Alas, it has taken me far too long to get to my Guatemala posts. I don't really have an excuse, as final exams were over nearly two weeks ago. Better late than never, right?
Dad and I left Salt Lake on Thursday morning (April 23rd) and arrived in Guatemala around 9 pm. By the time our entire group was assembled and transported to the hotel, it was quite late and we were exhausted. Unfortunately for us, there is no rest for the wicked, and we were up at the crack of dawn the next day to set up the clinic in which we would work for the next week.
This is the stake center which was converted to our temporary clinic. Our patients were young adults, all future missionaries, from around the entire country of Guatemala.
Guatemala city is consistently in the top 5 list of most dangerous cities in the world, and for the entire duration of the trip, we had armed escorts and guards.
The cultural hall, in which most of the dental activity was centered. Patients would be diagnosed in the area just under that basketball hoop, then sent to have caries filled, after which they would be seen by one of the four dentists doing endo and/or oral surgery if it was needed.
Our group saw a grand total of 890-something patients in six days. So neat.
Dad was the only endodontist out of the whole group. The other three guys doing root canals were just general dentists who agreed to help out with this supposedly laborious task. Who wouldn't want to do root canals?
Isn't my dad cute? This is our station. Don't let the apparent chaos fool you - it's actually organized. I had a place for absolutely everything, and I knew just where it was, down to the last box of paper points or lidocaine capsules.
This portable x-ray gun was probably the best part of the trip. Seriously. I had way too much fun acting like Sergeant Schlock with his Strohl Munitions BH-901i.
Dr. Mackley and his wife, our fellow endo neighbors.
Dr. Rogers and one of the pre-dental students work on a young girl in traditional Guatemalan dress. Dr. Rogers has excellent taste in music. He would have his set of speakers hooked up to an iPod and would blast the best tunes all day. One time, as I was passing by his station, I mentioned that I like the song currently playing (Make It With You, by Bread) and he said "Do you know who this is?" I responded with an enthusiastic "Bread, of course. I love these guys!" He didn't expect me to know. :D
Two more pre-dental guys and one of my dad's longtime dentist buddies, Dr. Spangler. It's not a great picture, but I think it's hilarious, so here you go.
Dr. Dickerson, on the left, is 80 years old and as spry as can be. Dad said that he wants to be just like Dr. D when he grows up. Dr. D and his assistant, Bill, wore these matching scrubs one day and I just had to take a picture. They were virtually oozing with cuteness.
Teh artsy pose! I lurv my dad. He worked so hard on this trip. A usual day for him at the office here in Utah consists of 5 root canals, sometimes 6. At the clinic, he did no less than 78 in six days. That's 78 teeth and 183 canals, for those who are interested. His slowest day was 10 teeth, and his busiest was 16.
Yeah. This guy's a machine. He is also my hero. *huggins*
This is where all the sterilization of instruments took place. We had a team of wonderfully wonderful volunteers (mostly spouses of dentists or assistants who came along on the trip) who worked nonstop to make sure we had clean instruments all the time. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have been able to get through nearly as many patients.
Oral surgery ftw! These guys were awesome. They extracted a total of 1,200 hundred teeth. Isn't that cool? I love extractions. If I wasn't helping my dad the whole time, I would have been in here watching all the bloody, bony, toothy excitement that is oral surgery.
Here are a couple of my dad's dentist friends: (from left) Drs. Oman, Haymond, and Peers. The latter two are both oral surgeons.
Dr. Capener, in the black, and another pre-dental student chillaxin' between patients. Not pictured but also part of our group were Dr. Capener's parents. His dad is also a dentist. It seems to run in families, the dentist thing. I don't even know how many of the dentists brought their sons who were pre-dental students themselves. Pretty cool.
BLOOD AND GUTS WARNING!
Ok, I'm kidding. At least, partly kidding. There was one case in particular that was so much fun to watch that I am dedicating an entire post to it in a few days. I'm going to save those cool pictures for then. Rest assured that they will be magnificent. And gory.
5 comments:
I am excited for the gory post! My imagination is already going crazy! It looks like you two had a great time. Bread is awesome! Do you like my song?
I am so proud of you! Most of all, I am glad you were there to babysit your father. I am glad you forced him to take a break and eat some food every once in a while. And I am glad you were there to document the trip since all he was concerned about was helping people! Ah, the nerve of him!
I will take the credit for steering you into your diverse taste in music. I guess Dad can take some of the credit too.
Sweet post! I loved seeing how you guys were all set up and it's amazing how much work got done. I can only imagine how tired you all were, not only at the end of each day, but at the end of the trip. Thanks for sharing. Can't wait to see the gory details of the next post!
Thought you'd forgotten?!? I was beginning to wonder if you actually WENT! Glad to finally see proof that you did indeed go ;o)
Great summary of what sounds like an amazing week! Can't wait to see the blood and guts.
Wow, that was such a service trip. I'm so impressed that you, your dad, and all those other volunteers were able to give so much of their time and talents to help out these people. What a huge blessing it was for them. Way to go documenting the adventure.
So I read this post AFTER the disgusting one following this and missed out on the warning. That's what I get for falling behind on reading your posts!
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