Week one. Patient reflections.

It's been a good first week so far. I had the fortune of traveling out to Oropesa, which serves as an inpatient facility for San Andres. Truthfully, it is hospice. Nearly each patient is dying of metastatic cancer. I was surprised how ok I was in the moment.

I think it all comes down to the fact that I've always believed that healing has two sides. The first is more obvious to us in the states, dodge death. But of course we all have to pass. Thus second is to find peace before death. So given that goal, I'm completely comfortable with the state these patients are in. 

They're being given the most loving care in their last moments. The nurses and doctors aren't afraid to touch them. Which in the states, we never do, almost as though  touching a patient would give them more anxiety about the spread of disease, or maybe it would infringe on personal space. Or worse, be considered unprofessional. But people need that to feel whole. The hermanas have something right here. 

The atmosphere of this place is almost ethereal. Hymns play softly and everywhere you turn is bathed in light. Patients are encouraged to go outside and sit the courtyard. And rested in the mountains with nothing else in sight, you really feel like this is just a waiting room for whatever happens next. So I'm not surprised that so many patients seem at peace here. They're being taken care of so lovingly and spiritually. Those haven't been my experiences back in the US. 

 

That's not to say that there wasn't some patients that disturbed me. If you become paraplegic in Cuzco or suffer cephallic trauma, this is also where you will go. Because the city isn't made for you. The sidewalks can become barely large enough for youthful, lean bodies to squeeze through at points. They're not built for wheel chairs. 

Nope.

So for those patients, who are still young, still yearing to live life and contribute, you could say that I'm disturbed. Not with the hermana's care. They do their best and even offer jobs when they can. I'm disturbed that the society they were born in is so mal adapted to include them, that they might as well have metastatic cancer. It's just over at that point, and unless they can learn to walk, they will never fully return to their world.  They're waiting for a miracle or they're waiting to die. Just like the others who live at Oropesa. 

And these patients may have difficulty speaking, but they're not dumb. They know the life they're missing, the life of the walking. I was taking photos of the mountains, but you can see the physical therapy bars in them. I watched a young man, determined as hell, struggling to walk across those for two hours. He went their on his own. Sure enough, every time you looked out of the window, there he was. Striving to walk. Fiercely determined. Because only those who walk will be invited back into society. 

One of the hermana's said "we find them in the streets, crawling like cats". Or they're brought in when their bed sores have over taken them. 

All I can say is thank God, there's the hermanas. At least one group of people who would support someone when their family no longer has the resources and they have to reluctantly abandon them. It's a sad situation and they're trying to make the best of it. 

I wish we did more fundraising.