THE WEEK I TURNED 23 YRS

Celebrated with banana bread, a candle, & friends.

Saw over 100 patients in the village of Miguel Biken on Tuesday.

Worked Men's/General Pathology with Dr. Peterson & saw the results of lives full of hard labor and surgery cases to refer to Waspam.

Cut and popped some kind of parasite and larva out of Alex's foot.

Pitched tents around the clinic for the night.

Saw a huge scorpion on Jeremy's pack.

Got to call on the satellite phone for a few minutes for my birthday!

Woke up early on Wednesday to grab our backpacks & meds and hike 2 hours through the jungle to the village of Kapri.

Mud, mud, and more mud.

Set up clinic in Kapri in the little catholic church.

Worked Women's with Dr. Caldera and saw many pregnant women and STIs.

Made ramen noodles for dinner over a fire outside.

Pitched a tent for the night with a circle of curious onlookers.

Listened to crazy massive pig fights all night.

Rain.

Packed up in the morning, left personal stuff at the church and carried all the meds & clinic supplies to the village of Polo like porters in a line through the jungle.

More mud including some massive 3 ft deep holes with slick little logs to tiptoe across on.

Clinic all day in Polo, seeing practically every person in the villaage, family by family.

Thought we'd have to turn patients away to leave in time, but decided to just stick it out & chance hiking out in the dark.

Worked pediatrics with German med-student David, treating tons of worms, parasites, sinus infections, bronchitis, and UTIs.

Flew through tons of Albendazole, Mebendazole, Metronidazole, Amoxy, Doxy, and Cotrimoxazole.

Saw first case of intense Leishmaniasis, also known as Mtn. Leprosy, on a 14 yr-old girl.

Gave out every balloon & sticker I had with me to the crowds of kids.

Finally packed up to leave and hoofed it back to Kapri through all the mud pits again.

Grabbed our backpacks and after an intense pouring of rain, headed out on the long jungle trek back, slogging through the trails.

Darkness came and we got to hike by the light of the moon and stars, listening to the jungle come alive at night.

Arrived in Miguel Biken and finally met up with the truck for the long drive back to Francia Sirpi, our village.

Truck's headlights were fairly nonexistent so a couple guys had to ride on the hood, shining their headlamps on the road.

Listened to Tyler's farm stories and all the guys' battle wound stories all the way back.

Finally home with a big meal Mrs. Brown had prepared for us!

What an expedition!