Hospital Loma de Luz- Honduras

Most people have heard of the proverbial phrase, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." It's a creative way of teaching us about optimism. When life presents us with sour "lemons," or challenges, we can use them to make "lemonade," turning those difficulties into something sweet and desirable. But, these lemons can't become lemonade by themselves; one has to add water and sugar in an active effort of optimism. Indeed, life tossed our world a few "lemons" this week on a global scale, and it can be difficult to find the ingredients necessary to make "lemonade" amidst the great suffering that is a consequence of war and man's sense of entitlement. However, this week also gave me watermelons- and no, I didn't make watermelon-ade.  It had been a long ten days for one of my patients this past week. Ten days of fast, labored breathing and incessant, chest-burning coughing, ten days of not eating well, ten days of lying in...

On initial glance, "Cold February Days" may come across as a confusing title for a post from a blogger writing in the middle of the Honduran tropics. And though I still spent this past week in shorts and a T-shirt, February fifteenth was cold in a different way. Laying myself down for the night after a regular day working at the hospital, I had a feeling- heard a voice- inside of me asking me to check on an old friend. After a failed attempt to find my friend's Facebook account, a quick Google search confirmed the fearful instinct I felt writhing deep in my stomach... *** The world said good-bye to a beautiful soul on the twenty-first of January of 2022. It lost a scientist, a creative writer, a poet, an artist, a photographer, a future doctor, a pianist, a food and coffee connoisseur. Her name is Julie, and she lived almost thirty years becoming all of those things while also giving of herself to others as a daughter, a sister, a friend, and so much more. The last moment...

If you ask Wikipedia, it will tell you that "Anne Frank is a German-Dutch diarist of Jewish heritage and one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust." If I had the opportunity to edit her Wikipedia page, I would introduce her as "a teacher for mankind and one of the bravest and most hopeful young women of our time." I remember Anne speaking to me through her diary in the fifth grade- and I had admired her ever since. As years went on, I remember wondering, "how could a young girl be so in-tune with the meaning of life?" Even more unthinkable, "how could she be so optimistic while being a victim of such atrocious acts of persecution?" While bed-ridden this weekend due to the wrath of the unwelcome COVID virus, Netflix was a trusted friend, introducing me to the new movie:  My Best Friend Anne Frank . The vantage point of this movie is from Anne's good friend, Hanneli Goslar. (Warning: movie spoiler ahead). When offered the opport...

...We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own. ~  An excerpt from  A Prayer of St. Oscar Romero There have been many times during my journey in medicine when I have experienced helplessness in the inability to provide complete healing or care for another person.  In dwelling on these experiences, I have inevitably conjured up a multitude of reasons for this incompleteness: time and financial constraints of the healthcare system, my own lack of knowledge and experience, the lack of motivation from the patient him- or herself, or the inherent lim...

I have always been fond of numbers- mathematics was one of my favorite subjects in school as a kid. Perhaps it's the predictable order by which numbers are arranged or the defined formulas in which numbers are used that brings me a sense of comfort and satisfaction. Or rather, maybe it's the fact that one can produce a given number from any other number by the use of a multitude of available formulas and calculations. In today's equation, I recount how the number three turns into hundreds which turns into one . And no, I haven't ventured to find a mathematical formula to explain it. A lot can happen in three weeks. In my short time here at Loma de Luz I have witnessed new lives being brought into the world, older lives taking their last breaths, and other lives transitioning between these two earthly experiences. I have had the privilege of being involved in one way or another with hundreds  of people in times of immense hope, great suffering, and predictable mundani...

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1937 These are the words I hear as I listen to Audible's version of The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah while preparing my lunch today. Though spoken at the time of The Great Depression, these words are undoubtedly still relevant today... I realize this every day at Loma de Luz. Here a patient admitted to the hospital is provided a less-than-twin size bed in a room that he or she shares with 3-4 other patients separated only by curtains. Though the curtains guarantee some degree of privacy, they are still permeable to the sounds and smells that make hospitals less than pleasant. Family members reluctant to leave the sides of their loved ones sleep on the ground or the hard wooden benches in the hallway. But a small bed, thin curtains, and a solid surface are enough...

When I wake up my first morning in Honduras I am greeted by howling monkeys outside my window- who needs a slew of iPhone alarm ringtones when you have monkeys?! The "howl" sounds like a cross between the roar of a lion and the bark of a dog- it's difficult to explain, but if you search howling monkey on Youtube, you will find yourself easily entertained. Just when I think my morning couldn't get any more wild than that, I put on my scrubs, wrap my stethoscope around my neck, and leave my apartment for the hospital. I am soon confronted with two hanging bridges surrounded by canopy trees that eagerly await my passage over a 100 feet gap above the rainforest floor. I can feel my heart already beginning to race, and for the first time in awhile, it isn't because I am running to a code blue or to the trauma bay to stabilize a patient. The first bridge is a wobbly one, and I immediately regret my decision to have both my hands full as I can't brace myself with the...