M*A*S*H

Today on our TWECS mission took a different twist! We arrived at our designated site in Basey Samar to find we had been "stood-up"!! Dr. Marina quickly made a phone call and we were on our way to the Tanauan City Hall Mayors Office where we got set up for a clinic there by 9AM. While there, one of our new volunteers, Randy an optician who hales from Morefield, Ontario performed some magic by fabricating a pair of -15.25 eye glasses for little Teresita a 56 year old who could only see to "Count Fingers" at 5ft. She is so tiny that Randy had to reconfigure the arms of the glasses to fit her small head. Just one of the miracles of today. Proud to work with you Randy.

Randy with Teresita

On a lighter note........

Our laugh for the day was a 76 year old woman who never wore glasses before and needed a pair of glasses for distance and reading.. we found her a perfect pair for her distance and she was elated how well she could see. When she was leaving she asked in all seriousness “do I have to take them off when I go to bed”.  We all had a good laugh! 

Rodger Konkle

M*A*S*H

I feel kinda like we are trapped in a mini series of MASH and I'm sitting in the swamp after another day in clinic.  Fortunately the swamp is an air conditioned hotel room with wifi, tv and a hot shower.  The OR has very little blood but gallons of sweat.  Like MASH we have triage and we don't fix everyone, but we all try and so far as far as I know no one has had a nervous breakdown or meltdown.  Eric Smart, O.D.

The dripping never stops for Derrick.....

Dr. Myrfield under a garbage bag to do retinoscopy

Toilet doesn't flush....that's what the blue dipper does.....hold it high and watch out for any back splash..
And no toilet paper allowed in the toilet bowl...it goes into a garbage bucket
also no light and lots of mosquitoes...so do your business quickly

BE A GOOD NEIGHBOUR

Miracles happen everyday on a TWECS project.  This lady needed some distance glasses and informed me everything was blurry. She couldn't read a single sign in the building or see any of the people in the clinic hall.  For the last 7 years she couldn't clearly see her family or grandchildren.  I asked her how she shopped when going to town?   She informed me that her neighbour was often kind enough to lend her glasses for a few hours and they helped. She left the clinic seeing perfectly.  Tears, a smile from ear to ear and a hug.  I wiped a tear from my eye and stopped for a moment, my world was perfect.  Doug Higginson

This billboard really hit home for the team.

Off to " Beautiful"

Our last day in Tanauan ended with a gracious send off party by 

Tanauan Mayor Pelagio Tecson Jr.

Total number of  patients served is 3607.  Tomorrow we head out bright and early at 6am for our final days of clinic at Basey Samar.  Basey is from the Waray word meaning "beautiful" 

Thank you Mayor Pelagio Tecson.

Dispensary 

Aerial view of clinic

Patients waiting for station 3-triage

Registration

Packing up boxes for our next destination

                                           

                                          Elvie prepping the crowd for the visual acuity station which uses the tumbling  E's

Lay out of our 11,798 eyeglasses




A couple of our patients

All the sweat is worth it.....

The last couple days of clinic have passed really quickly, yet each day feels epic and cinematic.  And super sweaty!  So many things happen in almost every moment, and over the course of a day you go through a full range of emotions.

 Ready to see the cutest kid ever? 

He is 4 years old, and is already a -12 diopter myope. We actually saw him when we were here last time directly after the typhoon, and gave him his first pair of glasses. His mom (who of course is also highly myopic) brought him in this time to show us just how well he is doing.  She waited in line all day with him, to have him checked again, to thank us, and to deliver a handwritten letter she prepared to express her feelings. Since getting his glasses he is excelling socially and is one of the top pupils in his elementary school. He is blossoming. In a way that would never have been possible.  His presence was so refreshing to the team, and inspired us in the middle of a hot, challenging day. 

The same day we saw a man with the most horrifically gnarly glasses tied around his neck. The people I work with will particularly appreciate the appearance of the nose pad/bridge area of his frame! 

Zoom in for full effect

At first glance, of course, the first reaction is: oh, gross!  But with some reflection, it highlights the importance of those glasses in his life. They have been repaired and torqued so many times they are almost unrecognizable as the frames they once were, but to this man they are of vital importance. Of course we provided him a couple of replacements, and will hold onto the photo as a memory of the importance of vision correction in daily life. 

Today I had one of the most amazing experiences of my entire professional career.  A 28 year old woman, named Cherita (very close derivative of my own sister's name) went through Walley's station of auto refraction and he brought her to my attention.  She lost her glasses in the typhoon two years ago, and her uncorrected distance vision is what we call "counting fingers", which means quite literally she can only tell how many fingers you are holding up 2 feet from her eyes. 

Her glasses are only one small part of what she lost in the typhoon: she lost both her parents, her husband, and her three year old child. Her life had been literally stripped bare of everything.  She feels the only reason she survived is that she is a good swimmer.  It is essentially impossible to imagine how she must feel.

In addition to all of the heartache she has had to endure, she has been living functionally blind over the last two years. She had a complicated prescription, -9 in one eye and -11 in the other with oblique astigmatism in both.  It is a very unlikely Rx to find in our inventory, but I found an absolutely perfect match for this woman. And I found it, amongst the thousands in our inventory, almost effortlessly.  This has happened on several previous occasions on these trips, and I cannot describe the experience as anything but a spiritual moment.  

The glasses that someone back in Canada had donated were not only the exact complicated prescription, but fit her face so perfectly that they instantly appeared to be her own. I will hang onto that moment for the rest of my life. In an instant the entire effort of this trip was made completely worthwhile.  

            All our love, Brad McDougall OD