Week #86 - 14 to go, and trunky?

We have just 14 weeks left before our scheduled return to Canada. Am I trunky (i.e., ready to go home)? In many ways, yes, if only because I am getting worn down by what I call injustice fatigue. One of my mission tasks is to review all of the requests for humanitarian aid for completeness and fit with the Area priorities - 74 proposals so far this year. No organization has a budget that can support all of them. It isn't so much being always emersed in poverty topics as it is how so much could be prevented and alleviated if more timely action could be taken.

It is Easter Sunday. We celebrate the resurrection of our Saviour - He is risen! Our son Levi and his bride to be, Beth Rice of Burdett, shared news of their engagement to be married - we are so happy for them!

Today I hope an injury of a different type of mine is well on the mend. I was awarded a blue belt in BJJ at my gym in February (my beating was much kinder than others, no blood was spilt). About three weeks ago in a BJJ roll I reached from my position on the ground to redirect my advancing opponent and somehow connected with him with my left-hand pinky finger - I heard a snap and while my mouth said "I think its broken", we paused only just long enough for me to splint it to the next finger and we continued the roll...and I continued to roll for the next two weeks but it wasn't healing. After considerable "enouragement" from Sister Schlachter, then from our kids and finally one of my BJJ coaches, I got an X-ray. 

The tecnologist advised me to see a doctor asap - I was able to set up an appointment on-line and had surgery later that evening at a private "destination hospital" (with its own branded slippers) after some tests "because you are old" at a different destination hospital emergency that didn't have a bed for me after I had already checked in - no room at Hospital San Angel Inn. I made an initial installment of $2000 pesos when I registered in the emergency for the surgery, and much later, laying all but naked on a gurney just before seeing the anesthesiologist, because I didn't have private Mexican health insurance, they got my credit card from my personal effects so I could make an additional $130,000 peso installment. My card initially didn't have enough credit on it so they left me for a bit to sort that out and in the interim, a doctor approached me asking how I was going to settle his bill - he wanted $2500 pesos and wouldn't take a credit card. He settled for the $2300 pesos cash I had brought with me. Hard to barter when you're on a gurney and they control the IV feed...

The X-ray of the repaired compound fracture looked like the surgeon had tied the bones together with #9 baling wire and a pliers and left a piece sticking out - I envisionned having to return to get the wire removed. The next day when I saw the surgeon again he explained that they inserted a steel plate to which the bone fragments are attached with screws - the tail is a pin that will be removed in a week's time at my next appointment with him. No baling wire and no follow up surgery.  His and his surgical team's bill was $33,000 pesos - they are not employees of the hospital.  In the end the hospital's fees were only $103,000 pesos.  The week prior we were at another event at a technical highschool that trains its students to be nurses - they took us on a tour of their facilities which were very humble with very little in the way of equipment - similar to where they would someday find themselves working  - the tour included an operating theater - the patient was still awake.  Our donation was medicines - public hospitals do not have access to medicine to treat their patients - some awful foreshadowing for my own surgery albeit at one of the best hospitals in Mexico.

The morning after I got home from my surgery, I began to have difficulty breathing and wondered if I was having a heart attack - I WhatsApp'd the surgeon who had me stop taking a couple of the medications with instructions to go to the emergency if things worsened. I consulted our mission doctor who told me that sometimes when they do an arm "block" for hand surgery the nerve that controls the diaphram can also be affected, 99% of the time its function returns to normal - I hope this blessing will be mine. Just in the last couple of hours there has been a noticeable improvement but I have to make myself breath, its not automatic. I can walk only a sort distance and climbing even a few stairs leaves me winded. My CPAP machine has allowed me to sleep. If it were to be permanent,  almost everything would need to change.  I hope I am ready.  

We have been to a number of protocolario events since my my last blog post in September. These events mark the beginning of a project. All are notable but one with an organization called Vida Independiente stands out as it and the people we met there and their passion for what they do are unforgettable. Vida Independiente donates "active" wheel chairs to people as part of its efforts to help them find joy in their lives and live independently without being a burden on their families. Almost all of their beneficiaries suddenly became wheelchair users as a result of car/motorcycle accidents or as victims of armed assaults. 

The health and emergency health care system in Mexico is fragmented, underfunded and quality of care is generally poor or care is not available at all - even if you have insurance. It is a miracle that any of these individuals lived. The founder is an incredible example of faith and endurance, himself quadriplegic as a result of a diving accident and the ambulance carrying him to get help crashing and rolling en-route to the hospital. Some say he cheated the Devil twice. He is the loving and ever assertive patriarch of a regional community of wheelchair users of all ages. They not only give away wheelchairs but they teach the recipients how to make best use of them, life skills and help in the transition from "why me? to helping them discover and pursue their new purpose in life on wheels. CDMX has very little in the way of infrastructure accommodations for people with disabilities and because the lack of personal security is widespread, the prospect of having a stranger take a risk to try to help is rare. Wheelchair recipients are taught how to climb and descend stairs, curbs, holes in the street and to right themselves if they get turned over -it is quite amazing but the only way to be independent. 

At the event the founder shared his perspective that loosing something i.e., even your house, is nothing, losing your health/mobility is something of importance but loosing your faith is loosing everything that matters. Of wheelchair donations, he said that without training and support the donation is a coffin on wheels, unmet expectations lead to apathy with respect to self-care. Pressure sores are soon left undetected and as the beneficiaries have no feeling nor bowel/bladder control the sores are very soon infected, and without access to medical care these individuals quickly die of blood poisoning. In the 40 plus years he has been a wheelchair user he has said goodbye to so many people that he hoped to help. 

I am working with one of the organization's graduates that still comes out regularly to help others learn how to use their wheelchair to see if he can find better employment. He works as a life coach and gym trainer but gets paid less than the people that sweep the floors in the same establishment. He had a good job in an aluminum foundry but was gunned down in the street here in CDMX in 2020 - he still has two bullets in his body and they removed half of his liver, his pancreas and a kidney to save his life. After a two-month induced coma he awoke paralyzed from his waist down. It took him a couple of years to move past "why me?" and to put his life back together. He has a wife and an outlook and a smile that can heal a multitude of disappointments and pain. I so want him and this organization to succeed. The Church donated 285 active wheelchairs to them to place. We are also working with them to develop a regional project to increase the scope of their work. 

In my miracles bucket, one of our implementing organizations introduced me to one of their associates that runs a chain of restaurants in Puebla, Fonda de Santa Clara. We went for a cooking experience there after a protocolario event celebrating the Church's donation of an X-ray machine to the Red Cross Hospital and before returning back to the CDMX. While we were waiting for our host, I took the opportunity to saludar (greet) the bronze statue at the entrance. Later I found out the the statue was of our host's mother, the founder of these restaurants. They don,t hire chefs, rather women that cook for their families. Our dish that afternoon was mole poblano. Part of the recipe was to deep fry whole garlic cloves with the husks still on them and slices of plátano macho with the peels still on them for 10 minutes. My task was to stir and toast almonds in a clay pot right beside the deep fryer until the garlic in the deep fryer exploded with a very loud bang, splashing my right hand and the right side of my face with hot oil. Our host was horrified as we both scrambled to ice and treat the burns. I was very fortunate that the oil reached only to my bottom eyelid, I initially wondered if it had burned my eye and if I just couldn´t feel it. The pain gradually numbed and we were able to finish and enjoy the mole. I joked with our host that my mistake was greeting the bronze statue of her mother without a proper introduction - she was not amused. The next day, there were no signs of any burns and much to my delight, I went to BJJ.  A miracle and tender mercy just for Elder Schlachter.

We also went the Mazahua New Year celebrations in Santa Ana Nichi in Estado de México. We have a project there that we visited to continue to document the progress on the water system the Church contributed to. We were last there just before Christmas to participate in a posada. We were seated among the guests of honour and bread and flowers leis were placed around our necks. The proceedings were carried out in the Mazahua language so all we could do was watch. At one point a small girl wearing a white dress was being hefted up onto a bier made of as-yet unlit torches. Thankfully, she made a fuss and was eventually returned to her mother's arms.  We were later each given one of these torches to light and add to a a community fire built around a stone monument outside.