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31 August 2014 – Five Medical Boat Missions Later…..

The "Georgia Team" - led by Tommy Halliburton

Yesterday I left the medical boat for the last time this year. And just like a scene from a hundred movies, I watched it until the very last visible second as we drove away. It’s been so hard to hold back the sadness as so many things were done “for the last time” this week. Cleaning up Friday afternoon after seeing 80 patients was quite difficult because I knew it was the last time we’d do it. My last chilly shower in brown Amazon water, the last devotional after supper on the boat, the ebullient joy of the team after completing an extremely successful week, the last dessert of passion fruit mousse layered over rich chocolate, the last glimpse of the southern cross on the dark horizon with a dazzling galactic swarm across the sky – all of this and more – for the last time.

We crossed over to the Rio Negro at about 11 PM and cruised upstream towards the boat’s docking point. I sat on the roof with six people from Georgia as we slipped under the spectacular bridge over the river, for the last time. It’s evident that my connection to the people of Amazonas is extraordinarily powerful. There was very little angst leaving my patients in Montana to come here for three months, probably because I knew my town is full of other good doctors. But here, I was usually the only doctor that anyone had seen for 2 or 3 years. In the region where we traveled this last week, there is one dentist for 27,000 people. He sees 5 – 8 people on weekdays only. The nurse in one town this week told me that if somebody had a terribly painful tooth problem today, he would not likely get to see a dentist until sometime in March next year.

The Bible calls us to “care for the least of those” among us. In some respects that includes the river people (ribeirinhos) and indigenous peoples of the Amazon. Yet when I’m with them, they don’t seem like any less than anybody else (does that make sense?). They are as full of laughter, hope, worry, love, pride, confidence, and uncertainty as people anywhere else. Hard physical work is an absolute reality for practically everybody. I have endless admiration for the man who fishes for most of the night and works his fields for most of the day. His wife is out there in the muddy fields with him, yet somehow caring for her several children. At 6 AM the children are in their school uniforms, waiting on a tiny wooden dock or along a rutted road for the yellow boat or battered van to take them to school. It seems that here, like almost everywhere, a focus of all the labor is to create a better life for their children. Yes, they lack an astonishing number of things that you’d feel are necessary in a decent home. But love and pride and a determination to create a better life are present in abundance. So, it’s with tremendous humility and admiration that I have the privilege of serving a few of their medical needs. They always thank me over and over with such gracious sincerity. But I feel so richly blessed and I’m so thankful for the opportunity to be here and share a moment of their lives.

This last team was from Macon, Georgia. Meeting them in the Manaus airport, my first impression was that I may not be able to understand their syrupy southern drawls! Nearly everyone on the team was older than me, too! They worked like a herd of teenagers every day, and we accomplished a tremendous amount of work. Our totals for the week were: 296 pairs of glasses fitted, 142 dental patients treated, and 651 medical patients served. There was one awesome dentist and one very talented surgeon on the team. The surgeon (Roy Smoot) was enthusiastic, very intelligent, funny, and quite capable of providing excellent basic medical care. He worked with a good translator, and one of his last patients had full-blown thyrotoxicosis. Like 50 other people that day, he came in with “a cough”, but Roy figured out the real problem and got him an accelerated referral (we hope) to an endocrinologist.

396 children came to us during the week. Most got a fluoride dental treatment, and all of them participated in a dozen splendid activities. The ladies on the team received gifts from many of them, Facebook friend requests, and struggled to not sneak several cute little kids into their bags to take home.

I can’t say enough good things about the team dentist, Richard Lipfert. Back in Georgia, he coordinates a small group of dentists who provide care in nursing homes. He therefore is very adept at pulling teeth while his patients are lying in their beds. This enabled him to set up dental work off the boat this week, in a school room, or corner of a church, or on somebody’s back porch like the rest of us. He usually set up two tables and was able to double the number of dental patients we usually see. While the anesthesia was kicking in on one patient, he could be pulling out the teeth of the person on the next table. And pull teeth he did! One (poor) guy required the removal of 16 (sixteen!) teeth. These were not teeth with modest cavities, these were teeth rotted to the gum line. Many had abscessed roots. Most of them broke into pieces as he worked them out. Richard was an absolute dynamo of good humor, compassion, and superb dentistry. Nearly every patient had two or more rotted teeth. He often worked well after dark. Four or five people usually helped him stay maximally efficient.