Q4 24+3

Commuting around

Our hospital is on the complete opposite side of Quito. The four of us that have to get there have decided that sleep is more important than money. Therefore, we share a $4 cab ride(about 20 minutes) to the hospital and take a $.25 bus ride (about 30 minute bus ride and 25 minute walk) back in the afternoon. Some of the more interesting things we had seen were groups of goats and donkeys hanging out on the corners of major thoroughfares in Quito. We couldn´t quite figure out what these gangs of hoodlums were doing just hanging out and polluting the sidewalks with their deposits. On Friday, our cab driver was kind enough to inform us that they are brought down from the mountains and their owners sell their milk fresh on the street. Nothing like a little carbon monoxide with fresh goat´s milk on the side. YUM!

On the bus ride home one day, we saw a group of workers sitting on a pretty large highway median that had lots of grass on it, surrounded by cows. The cows were just munching on the grass while the workers ate their lunch. A little further down the road were more cows on the grassy sides of the highway. We´re not sure what they were doing with the cows, but my theory is that they are an inexpensive lawn mower and that is how they keep their miles of highway clean and trim in Quito.

Work has been very interesting. I have become very familiar with sewing up machete injuries as that is the major mode of assault here. One patient had the tops of three fingers chopped off, a cut on his neck, and some tendons torn on his left hand. The last machete patient had an exposed ulnar fracture and his ulnar nerve cut. Ouch is right!
I think that preventative medicine is a huge problem here. One morning during triage we diagnosed 2 women with some kind of uterine cancer and another with gastric cancer. They wait too long to come in and when they do it´s too late. It´s very sad.

We had the weekend off and a group of us decided to go sight-seeing to a town called Baños were there are many hot springs. We got there on Friday night and stayed at this gorgeous hotel up on top of a mountain in a log cabin. (All for less than $25.) But, we were in for a little surprise. I was sitting in a chair enjoying a bottle of pure water when out of the corner of my eye I saw something large and brown. Oh my god, it was a scorpion! Mind you, it was only about 6-7 cm long, but aren´t these things deadly? I start yelling and get all the other girls over to come inspect it and none of us wanted to kill it. There were 7 of us hovering in a corner opposite of where the scorpion was trying to figure out what we were going to do. Some of us took pictures of it thinking the flash may stun it and others wanted to deet it to death. Another suggested throwing a shoe at it to see if it was even still alive. Finally, three very brave girls ventured over with a tennis shoe. The first hit only made it run, but with the following three hits we said goodbye to the scorpion. We then inspected every nook and cranny and under the covers and in every shoe before we were able to go to sleep. It was a very eventful night.

To make up for it, we spent the next day lounging by the pool of our hotel. Then we walked around the city to take in carnaval and the sights. We also took a tour to see the volcano Tungurahua, which is an active volcano. Baños was evacuated as recently as 1999 when the volcano went up to orange alert. By 2000 most inhabitants moved back since it had not erupted and everyone was desperate to get back home. The volcano is currently on yellow alert (scale: white-yellow-orange-red; orange=90% chance of major eruption over coming weeks or months). So, we all piled into a bus and took a death defying bus ride up a mountain to check out the volcano which can be seen spewing out some ash and the like at the very top. However, it was pretty cloudy and rainy and we ending up mostly listening to the rumbling of the volcano.

On Sunday, we got on the bus and went to Ambato to see the great parade of fruits and flowers that takes place for carnaval. There were so many people there and it was so crowded that we only stayed for a short time. All the floats were intricate and it was amazing the designs that they made from the flowers and fruits. Afterward, we headed back to Quito for a relaxing night before going back to work.

Another interesting note, I was able to last 3 weeks before getting the Big D. Thank goodness for Pepto-Bismol!

Posted by at February 22, 2004 03:56 PM