Inspired by True Events

Their hope incited him like a screaming crowd spurs on a tri-athlete.  Their unwavering faith moved him.  The belief that he was going to make them right with a couple of pills or an injection was painted on their dirty faces, and people took him by the arm on his way to the sickroom.  Flattering, but dangerous.  Especially when he knew he couldn’t fix them.

He raised a weathered hand and wiped little pearls of sweat off of his strong brow and carefully began to pick his way down the rocky slope to the hospital tent.  He felt the nausea of helplessness hit his stomach although this wasn’t his first rodeo.  Seeing their faces, glowing with hope and staring at him with pain poorly concealed behind anxious eyes gave him the adrenaline to work around the clock.  He understood enough Spanish to know that some of them had traveled from Honduras and El Salvador—and he understood enough about medicine to know that many of them didn’t stand a chance.  He was haunted by the smells of rancid flesh that hung over brittle skeletons, haunted by the image of tumors so extreme they seemed to be digitally mastered. 

His first trip to Guatemala as a college student had changed his life.  The sounds of muffled screams seemed to echo to him off the library walls at night and the feel of the hand saw beneath his trembling fingers kept him awake during his studying like a rumble strip on the freeway.  And every year, he came back to them with more knowledge to offer as he poured himself out surgery after surgery, slowly making a dent in the incessant lines so long they seemed to fade into the golden horizon.  He had worked night after night by the dim light produced by the generator with the rickety tools that were often improvised.

He remembered the pained looks and the brave nods as he watched understanding fall over their prematurely aged faces like a curtain.  “The chances aren’t good,” he would say, then wait for it to be translated from English to Spanish and oftentimes from Spanish to Quiche, Cakchiquel, Mam, or Tzutujil.  “There is a great likelihood that she will die in surgery,” pause for translation.  “The tumor is lodged too deep in her spine…she might survive but she will never walk again.”  Emotions are a universal language.  He didn’t need anyone to translate their reactions.  So many problems, so little time. 

He swept aside the bug net at the entrance to the tent, an attempt to keep a sterile environment.  He put on his white coat, took the handsanitizer the plucky student pumped into his hands and strapped on his mask.  “Ready?” he asked her.  She gave him a brave smile and nodded her head, strapping on her mask.  They walked in together and her steady hand held his tools, nothing more than saintly compassion keeping them rooted to the bed from which the putrid smell tried to drive them.