bilateral below the knee casts after getting hit by a rosewood log while working on the side of the road in January. He is on his last month of receiving social security benefits and he is unable to stand still and his fractures are not healing. It's awful that he is still not healing properly and I just want to bring him to the US and fix his legs. 

This afternoon we did the machette training and carrying bleach babies again with Jen, the new PT student and some of the medical students came along :)  We walked about 1 mile, carrying the babies, and then chopped with a machette for 30  mins total, rotating between the 6 of us. Still a huge workout- thank god there were more people who came besides the PTs or it would have been torture!

Joe carrying his bleach baby

machete chopping!

Qiang chopping some grass?

It has been exceptionally hot here for the past few days. I went for a run Sunday night and have not stopped sweating since! It was 92 degrees in our bedroom at night. Being in the heat all the time is doable for sure, but when it's unbearable and you're in a constant sweat everywhere you are...... there comes a point when it's just miserable! A few more days until air con!!!

 We went on a group run tonight - about 9 of us began the run to a local military base- about a 15 minute run from Hillside.... that was all I was going to do.  My knee does not like running anymore. So I made my goal of running there, then did a little walk/run back. Then I led a group in an ab circuit :)  man I miss the gym! We did abs on the patio with yoga mats and my interval app on my phone- we do what we can!

Tuesday: We got to go on another cultural day! Yayyy! Caroline and I were super excited.... I opted out on the Mayan Ruin experience round two, I'm not the biggest history buff, so I didn't want to go again. So Caroline and I hung out with Leslie and Rudy- the two drivers and community liaisons for Hillside and did some school work until lunch time. 

We went to the Woman's group in Indianville for a discussion about local culture and agriculture and had the same lunch as last time, Jibby-jappa cabbage, stewed chicken and tortillas that we helped make. The first round of tortilla making for me, I got a little to excited and smacked my palm flat in the middle of the dough that I had just made into a nice round circle, and thus I had it all stuck to my hand.... as I would say.... FAIL.  I had to start over and then the lady to my right still had to "fix" it.  So Qiang and I decided we needed to try again. It was better..... but I'm pretty sure she fixed it when I walked away. They still taste the same anyways!

A Gibnut aka the royal rat (apparently it was fed to the queen when she came to Belize)

Qiang and I making tortillas round 2

Wednesday:  We did restorative care in Punta Gorda. I supervised Florecita seeing 4 patients. She did great! It has been such a rewarding experience watching her grow in her instruction of patients and in her knowledge of PT. Then we had the afternoon off to work on planning our community class and finish up with school work.

Our last community class was tonight. We had 3 returning participants again:) and we had prizes for their attendance.  It was a great ending to the class. One of the patients did all her exercises from last week's back class and this week her pain had decreased and she was able to perform all the exercises without help! It really means a lot to me to see patients make gains and to notice that they can do exercise and gain control of their pain.

Thursday: Out-patient clinic-
I saw 2 patients this morning... it ended up being slightly slow despite having a full schedule of patients... but it's Belize! We had the afternoon to review the CPI with Monica then I finished all my school stuff and submitted everything. I was not going to do any school work on my birthday so that was half the motivation to get it done and also my reward was to paint my nails :)   Then I went on a run with one of the pharm students, while the rest of the group ran to the military base again.... that was not for me..... so  I was glad someone else wanted to do a low- key run.

It's weird that this is my second to last night here...... 8 weeks ago I had no idea what was coming and what amazing things I would be doing here or the amazing people I would get the chance to meet, work with and have experiences with!  Now it's going to be bittersweet to leave.  This is the ultimate definition of bitter sweet.  I don't want to leave this last group of students. Usually it's been the groups leaving us.  But I cannot wait to see my friends and family and hear people's voices that are not delayed on Face Time!