Home.....More About Peru

With all the travel we did last week I've been wiped out. I rested Sunday after returning late Saturday, then worked from home Monday but have been in the office 9-hour days the rest of the week and catching up!  Thankful for the holiday today to catch up on things! Happy Fourth Everyone!!🎆

Here is some more information on my time in Peru.

We did SO much travel; a total of 6 flights in 7 days, plus way too many charter bus rides. (I get motion sickness often, so the buses are not my favorite).

Some statistics from our week:
  • 858 patients seen (Medical & Dental)
    • 180 were Dental (my team)
    • I personally pulled two teeth! 😛Can't say I ever thought I would do that, but it was super cool!!!
  • 1,344 Prescriptions filled
  • 25 wheelchairs assembled and given to individuals in need
  • Ministered to an Orphanage, Old folks home for abandoned older adults, a special needs school and the private Christian school that coordinated with us to hold the clinics.
  • 95 Salvations! 🙌
The dental team was awesome, and it was great to be a part of it. We set up the clinic on Monday morning and began seeing patients. I worked with Dr. Catherine who is a beast!  I was a little nervous at first, but we clicked and found it interesting. Aside from helping her chairside I also helped set up the sterilization area for instruments. Another interesting task, that I learned pretty quickly then helped to teach other people helping in the Dental area. We had two dentist total; Dr. Don was also amazing! His lovely wife Danita would see the patients and determine which tooth/how many teeth needed to be looked at. The great majority of what we did was pull teeth and give pain meds + antibiotics where needed. There were both adults and children in need of care. For the adult patients they had rotten and often abscessed and/or infected teeth so pulling them got them out of pain and then the meds would make sure they healed well and got better. Dr. Don pulled 9 teeth out of one patient alone! For the kiddos there were the same situation with bad teeth, but also quite a few that needed baby teeth pulled so the permanent teeth had space to come in.  When it wasn't too busy, we did a couple of "cleanings" which involved scaling with hand tools as that was all we could do with the lack of other instrumentation available. 
The teams grew close during this time, and I had a very lovely roommate.

It was a humbling and very fulfilling week.
Welcome to Peru! (at the airport)

Dr. Catherine & I

Med/Dental Teams joined for prayer before seeing patients

Pulling Teeth!


Part of the Medical Team - We had 7 Docs and several Nurses

Translator who gave up beautiful drawings!














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