Mango Tree 2010 Poem

Neath the spreading mango tree, the village poet sits,
And dreams of someplace far away, alone with all his wits.
Where roosters do not crow at night, where food tastes just like home,
Where roads are smooth and flat and clean, where deer and antelope roam.

Where motorcycles and music are not heard in your bed,
Where cats and dogs and horses, need not to be fed.
A loving face, a warm embrace, a truck and one-eyed dog,
K-State playing KU, a friendly burning log.

The largest mango hanging there, weighs in about 2 pounds
And falls from 30 feet above, and goes directly down.
It drops at 20 miles per hour, and quickly finds its mark
Upon the poets cerebellum, then later turns it dark.

Reality has just set in, he is no longer there,
In some wheat field in Kansas, with lots of wind to share.
The poet staggers to his feet, and feels for liquid red,
Or signs of permanent damage, upon his swollen head.

The mango is a tasty fruit, its juice runs down your chin.
But strings that stick between your teeth, and one huge seed within.
The skin is thick, you need a knife, to stick it deeply in,
Then pull it back, insert your teeth, and eat it with a grin.

He sees the mango laying there, so innocent and sweet,
And wonders why his God above, had not made him retreat.
Why the Lord had chosen him, to suffer such a blow?
What had he done to deserve this? Why he did not know.

Why did He not let other fruit, fall from distant limbs?
Why had God let this one fruit, fall straight down on him?
Perhaps he had done something, to bring about God’s wrath.
Perhaps the road he walked upon, was not the proper path.

No matter what the answer is, sometimes we need a jolt.
A painful strong reminder, a celestial thunderbolt.
That we aren’t here forever, we don’t have long to live.
The past is not the present, our bodies are a sieve.

We cannot always be where we, find comfort in our places.
But we can make the best of them, with smiles upon our faces.
And find the fun and love from One, who gave his life for us.
The One who knows where mangos fall, the One whom we should trust.

So bloom where you are planted, and do what you can do,
To make the world a better place, and to your God be true.

Interesting Cases from Monte Plata 2010

March 2, 2010

Each year when I return from the mission trip, I am asked what kind of things did you see and what kind of surgeries did you do. This list is in response to those questions.

1. I saw 180 patients in consultation and of that we did surgery on around 120 total.

2. Two different children with developmental handicaps probably from birth. One was a 4 year old with a sebaceous cyst of the scalp. Not unusual in adults but not seen much in kids.

3. A child of 6-7 years with handicaps that prevent talking and he had trouble walking. His mother carried a towel at all times because of his salivation. She thought that maybe he was tongue tied and we could fix it. Unfortunately, not so. I saw her later sitting outside feeding him an ice cream cone and using the towel wipe his chin.

4. A 40 year old male with a 3-4 inch wound on his left cheek where he received a machete cut while he was working. It occurred a year ago and was never sutured or cared for. We revised the scar and made it look much better.

5. A 14 year old girl with a thyroglossal duct cyst showed up the last day after we had filled the schedule and couldn’t remove it.

6. Saw a lady with heavy menstrual bleeding that needed a hysterectomy. She was seen on Thursday and scheduled for the following Tuesday. We ordered a hemoglobin only to make sure she wasn’t’ too anemic. On Monday she came in and said she couldn’t get the test done because they only do Hemoglobin test on Wed at the lab. We checked and found out that was true, but they could do a CBC any day….

7. We received referrals for patients who needed surgery from local doctors, our current clinic providers, and from prior project providers who knew we would be coming. We also saw patients who just wanted a second opinion from the North American docs to see if it agreed with their local doc.

8. An 88 year old lady who had a massive ventral incisonal hernia that encompassed the entire abdominal wall. She was very frail and not a candidate due to her age and the extent of her condition.

9. Saw an OB patient for a second opinion because her local doc told her she would need to have a C Section because she had an inguinal hernia that happened to be asymptomatic.

10. A 3 year old boy was brought by his mother. He seemed to be normal except his legs were atrophied and he couldn’t walk. She wanted to know if I could remove the lump over his sacrum. When I checked, there was a scar over a 15 cm myelomeningocel that he had closed at birth. I said no.

11. Elderly male patient with a hernia that had a BP of 209/117. He was asymptomatic and used to take pills for his blood pressure but not now. Sent him to our clinic which was 10 kilometers away for treatment of his BP before considering a hernia repair

12. Young man came in with his mother with an ingrown toenail. He was very disrespectful to his mother. I couldn’t tell if it was that or if he was mentally retarded. That behavior was very unusual.

13. A 10 day old little girl with a large inflammatory mass on her left breast. It may have been an infected bug bite. She had already seen her doc the day before and given antibiotics (IV) and the parents were given the antibiotic but no syringe to give it with.

14. A 3 month old with a large umbilical hernia and a small inguinal hernia. We told his mother to bring him back next year to be evaluated for one or both hernias.

15. A 3 year old with small lesions all over his body. She wanted them cut out, but it was molluscum contagiosum which is a self limiting viral type of infection that will go away in 6 weeks to 3 months by itself.

16. I saw several recurrent lipomas that we had taken off in the past. Kind of unusual.

17. In the DR you can classify inguinal hernias as small that can only be found on detailed inguinal exam (turn your head and cough), medium ones that are obvious and easily seen. The last are the large ones that you can diagnose without the patient having to pull his trousers down. I saw an old man with what looked like a large hernia, till he pulled a standard flashlight out of his front pocket.

18. A lady came in to see if we could remove the sty that she had on her left eye lid for the last 9 months.

19. A young man in his 20’s came in for a hernia. Exam revealed enlarged inguinal lymph nodes not a hernia. Further exam revealed a late stage penile cancer.

20. Saw a lot of hand and feet problems, such as ganglion cysts of hand and feet as well as corns calluses’ and bunions.

21. A young lady with a breast mass present during pregnancy and continuing 1 month after quitting breast feeding. Probable mastitis.

22. A 10 year old who came in with a 4 in fluctuant mass on his scalp that began shortly after his hair cut that turned out to be an abscess. We take the cleanliness of our barbers for granted.

23. A man we did a hernia operation on came to the hospital in a brand new pair of tennis shoes. His mother came with him also his brother who was wearing only flip flops. When our patient went into surgery, his brother borrowed the new tennis shoes and took then out for a test walk only to return about an hour later, right as his brother was returning from surgery in time to change shoes.

24. We only had one near miss on a wrong site surgery. Classic example of multiple system failures. Fortunately, it was caught at the last step before surgery and corrected.