Monday, October 23, 2006

Maine Eye Team Day 3

Well, it's only taken us an hour to get to where we could post pictures again and we'd like to suggest that any software engineer who "improves" software by making it impossible to use should be eligible for a very severe punishment.That being said, we woke up this morning and looked outside and saw an AMAZING line of people!

As Matt was standing outside taking pictures of this line, a woman walked up and asked if the team that was here could operate on her foot. Matt explained that this is an eye team, but she was in luck because his wife loves to cut/poke/prod/etc. people. The first picture is of Heidi draining an apparent ganglion cyst on top of this woman's foot. She was ecstatic!

The second picture is what it looked like from the end of the line this morning. As of noon local time, the clinic team had already seen over 100 patients. There are probably 300 to go.

The third picture is what the inside of the clinic room looks like. There are a half dozen or more stations, each with people working. We don't know anything about eyes, so we don't have any idea what any of the stations are for, but this team is amazingly well organized and so talented!

The last picture is what an eye exam looks like here. Most people are illiterate, so the old letter sign isn't going to work. We have pictures. Some people are so blind that the skip the entire chart and go straight to counting fingers. If that doesn't work, then we start waving our arms and ask if they can see THAT! Sometimes the answer is no. It's sad that people have such severe vision problems, but that's why the team is here.

The residents from the Guatemalan Eye Team are here and are assisting in the Operating Room. They have also told the team that they can refer patients to them that the team couldn't finish here. What a tremendous blessing that is! We're hoping to invite the residents to dinner tonight so the rest of the team can get to meet them and hang out with them some.

Please pray for the clinic team to get finished seeing the huge line of patients before midnight tonight!!!!





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