Clinic Friday

Back to Friday... oh, one more tradition i'd love to bring back... KEEP SMILING!!!! :)
Clinic went really well on Friday. My patients were sweet and kind. I had one seventeen year old who came in with lower back pain that seemed as though it was more of the usual back strain the people get here from the hard work in the fields. You know, it was different though... he was really worried, i was confused as to why he was so concerned. you could read it all over his face. after i told him my tentative diagnosis was that it was back strain and not a dislocated disc or anything... he told the translator that he was more concerned about his kidneys. hmm, i was surprised, b/c i had already asked him the questions regarding that too. this was a 17 y.o. worried about his kidneys! he has seen his father suffer with kidney disease and he was so worried that it could be happening to him too. we asked him more questions, but he was fine. we had to reassure him. it just broke my heart that he was so worried. i wish you could have seen the fear on his face. see, people here are scared of death. they have no hope, in fact i just read this amazing little book, it's worth checking out if you want to... it's called "the lotus and the cross- Jesus talks with Buddha" by Ravi Zacharias. it compares buddhism to christianity through a fictional dialogue between Jesus and buddha. it's about the size of max lucado's small little books. i can't even tell you how amazing this writer is. he is so picturesque with his words. anyway, i found out through the book that buddhism holds people accountable to karma or whatever you sow in life, you reap, but it carries over to the next life for them and it can be many past lives that you are still paying the karma for. so now i understand why they are so worried about death. there is so much debt and no way to pay the debt back. one line in the book pretty much sums it up... "How does one pay? With what does one pay? And to whom does one pay? The creditor haunts but it isn't there." What's even more interesting is that there is no creditor... they don't believe in a god, so it really doesn't make sense. in the book, Jesus explains that He paid the debt for us b/c, of course, we reap what we sow, but He pays it for us, so we can freely travel with a lighter load.

by the way... just an interjection, i've now befriended almost every kind of reptile it seems like or insect. i have a visitor in here with me right now. he's a black lizard the size of my hand. i hope he doesn't come any closer while i type this. not to mention, last night before i went to bed i noticed i had another lizard friend visiting me in my room and what was i to do? i couldn't get him out, so i just prayed he wouldn't climb in my mouth during the night! i never felt him or saw him again. whew!

back to clinic- i'm befriending the thai nurses more as we hang out more. Noi is a nurse who is so fun! we are getting better at communicating in english as she teaches me more thai. well, we had a conversation about student life and what it is like to always be on the run as a student and in need of caffeine. she felt that way in nursing school as i did in med school. well, i can't believe what she said next. i'm still laughing... :) she said she needed to stay up to study so bad one night that she actually ATE coffee!!!!!!!!!!! yes, EATing coffee! that's a new one for me. i'm not talking coffee beans, but the instant coffee that they have here. now she can't even be in a room and smell any type of coffee. near the sink in the clinic, i saw a coffee can as i was looking for tea and i had to say it... "Noi, are you hungry?" :) we laughed so hard. it's great to be able to joke even with broken language.

Another patient I had was a little more upsetting, he had dysuria or painful urination. i checked a urinalysis and unfortunately he had protein and fatty casts in his urine. this suggested more of a renal disease. i wanted to just send him to renal, but we can't do that here. the first question dr. tom asked was where is he from? we found out he was from a mountain village so it probably took him 2 hours just to get to our clinic. we had to keep him there awhile and check more things out. we checked his BUN/Cr and thankfully it was normal. His kidney was at least functioning fine for now. I heard that in Thailand the reason why kidney disease is so bad is b/c there is no possible way for people to afford dialysis, so it is a death sentence for them. we are so fortunate and blessed in the USA!