MedCAP in Cambodia

I am on a cambodian boat that ferried us from the Mercy to the Cambodian shore for my last MedCAP as a Pacific Partnership Volunteer.  During the MedCAP, we host medical screenings, dental extractions and fillings, and eye exams with custom glasses. I am listening to my music and trying to wake up and as the sun starts shinning through the clouds these lyrics from Casting Crowns song So Much More stand out to me. 

"I will praise You all my days not just for the change You made in me...

I will serve You Lord always for You are my strength when I am weak. I will never be afraid for You are my rock and You protect me." 

I will make that my prayer for today.

In the bus now on the way to our site which is about an hour away. I love seeing Gods creation and how creative He is, making each country so unique. Although very poor, Cambodia is rich in lush green landscape, the rice patties stretch beyond the eye can see and people work hard. They labor for hours in the hot sun to provide for their families and I see a boy no older than 12 year of age directs his oxen strong and bound by a yoke up the road bearing a load of bricks. The land is saturated in water, currently it is rainy season in Cambodia and everything has come to life! This morning, I have seen tons of animals on the side of the road from the bus window including: cattle, chicken, ducks, water buffalo, oxen, dogs, horses, swine, and more chicken!

Many houses are raised off of the ground and you can see how important it is to keep your house from flooding. This is something I always saw in pictures, but seeing the whole community elevated is pretty cool! I noticed the schools alongside of the road all locked up and closed with the children at home or sitting along the rice patties. I asked the Cambodian medical students why the schools were closed and they informed me that all of the Cambodian primary schools are closed due to an epidemic in children called the Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. It presents clinically as rashes on the palms, soles and mouth with high fever and many children are dying quickly. Well we have just arrived – I will pick this blog up soon!

 

 (9 hours later after our MedCAP) Due to the Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease, we are required to report how many children were seen under 12 years old with symptoms of the disease and of the nearly 200 children, I am happy to say that we had zero cases! Today at our site that was a school with open air classrooms, I worked as the discharge nurse so when patients were done seeing the doctor, dentist or optometrist, they went to pharmacy to pick up any medications and then came to my station. 

The nurses at discharge kept a tally of each service and broke the data down between age and gender. We also reviewed their medications one more time, answered any questions the patients had about the diagnosed the doctor discussed, reviewed lab work again, and referred some patients to come back on Friday for the surgical screening and echocardiograms with the  cardiologist. It was really nice to have the option of telling the patients to come back to be screened by the surgeons rather than just sending them home.

I truly enjoyed teaching the patients about their medications and discussing symptom management in regards to heart conditions and other ailments. The joy of teaching keeps planting a seed in the back of my head that I may want to be an educator one day. 

My Dad's Birthday Card, in 2 languages

This is rainy season, so the mud was horrendous!!! I wish I had navy issued boots, you could just rinse them off, instead my shoes are covered in mud, but overall I managed to keep my feet pretty dry. The power was a little sketchy... the MedCAP location had multiple extension cords and different plugs along the ground through the mud puddles and out in the rain. The temperature was really nice all day. We did have a few brief down pours, but I managed to stay fairly dry!