A Day of Clinic

Ok, so in thinking back to all the clinic days over there. I just wanted to give an idea of what we saw, experienced.
We'd get up and leave where we were staying at 6:30am usually. As soon as we got to the orphanage, the Toul Serey orphan home, there'd be a mass of people waiting for the clinic to start. Foursquare did such an amazing job in setting this up and organizing. Their awesome organization is the ONLY way we were able to see as many people as we did.
Each of us had a table. On it we had pediatric and adult bp cuffs, otoscope, thermometers, some would supplies, etc. I had a book on there called Where there is no doctor, which we all used as a reference. Awesome!! I recommend it to anyone doing missionary work.
The Foursquare staff ran the registration, so as people needed to be seen, they were given "tickets" (registration from with a number). Our clinic was set up on the bottom floor of the orphanage, (the sanctuary), and we had a room we used as a pharmacy, and another room (we'll call this our trauma room where sick of the sickest went to). Cambodians would come in 20 at a time and sit in chairs, where they would wait for an open station (one of us). We each were assigned an interpreter or two. We talk to them, get their complaint, do our complete assessment, diagnose and prescribe the necessary meds. No person left our clinic empty handed. If nothing was wrong (which was rarely the case) then they would get multivitamins.
Alot of what we saw: Typhoid Fever (scary especially in children!!) lot of skin infections, UTI's, malaria, dehydration, etc, and typical stuff you'd see here in clinics, URIs, ear infections. Alot of wounds and alot of malnutrition in children.
After we saw a pt, we'd give them their "ticket" back with the diagnosis and prescription on it and they would take it to our pharmacy. Anna, and another Foursquare staff ran the pharmacy and did an AMAZING job!!!!

Follow Up

I'm adding some more stuff to the slide show so its in the production room right now. :o) I will put it back up as soon as I finish. Well it's been 2 wks since I've been home. I think I'm finally over this jet lag, which has been the absolute worst. I've had the opportunity to share my experiences with a group and am excited to hopefully be able to share with my community. I've been stressing as to not how many pictures I can show everyone, but how can I show everyone that the four of us were only the vehicle used for this mission, ambassadors of our communities. We took EVERYTHING over there with us. All the medicine, supplies (wound, equipment, etc). There was nothing in place for us to use. And everything we took over was either donated or given to us at cost. I can't tell you how many times I looked at our pharmacy and had to hold the tears back as I think about we could not do this without our friends and families. More on this later.

Overall this mission was a huge success. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better group of people to experience it with. I feel like I've known Eric, Tim and Margo all my life. And I hope we are able to do another one soon. Speaking of which, I've been asked about doing another trip possibly next year. Location still unknown yet, however I will go in a heartbeat.

I just realized I haven't put much on here about things we saw over there. Unless you've talked to me in person you really wouldn't know what all happened. So I will post more on that. To everyone who has supported this mission, whether by donation, prayers, thoughts, financially, whatever THANK YOU, and God Bless You in all you do!!!

The crowd would begin as early as 5:30 am...

Home

Well, so much for blogging while in country...I was able to get on once the other times I tried to get on, it wouldn't let me post. I flew back tonite. My husband and children met me up at the airport. It's been an amazing 2 weeks. I have tons of pictures and will post more about what went on during the mission. As for my team, I feel like I've known them forever. What a great group of people and we worked so well together. Talk of doing another medical mission is in the works... Woohoo!!!! Off to download pictures... I will post pictures, stories during next couple days as I'm adjusting back to the Pacific Northwest time. It's 3:41 am and I'm wide awake... I'm going to be hurting in the morning. It's all good though.

Tuesday May 1st here in Cambodia

And boy is it hot and humid!!! We finally made it here!! Margo and I met in Portland, flew to Seattle Sunday nite where we picked up Tim, our doc, and then flew 14 1/2 hrs to Taipai China and then another 4 hrs down here to Phnom Penh where we met up with Eric. So we our whole team is together. It started out with quite an adventure on our flight from Seattle to Taipai. About 6 hrs into the flight, I was awakened by a flight attendent who said over intercom, there is someone in need of medical assistance and the pilot said there is a medical team on board can we help???
I'm really like my teammates. We are staying here in the capital tonite and then getting up to drive early down to the Kompong Speu province to the Toul Serey orphan home. We toured the Foursquare Children of Promise Training Center, and the orphan home here. And we also toured the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum.... We were speechless. The weather is hot and very humid (did I already mention that?)... We have been driven around by Anna Blake from Foursquare, a missionary who's been here in the country for 5 years. She is the medical teams coordinator but will be returning to the states this September to finish school to be a nurse. The traffic here cracks me up. And it reminds me so much of Haiti...No lights, no rules or laws, pass on sidewalks, etc. So far I've seen 4 Cambodians fit on a moped at once...Anna said she's seen 7....dang. We has Fish Amok for lunch, spicy with some sort of curry sauce with things in it...probably best I didn't know what they were, but I liked it. Ok, not sure when I'll be able to post next..... Many blessings to you all!!! ~Mel