Elder Lopez

The BEST thing about cataract surgery here is the morning after; when Dr. LaGreca examines the eyes of our patients after we take off their bandages.

They can see much clearer as the tape comes off, and it is simply awesome to see them smile and laugh! My standing joke with them is to point to myself and say, "¿Muy guapo, si? (I use that over and over to great effect ;-)

Tuesday night I worked with David and Brian in the dingy operating room here at Pina Plamera until about 10:15. This was a day that started at about 7 am.

We had many patients this day.

Before a patient is operated on, their eyes must be measured and checked for other internal damage to see if they are a candidate for cataract surgery.

Sometimes, a cataract is so cloudy or thick that it is difficult to see what is behind it. Our last surgery was really tough on all of us.

Most of the candidates are older, anywhere from 60 to 95, but we get a few who are younger. Our last patient was Elder Lopez, a 14 year old boy from the nearby village of Puerto Angel, who was completely blind in both eyes. He arrived with his family and his father was especially hopeful that, due to the lack of good medical care available, that my brother might be able to restore some sight to his son.

You could see that everyone wanted this surgery to go well.

As his father brought him into the operating room, I could tell that his son was very scared. Many members of the family had eye problems, but Elder´s were the most difficult.

We worked on him for a very long time, and up until this point all the surgeries we had done had been successful. But on this one, I could tell something was different. It was taking longer and there was some sort of difficulty. David, became very, very focused.

Brian as always, was the epitome of calm.

The surgery went on, I could tell that Brian had run into some sort of unexpected challenge and was slowly, diligently, progressing through it.

At his point, Elder began to fidget and freak out a bit, I patted his arm and told him to stay calm, "Tranquilete." Anistethic is applied locally in this type of procedure, so the patient is awake and as you can imagine, its important for them to keep their heads still during surgery. There was some tension hanging in the air, and Elder kept fidgeting and making noise. I honestly didn´t know what to do, I was SO out of my element, so I just started singing to him.

I couldn´t even remember all the words, but the lyrics go something like this,

"You will be meek when I am able

You’ll be the salt upon the table

When all is said and done could you

Somehow be sons of Abraham"

Well, nobody threw up* and that actually SEEMED to help a bit- he calmed down and after another twenty to thirty minutes, we were finished.

Normally, in cataract surgery, the patient receives an implant lens and I realized that we did not give one to Elder. As we helped him out of the room, it became apparent to me that the procedure was not so successful.

It was weird. I was VERY emotional about this incident! There was this turbulent tempest smashing about inside of me. I was managing to hold it together, but underneath I was experiencing these swirling waves vacillating between anger and grief! Why wasn´t anyone else experiencing this??!

I learned from Brian later on that Elder just had too much damage to his retina and removing the cataract did nothing to help this. It was then that my older brother, whom I admire so much, and is somewhat softspoken, said to me. "That was a VERY emotional surgery."

He said this very calmly and matter of factly, with a slight smile on his face. David said something similar to me later on back at Cerro Largo.

It kind of hit me then. Of course, it is emotional, that is why we are all here. But whereas, I work in the arts field on a day to day basis where we paint, illustrate, display and sculpt with emotion. In this field, it is important to work PAST those emotions. They are there, but it is not like you see on some hospital television drama. And that´s good. Because they can do their jobs well. And that is why you can trust these two men so much.

*Actually, David threw up the next day, but I don´t think that was because of my singing...

This is an awesome sunset over Mazunte, I am grateful to be able to see it!

It´s Friday...Viernes Fiesta!

I´m going to try to post some vids, but that may have to wait until I get back to the states.

It´s very hot and hard to write.



This is our last day to do surgeries. We are waiting on a busload of patients to arrive from Candelaria, a small village that is about 4 hours away. They have no phones or method of communication, so we just have to wait.



Last night we finished with the patients around 7 or so. My Bro and I dashed to the beach to rent surfboards and try to get out, but we were just too late. Ai, pobrecito.

That´s okay, there was still an awesome sunset and we had a great dinner with all the crew back up at Cerro Largo.






The huge rock in the ocean to my left is called, "Roca Blanco"...which means...white rock. I guess that was better than calling it "Roca Pelican-poo".

















This is Gary with a rustic gentelmen known only to me as El Campesino. He arrived with his daughter and a very large machete hanging around his shoulders. It felt as if he just kind of walked in from the jungles.









Gary asked him if it would be alright to take his picture and, roughly translated, the man replied in a very stern tone that "No, it would not be allright for us to take his picture! We would steal his image and then take it away with us, and who knows what we might do with it. He would not be able to get into Heaven, if we took his picture..."

He went on and on like this, and Gary, who teaches Spanish back in Wyoming, courteously apologized, letting him know that we did not intend to offend him. At this point, I glanced over at his daughter, a young woman of about 30 or so and she had this glint in her eye. Senor Campesino just stopped for a moment. There was brief silence.

And then they both started laughing and laughing!! He was pulling our leg the entire time! ha ha!

This was especially funny, because Gary is usually the one poking fun and cracking jokes and El Campesino beat him at his own game.

Huatulco...so far!

Pina Palmera

So I´ve finally been able to get to email-it hasn´t been easy. Great journey from NYC to Denver to Huatulco on Saturday! I don´t have much time to write, so i´ll try to throw down some pics.

"Muchas Maletas Sin Similares"

I can tell you this-This group of people that I am working with are AMAZING!!-Things got off to a very exciting start. We almost lost two of our team, Gary and Duann at the flight changeover in Denver (they were both transporting important equipment; scopes, telometers, sutures and other assorted medical supplies-- it´s a good thing they made the flight as there wasn´t another one til a week later.)

"Senor Gary, our Interpreter and Dr. Brian LaGreca, our Opthamologisticalifragilistic."

...I fully anticipated working in any capacity for which I was needed, BUT on our first day at the clinic, Duann (our awesome Circulating Nurse) got sick AND I had to fill in for her!! Ha ha! I was kind of nervous at first, but then I was fine. I ended up assisting in 4 eye surgeries that day and 5 more the next day!! In fact, I never thought I would say this seriously, but "they need me back in surgery!" ha ha!

Check out the pics below!

Con mucho gusto,

El Jeffe

Cerro Largo, where we are staying. Most days are very busy, but on our first day here, my bro and I managed to get out for a surfing excursion. (or as I like to call it: an "eating-sand-and-swallowing-salt-water" excursion.)

This is Joyce, another fantastic volunteer and Dr. Tracy´s mom. The man to her left is the one and only, David Duprey. He got this whole thing started; quite an energetic, interesting, incredible and vivacious man.

Duann and Dr. Tracy. Tranquilete!

Patients waiting to be examined: Some people walk from miles away and have never had any kind of health care in their lives. They are amazingly friendly and patient, sometimes waiting late into the evening for surgery...and never a complaint.

David and I suited up for surgery!

This is my favorite pic so far. The next day after surgery, the patients from the day before arrive to have there bandages removed. Many of them are legally blind and have not seen clearly in years! It is joyous, emotional and rewarding for all.

This truck costs something like 9 BILLION pesos!

Arroz con Mariachi!

So, my brother Brian, (who is much smarter than me) has asked me to bring my guitar with me when I come down to Huatulco, Mexico this coming week.

This could be a good thing or a bad thing, because truth be told, I am a pretty sucky guitar player. But nevertheless, if music be the food of love, give me that and a side of chili rejeno, right?!

I hope he realizes though, that I hope to start up my own local Mariachi band there. Except I want to see if I can get all the local little kids to sing "Rock You like a Hurricane" or "Can't Touch This" or perhaps some trippy Doors/Jim Morrison rant.

Yeah, that would be cool. In our spiffy black Antonio Banderas "Desperado" outifits.

Oh hell, I'll keep practicing La Bamba.
J

"¿Padre?

¿Si, hijo?

Quiero matarle...

ESTE ES EL FINAL. EL FINAL MI AMIGOOO...*

(*spanish lyrics to the Doors, The End courtesy of SpanishTranslate.com)

Tetanus Anyone?

Hi,

So, I have to go get my Tetanus shots, Hepatitus A and Typhoid shots this week.
I'm pretty excited as I am going to work as a volunteer at the Pina Palmera mission in Hualtulco, Mexico. I leave on the 19th and return to NYC on the 28th.

It should be a really cool experience. I'm basically going to be helping them out in any way I possibly can. The real "pros" are all the MDs, Dentists and surgeons coming from all parts of the world. My brother, Brian is one of them.

I don't anticipate doing many eye surgeries, but ya never know. Perhaps in some sort of weird Walter Mitty--esque scenario, someone will call out. "LaGreca!, we need you to restore the eyesight of our wise and ancient village elder!" And forgetting that my much smarter and way more qualified surgeon brother, Brian (who also has the last name of LaGreca) is present, I leap into the fracas with my Swiss Army knife ready to attach corneas and cocsis and other "c" words of the physiological nature!!

Wow, I'm pumped.
Jeff

(Pic: That's my brother, Bri. Rockin' the

microspectrometrasmagalisis machine.)


*

"Con Mucho Carino!"

...is a phrase my mom always uses when she signs off a letter to me. It roughly translates to "Dream fiercely, Sad little pastry!"


Okay, it doesn't really*, but I like to think that everything I say in spanish translates into that!

Well, here it is January 15th and I've finally found the wherewithal to write in the blog. We had to close the show at the Bleecker street theater on Dec. 15th, 2007. Hey-we had a good run-3 months!!

Of course, we had hoped that the show would have run a bit longer, but let me tell you, keeping things going in New York City takes a LOT of work!

I mean this is THE city in the world where you can Do/See/Eat just about anything or anyone!
(Did I just say that?) So there is a lot of vying for attention in this city of jillions of people, and we were a little show plugging along with all of 'em. (see pic: actual size)

It was awesome to have had the opportunity to get to do some of the things that we were able to do! We had a great crew and cast and support and want to thank everyone involved!

Oh...and we also ain't done. (see pic left: Billy is saying "thumbs up!" ...so that must be a good thing!)

The show may very well return in one form or another, we just aren't sure what that is just yet.
We may be moving into a smaller theater with smaller rent or who knows? Maybe we'll go to Japan and do the Harajuku circuit.

(see pic- "takenoko-zoku, anyone?")

Anyway, please keep checking back to this space, because we anticipate lots of good upcoming stuff either Wage-related or new creative projects!

"Dream fiercely, sad little pastries!"
J

*with much care/love.