So there we were in the speeding ambulance, me sitting in a wheelchair; I refused to lie on a stretcher.  An ambulance nurse at my side, the paramedic at the wheel, we raced along at top speed the whole three blocks from Harborview Med Center to Virginia Mason Hospital up on Seattle’s Pill Hill.  We laughed all the way.  A nurse was necessary for this transfer for radiation treatment to my elbow the day after surgery because I had a continuous narcotic IV infusion going.  Focusing on the moment, spaced out on legal pain meds, I asked Jana: “What do you do with the old ambulances when you guys buy new ones?”  After I explained that our hospital in La Paz, La Paz, Honduras could use a donated ambulance, she said that I should talk to management but that it was certainly doable.  The company had previously driven a donated ambulance to a Central American country.  The ensuing conversation led to even bigger possibilities so that by the first of next year when I return to La Paz we are now tentatively planning to drive a  donated ambulance to Honduras filled with expired medical supplies otherwise headed to the scrap heap in the States.  On the return trip from Virginia Mason Hospital to Harborview Med Center, the driver turned on the red flashing lights and siren and gunned it.   That, my friends, is called networking with styyle.

Yup, it happened again.  Surgery rescheduled until next Wednesday the 12th of October.  I suspect stupidity or incompetence on the part of the orthopedic surgery schedulers.  Probably both.  The exact thing happened the last time I had surgery as well, back in May.  I won’t excuse my feelings of bitterness.  I’m entitled.  The view above is a 180 degree pan of my daughter’s backyard where I exercise and read.  Each delay means additional weeks of physical therapy before I can be cleared for a return to duty.  Sure, a nice place to linger.  But it sounds too much like malinger, and I’m not built that way.  I want to get this over so I can return to work.

The Monday after I returned from Honduras I jumped in my Honda Civic Hydrid and drove down to California to visit family and friends before I’m grounded for 4 months.  The drive through the Siskiyou Mountains, a spiritual experience, punched deep into the forest, a vast kaleidoscope in multi-hued shades of green.  Miles and miles of towering evergreen trees on each side as I climbed up a twisting four-lane Interstate-5 that reached its highest point on I-5 between the Mexican and Canadian borders: a 4,340-foot-high pass in Oregon, its steep, curving downgrades swooping steadily downward until we crossed into California and then continuing the curvaceous mountainous plunge reaching Lake Shasta at the foot of the dormant snow-covered volcano; Mt. Shasta.  The enormous Sacramento Valley stretched out toward the delta, and with a turn to the right onward toward San Francisco and the Bay Area along the mighty Sacramento River.  Straight south, however, sprawled the even more enormous San Joaquin Valley.  I had not seen many of my people for almost 3 years.  Some longer than that.  It’s been said that one can’t ever go home again.  I believe it’s mostly true.  I saw very few of my family and friends; they were busy living their own lives.  I did enjoy the long drive and the many changes.  On my return trip, in a nostalgic, wistful frame of mind, I recognized that the past was irrecoverable, however a future filled with many wonderful things beckoned ahead.  I arrived in Seattle to learn that my surgery had been postponed once again until October 5th.  C’est la vie.

My last Sunday in La Paz I accompanied Sor Edith and the children to Mass.  Wednesday, my last day in town, our support group that is spearheading the construction of the new building for the Fundacion Senor San Jose had a meeting at the Hogar to tighten up last minute bureaucratic legalese and to have a mini-despedida for me.  We made first-class hamburgers for the children with mustard, mayonnaise, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and potato chips.  Ground-breaking for our new home for the children is scheduled to begin in October.  The building will be completely furnished with all new equipment and with a new well sunk for 24-hour water availability.  We hope to make the facility a model for the country.  I flew into Seattle last night for the last surgery to my elbow scheduled for 21 September.  Unfortunately I will miss the ground-breaking, but I will return to La Paz in January 2012 to continue the work Sor Edith and I began so long ago.

Although it looks like I’m having a bad hair day, nothing could be further from the truth.  Saturday’s Brujogol Futbol game was a resounding success.  I am a member of the hospital’s volunteer group that supports the Hogar Materno (Maternity Home), a home for soon-to-birth mothers who come down from the mountain aldeas to have their babies.  These folks are very poor and the home is available to them at 20 lempiras (one dollar) a day.  If they can’t pay no one is turned away.  We raised more than 20,000 lempiras for the Hogar Materno this weekend.  A very good day indeed.  One of the goalies is a physician in town, wearing the teddy bear on his head.  Miraculously, it stayed on for the entire game.  The lovely lady in the red uniform is my new La Paz PCV site mate, Glenn from South Carolina.  Ana in the yellow uniform is the oldest child at the Hogar San Jose at 12 y.o.  Final score: Red Team 10, Yellow Team 6.

La Paz didn’t have one available.  Neither did Comayagua, a larger city 30 minutes away.  Nor did La Ceiba, Honduras’ third largest city on the Caribbean coast where Dr Lizano and I visited two weekends ago.  This weekend we were in Tegucigalpa where Dignora and I went to pick up two AFS students from Belgium who would be spending a year in La Paz living with a Honduran family and attending classes: two young ladies who speak French, English and Dutch.  Now they will learn Spanish as well.  In the capitol city I finally located my trampoline after five stops: at Sears.  My Occupational Therapist gave me a series of exercises to do while in Honduras, one included throwing a basketball at a propped up trampoline three times a day in order to exercise my injured arm’s muscles.  I finally got it Tony!  And yes, that pink tunnel is the stairway where I fell head first and almost killed myself on that fateful day on February 9th, six months ago.  The students carried it up a second staircase to the roof where I will finally be able to do that exercise until the day I return to Seattle on 10 September for my last surgery scheduled for September 21st.

They came bearing gifts.  Food products, a pinata and hands-on labor were donated by the local supermarket chain ‘La Despensa’ and the dozen or so employees who arrived with smiles and an abundance of energy.  They had prepared a lunch for the children and cleaned the premises and joined the children for the pinata massacre afterward; a fantastic afternoon filled with compassion, camaraderie and love for one’s fellow citizens.  How I love this country.

What a busy day!  I attended Sunday mass with Sister Edith and the children.  I am not much for religious dogma, however I felt an obligation to step forth my first Sunday back home to thank the folks who had been praying for my successful surgery and recuperation from my elbow fracture.  I am touched to the core at the care and consideration exhibited in my behalf.  I am glad I went to church today.  After we returned to the Hogar San Jose we received an evangelical medical brigade from Kentucky in the US affiliated with the Mission Caribe who tended to the children’s dental needs.  They cleaned teeth and extracted a few and provided dental hygiene education.  Since my return I have stayed busy every day tending to my projects.  Tomorrow I travel to Tegucigalpa for my own dental appointment to tend to a sore tooth.  Next weekend I travel to La Ceiba on the Caribbean coast with a physician friend.  More adventures later.  I am so glad to be home.

I had an appointment with my orthopedist today.  I have been scheduled for my final elbow surgery on 14 September.  Inasmuch as the fisioterapia is not helping much, however, the doc has allowed me to spend the intervening 5 weeks in Honduras.  I will be back in my apartment in La Paz the first week of August and I will return to Seattle in September for my last operation and an additional three months of convalescence.  My next posting will originate from Centro America!

My previous two 4th of July holidays have been celebrated out of the country.  This year, dos mil once, I am in Seattle.  Having been back in the States for five months I have mixed emotions over what I have experienced since my temporary return.  First and foremost I have had to reconcile myself to the fact that I am not going anywhere until my arm heals.  This was cemented in my mind after the first ineffective surgery back in February.  I am now one month postop from my second surgery and realizing that a positive mental outlook is essential to eventual recovery I dedicate myself to my daily fisioterapia routine and try to smile despite the pain.  In addition I continue my thrice weekly visits to my friend Tony Dao, the Hand Specialist, for it is the daily therapy that will help prepare me for an eventual release to duty.  Every day I hope that the muscle and tendon stretching exercises will take hold and remain permanent.  For the alternative to no progress is further surgery.  So I view the next two months as crucial; by the end of August there should be enough improvement to determine which path will be followed as I continue a routine that I hope will return me to Honduras soon.