Today's Message Brought to You By the Letter "C"

Monday November 9th…

The 3rd day of the mission was just as busy as the others. 295 patients seen by the eye team today brings us up to around 800 total . For the 3rd day in a row, our efforts to finish by 5:00 were thwarted by the great demand. We finished around 6:20 today and were totally exhausted.

We helped some people with very high prescription to get glasses. We are seeing all ages on this mission and have had typically 10-15 each day that are in need of surgery, especially for cataracts. The sun exposure in equatorial areas plays a much more damaging role than in our latitude. Fortunately, we were able to bring along trunks of donated sunglasses to give away. Patients needing surgery are being recorded and we are hoping that arrangements will be made through the local hospital.

I also saw one of the worse eye infections I’ve seen in my career today. I treated her with our top-of-the-line antibiotics drops. Unfortunately, I expect her eye to be permanently scarred. She did have decent vision in her other eye.

There are 30 Rotarians staying in our hotel from Ontario Canada here on a wheelchair distribution mission. It is a small world when you are a Rotarian!

Spanish lesson - The “C” on the shower faucet stands for “caliente”, not “cold”. Katya found out the hard way!

Dinner tonight was at our hotel…a lovely restaurant called the 1822 Restaurant commemorating when Simon Bolivar came to Guayaquil to form his alliance. Excellent food and great conversation with Dr. Bob, Kay, and District Governor Connie recounting interesting aspects of past missions including varied "restroom" accommodations. Many belly laughs! Tomorrow we have an off day for sightseeing and the local Rotary meeting.