28. August 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

Although it looks like I’m having a bad hair day, nothing could be further from the truth.  Saturday’s Brujogol Futbol game was a resounding success.  I am a member of the hospital’s volunteer group that supports the Hogar Materno (Maternity Home), a home for soon-to-birth mothers who come down from the mountain aldeas to have their babies.  These folks are very poor and the home is available to them at 20 lempiras (one dollar) a day.  If they can’t pay no one is turned away.  We raised more than 20,000 lempiras for the Hogar Materno this weekend.  A very good day indeed.  One of the goalies is a physician in town, wearing the teddy bear on his head.  Miraculously, it stayed on for the entire game.  The lovely lady in the red uniform is my new La Paz PCV site mate, Glenn from South Carolina.  Ana in the yellow uniform is the oldest child at the Hogar San Jose at 12 y.o.  Final score: Red Team 10, Yellow Team 6.

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22. August 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

La Paz didn’t have one available.  Neither did Comayagua, a larger city 30 minutes away.  Nor did La Ceiba, Honduras’ third largest city on the Caribbean coast where Dr Lizano and I visited two weekends ago.  This weekend we were in Tegucigalpa where Dignora and I went to pick up two AFS students from Belgium who would be spending a year in La Paz living with a Honduran family and attending classes: two young ladies who speak French, English and Dutch.  Now they will learn Spanish as well.  In the capitol city I finally located my trampoline after five stops: at Sears.  My Occupational Therapist gave me a series of exercises to do while in Honduras, one included throwing a basketball at a propped up trampoline three times a day in order to exercise my injured arm’s muscles.  I finally got it Tony!  And yes, that pink tunnel is the stairway where I fell head first and almost killed myself on that fateful day on February 9th, six months ago.  The students carried it up a second staircase to the roof where I will finally be able to do that exercise until the day I return to Seattle on 10 September for my last surgery scheduled for September 21st.

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19. August 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

They came bearing gifts.  Food products, a pinata and hands-on labor were donated by the local supermarket chain ‘La Despensa’ and the dozen or so employees who arrived with smiles and an abundance of energy.  They had prepared a lunch for the children and cleaned the premises and joined the children for the pinata massacre afterward; a fantastic afternoon filled with compassion, camaraderie and love for one’s fellow citizens.  How I love this country.

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8. August 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

What a busy day!  I attended Sunday mass with Sister Edith and the children.  I am not much for religious dogma, however I felt an obligation to step forth my first Sunday back home to thank the folks who had been praying for my successful surgery and recuperation from my elbow fracture.  I am touched to the core at the care and consideration exhibited in my behalf.  I am glad I went to church today.  After we returned to the Hogar San Jose we received an evangelical medical brigade from Kentucky in the US affiliated with the Mission Caribe who tended to the children’s dental needs.  They cleaned teeth and extracted a few and provided dental hygiene education.  Since my return I have stayed busy every day tending to my projects.  Tomorrow I travel to Tegucigalpa for my own dental appointment to tend to a sore tooth.  Next weekend I travel to La Ceiba on the Caribbean coast with a physician friend.  More adventures later.  I am so glad to be home.

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18. July 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

I had an appointment with my orthopedist today.  I have been scheduled for my final elbow surgery on 14 September.  Inasmuch as the fisioterapia is not helping much, however, the doc has allowed me to spend the intervening 5 weeks in Honduras.  I will be back in my apartment in La Paz the first week of August and I will return to Seattle in September for my last operation and an additional three months of convalescence.  My next posting will originate from Centro America!

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4. July 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

My previous two 4th of July holidays have been celebrated out of the country.  This year, dos mil once, I am in Seattle.  Having been back in the States for five months I have mixed emotions over what I have experienced since my temporary return.  First and foremost I have had to reconcile myself to the fact that I am not going anywhere until my arm heals.  This was cemented in my mind after the first ineffective surgery back in February.  I am now one month postop from my second surgery and realizing that a positive mental outlook is essential to eventual recovery I dedicate myself to my daily fisioterapia routine and try to smile despite the pain.  In addition I continue my thrice weekly visits to my friend Tony Dao, the Hand Specialist, for it is the daily therapy that will help prepare me for an eventual release to duty.  Every day I hope that the muscle and tendon stretching exercises will take hold and remain permanent.  For the alternative to no progress is further surgery.  So I view the next two months as crucial; by the end of August there should be enough improvement to determine which path will be followed as I continue a routine that I hope will return me to Honduras soon.

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16. June 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

Sixteen days postop today.  My arm movement has improved considerably.  I’m doing things I have been unable to do since my accident in February: like touch my nose.   The daily Occupational Therapy sessions however are painful ordeals that must be endured if any progress is to be made.  I am fortunate to have a terrific therapist, a Hand Specialist who is one of the best in the business.  Tony Dao keeps his patients focused and motivated as he works through the pain with a sense of humor urging you to commit for yet another pull or push on the muscles before finally turning you loose.  For me, the exercises continue at home every two hours until 6PM (only I’m a tad more gentle).  Only to begin again at 9 in the morning.  This is what my life is like these days.  One looming possibility keeps me working as hard as possible: another surgery.  If so, it would be the last, and I hope it is done right away, if that is what they decide.  I have a doc’s appt to take out the sutures Monday, I’ll learn more then.  I continue to be in touch with my colleagues in Honduras and learned that the personeria juridica has finally been aprroved by the federal government.  The nun is so happy.  Now we must maneuver through the local bureaucrats to finalize the legal documentation.  One of my fondest desires is to be back in La Paz when the ground is broken on the new building.

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13. June 2011 by admin.

xx

On this date we traveled to my daughter’s mountain cabin in the North Cascades to get away from crowded city life for the weekend.  Hiking the rural country roads and steep mountainsides helped me clear my brain for the rigors of further surgery.  Nothing however can really innure one to the pain accompanying medical treatment that requires slicing deep into muscle and tissue and manipulating bones and nerves into a hopefully healthier alignment.  I thought I had lost these pics and is why they are out of sequence.

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28. May 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

Each week that goes by, each month that goes by, leaves me feeling more and more helpless and out of control.  Uunimaginable bureaucratic obstacles have become a way of life and each one after the other seems to be competing for inanity.  During my convalesence I have become addicted to the movie “Avatar.”  A feeling of lonliness and despair that I have never before experienced has transported me into a fantasy world where I yearn to go home, trying to avoid time-consuming idiocies continuously thrust onto my path.  Honduras has become my Pandora, my home planet, and like Jake, I want to go home.  My surgery has been rescheduled from May 18th to May 25th and most recently, again, to June 1st.  What can I do….  Turuk Macto will fly again!

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30. April 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

I will be going under the knife again on May 18th.  The orthopod doing the surgery is the premier ‘locked elbow guy’ in the Pacific Northwest.  He tells me I’ll be home in Honduras in four months: August.  I believe him.  To stay in contact with my friends and colleagues in La Paz I call home frequently; I am still after all a member of the Health Project team there and merely on medical convalescence leave.  Improvements continue at the Hogar San Jose.  Sor Edith tells me a new roof on a large room designated as a classroom is being constructed by the soldiers from Palmerola Air Base who occasionally come to build things, like our chicken coop.  The quest for the personeria juridica continues to be just that, a quest.  Edith told me our lawyers are still mired in bureaucratic negotiations with the government.  The children are well but a few are coming down with the sniffles; the rainy season has started.  I am fortunate to be recuperating in Seattle surrounded by family whom I love dearly.  We are preparing a gift box with clothing and toys for the children, everyone contributing something.  My next post will most likely be after my surgery and three-day hospital stay.  Wish me luck.

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