Lila Mayes' Story...
We work very closely with a physician group that live year round in Guatemala; This is our referral base for the patients that we care for when we work at the charity hospital in Antigua, Guatemala.
Many of the patient's that we care for come form very rural areas in Guatemala and travel for many hours to days on buses to come to us for surgery. One little boy, 10 years of age came from his village with his older brother, 14, because the entire family could not afford to travel. The little boy did not speak Spanish, but his brother did speak some limited Spanish along with the native Mayan language.
The family was very proud of the fact that they had managed to save 100 Q's (the Guatemalan currency) and had sent the money with the older son. The little boy was very stoic and brave through all of the preop process and did not reveal his fright until actually walking to the OR. At this point he started to cry, this of course started me to cry as well.
Knowing that I would have never been able to send my 10 year old son off alone to have surgery, I took him under my wing. I approached the older brother and explained to him that his brother may need extra food or medicine to heal after his surgery and gave him back the 100 Q's from my own personal money.
Guatemalan people are very proud people and I knew that I needed to give the money in a way that it would not offend the parents. To put it into perspective, 100 Q's probably took the family months to save, and it equals approx $12 American. One of the older patient's saw me do this and gave me the "thumbs up" as I explained that I too was a Madre. There are many more stories that I have experienced in the last 7 years, and hope to experience in the years to come.
Lila Mayes RN
Bethlehem Member
