From the Famous Tweedledee and Tweedledum (Helen and Sarah)

We started out the morning with our usual breakfast downstairs, which is quickly becoming our favorite meal. Rice is served far too often and it might just be adding a few pounds to the hips :). We headed to the clinical site where we were greeted with smiling patients already lined up to be seen. One of the most rewarding feelings that we all experience each and every day is having patients grab our hands and thank us over and over again for being here and helping them. Today was less chaotic in intake and vital signs since our team has the system down now [and also because Helen and Sarah were in charge of crowd control :)]

After lunch, we experienced the full effect of Vietnam’s monsoon season. In fact, before we left the hotel to head back to the clinic, we saw children laying in the busy street and swimming in the rainwater while motorcycles and cars were flying by. It was a scary sight to see! When the rain hit the clinic, we all really came together as a team and helped out at every station in order to get the job done. Bob, Sarah, and Kyle were able to hopefully save a man’s life today, as they not only convinced him to stop smoking, but he handed over his full pack of cigarettes as well as the lighter (which Sarah promptly threw away). Another thing that struck us is that so many patients have hypertension, and they are not educated on how to take their medications. They believe that they are going to get immune to their medications, so they take it when they feel sick or dizzy instead of daily. This has given us the opportunity to teach them the importance of compliance and their also their health.

We had a group meeting tonight and discussed how we would describe this experience to other people. Kevin made a good point tonight about how disconnected we are in America because we have lost the concept of healing through touch due to our personal boundaries. In addition, Freida, Kim, and Katie stated that love has no boundaries and that we are all the same. We have all grown and learned so much thus far and we are all looking forward to the experiences and challenges that lie ahead of us. We will end this day with more laughs and more love than we thought our hearts could hold.