The day began with a 0630 breakfast in Heidi and Bec's room, and what a spread they put on. Bananas, fresh breadrolls with peanut butter and jam, cereal for some, and COFFEE!!! (which was needed by all), how we ended up with so many coffee cups i'll never truly understand. Post breakfast we loaded up the vans up, which is always amusing, its sort of like a game of tetris gone horribly wrong, but somehow have manged to get down to a fine art. Then we were off. Our destination; Soriya village, which is situated approximately an hour out of Poipet. The sky looked suspicious gray and overcast, but that was not to discourage the team. As we turned of the main road and on to a muddy dirt back street, there was one question on everyone's mind, will we be getting bogged again??? The answer was NO, as we are bless with the most amazing drivers Cambodia has to offer, however, at times it looked bleak. The track was bumpy, rivers ran both sides of the road and also through some of the nearby houses. But scenery was breathtaking, green rice paddy fields as far as the eye could see, cows grazing, and children playing and swimming in the river/steams that ran along the roadside. About 5kms down the way we reached the site which we were to run our clinic for the day. To our delight the villages had already set up a lovely area for to work under a brightly colored tent, there were tables and chairs ready to go. the villagers were ready and waiting. We were welcomed by their beautiful smiles and warm hearts. We hit the ground running. There was so many children, which suited us Paeds nurses just fine. So many deliciously beautiful babies to cuddle, glowing pregnant women and cute as a button oldies, one woman in particular was almost 100 years old and had never been sick a day in her life had just come to say hello and get some tiger balm was amazing. The flavor of the day was Scabies, Scabies Scabies, and other weird and wonderful skin conditions. The skin conditions being a result of the damp and tropical surroundings. Bec Fuller stumped/shocked at one point when listening to the chest of an elderly gentleman with dextrocardio (not sure of the spelling ..which is when you heart is on the right side of you chest rather than the left), this was also was a shock to the gentleman, I believe they all had a good chuckle by the end of it. By the end of the clinic (6 hours later), we had seen over 500 people between us. The final patient of the day was a 78 year old man with a mass the size of a tennis ball on the left hand side of his jaw. Upon taking his history we found that it was a dental abscess which began to develop two weeks ago. We knew we had to take action. Dr Shanilla quickly lanced the abscess with her trusty scalpel, much to the horror of our translator Jiah,
who almost went green. Feeling almost instant relief as the abscess was drained by a very satisfied Heidi, our dear patient was very grateful!!! We sent him on his way with an array of dressings, pain relief and antibiotics as well as education for his granddaughter for his care.
The funniest part of the day was the drive through car wash. On the way home when we stopped in the middle of water flowing over the road we thought we were bogged... Again... Then both of our trusty bus drivers hopped out of the vans to give them a quick wash! After a sigh of relief there were laughs all round at the driver's expense...
The day ended with a visit to Sambo's (who is our guide here in Poipet and an inspirational man) school at their new premises and a visit to his home where we were greeted by beautiful smiling children. This visit lifted our tired spirits and was the perfect end to our busy day. Tomorrow we will be back at the school for our final clinic... I can't believe our trip is coming to an end so soon! Some of us don't want to leave.
Written by Rach...
