I was Almost a Doctor

What you manage to cram into your second fifty pound bag of luggage is really what our Bolivian mission is mostly about.  Just how many antibiotic ointments, band aids, dressings, alcohol prep pads, hydro cortisone creams, antifungal meds, topical or oral reading glasses, all strengths of pain relievers for adult and children. (a deep breath)  Ibuprofen, Acetaminophen, toothbrushes, multi vitamins for adult and children, oral antibiotics, PCN, Doxy, Augmentin, Cipro, Sulfa, Clindamycin oral antiparasitics, mebendazole,  eye and ear antibiotics can one stuff into one suit case and not go over that magical 50 pound weight limit.  If you do go over the preset weight limit your bag will cost you an extra hundred dollars to travel along with you.  Along with the medical clinics that we will be holding in the small rural villages our team will also help educate the Mayan Indians on techniques of how to care for their own selves better.  Somebody let out of the bag that I have hosted many teaching opportunities for children back here in the states... Naomi.

Though the many years in the fire department I have lead many teaching moments for children attending schools in our local area.  The best event we ever put on in the fire department was our "Haunted Highways" display held a number of years ago during Halloween.  Sometime I will have to sit down and try and tell the story behind Haunted Highways and thank everyone who made this event such a big success for our department.  Recently I have helped create a team teaching event we put on for the kids in the grade schools around the Grants Pass School District. We try and indoctrinate them into being responsible, what you should or should not flush down the toilet techniques, while they are still young.  God knows their parents will try and flush anything down the toilet.  Be thankful I don't have pictures to prove my point.

My part in the Bolivian mission sounds like it might be changing or evolving a bit from what was originally planned.  The real doctors and nurses going along will be treating the patients and I will be entertaining the kids who come to visit our clinic's.  I hope the Spanish speaking translator they assign me is quick on their feet, has a good sense of humor and can figure out what I am trying to say when I go off with one of my "Hickersonism's"  like... "you little Kibbler elves need to learn how to wash the lick-goob off your hands with soap and water".  Or...  "oh quit, you Fuddruckers, I have been hurt worse eating chicken".  I actually have quite a bit of experience entertaining kids in foreign lands.  When visiting Mexico a couple times I brought along a thousand pencils one time and many hundreds of crayons on another visit to give away to the small children that would peer over the seats in the very rural buses when seeing their first white American.  The word would get out in the Mexican Plazas that I was giving away stuff and I would be mobbed by droves of excited kids.  I would have to retreat to my motel room to restock for the onslaught of children that would meet me in the streets.

We are in the process of making several hundred color books and collecting color crayons to give to the children while they are waiting in line before they or their parents are treated in the medical clinics.  I am now trying to decipher the Spanish story lines in the new color books so I can expand on the valuable lessons that we are trying to teach them. 

This is where I am going to enlist my blog readers, my friends and my family to help me with my next adventure into Bolivia by donating some items on the medicine list above or color crayons.  All your donations will be tax deductible since Project Helping Hands is non profit organization.  For those of you who would like to just send me money I will put it to good use. 

To learn more about Project Helping Hands please check their website:  http://projecthelpinghands.org/ 

I am going on the Bolivia Highlands "Uyuni Salt Flats" - March 2012 trip.  If you choose to make a donation on their site, please designate it with my name (Bill Hickerson) so it gets credited to my trip expenses. Thank you for taking the time and showing support!! It’s going to be a exciting trip. I look forward to writing all about the journey. Thank you in advance.

Motivated by Pain

It is hard to believe that a medical / teaching mission like the one I am preparing to embark into Bolivia on hinges on three main things.  First, having alot of money for the plane ticket, some for the unusual foods I will eat while there, and for the crude accommodations while staying in the high country.

The overall weight of your baggage is your second hurtle to get past.  We are allowed to carry two fifty pound bags along with us.  One with medical supplies for the clinics we will operate and the other packed with our personal belongings for a two week stay in a country that we are unfamiliar with, where daily temperature swings can range from 35 degrees at night to 85 degrees in the daytime.  We will need to carry a sleeping bag and small tent because a couple nights will be spent under the stars and a full moon in the salar de uni salt flats.  Many of you know I suffer dearly when I get cold because of a couple of my previous crazy adventures where I fell prey to the effects of hypothermia.  So I will need to pack warm clothes I can layer plus my warmest coat and gloves, but all this stuff adds weight.  The article I most want / need to take with me I am afraid will put me over weight on my personal bag.  I have not gone on any mission with my search and rescue gang before without wearing this tool.  It is the tactical vest I wear.  It makes me look like a dork when I wear it but I could live for a week and help others survive along with me with the things I carry in it's many pockets.  GPS, extra batteries, compass, map of the area traveling in, light for my head, whistle, a big knife, binoculars, fire starting supplies, simple first aid kit, 15 foot length of 1 inch webbing, couple energy bars and toilet paper.  Things I will not need on this particular trip is my cell phone and the portable radio I would normally carry for communication with command.  There will be no cell phone coverage, nor home base to call for assistance if we get ourselves in trouble.  What adds to my dilemma also is I have always been a "meat and potatoes eater" and the country I will be traveling into has food groups I have never heard of or tasted before.  My secret plan is to pack along ten pounds of Taylor's (original style) beef jerky with me so if they try and get me to eat monkey brains down there I will have something to fall back on.  With my pack overweight, now the decision comes down to what I leave behind, warm clothes, my trusty all purpose tactical vest or food?

The last thing you would ever think you would need to worry about is...  do you have all your frickin shots.  Any of you that know me well, knows how much I hate getting shots.  Some of you probably remember joyfully holding me down when we would have to get one at the fire department from time to time.  Do any of you know how many shots you need before traveling into a isolated country like Bolivia?  Don't get me wrong they will let you out of the U.S. without taking all your shots but getting back into the U.S. is a different story.  Thinking I only needed to receive one injection for Yellow Fever I strode into the Josephine County Health Department trying to keep a stiff upper lip once I saw all the small children waiting for their shots too.  The health department lady was sweet enough but I am sure at some point in her life she had to have been a used car salesman.  An hour later and a few hundred dollars poorer I limped past the kids with four Snoopy band aids, two on each arm.  The only solace I had leaving was I did not have to take one in the butt for the PHH team. So tonight I am feverishly writing motivated by pain, with a small dose of Yellow Fever virus cursing through my veins...

Friendships Begin to Form

Part of the experience in any new out of country adventure is meeting the rest of the team members that will be traveling with you.  Into my life e-mails begin to flow from the nice sounding lady who books all the travel arrangements for Project Helping Hands including our Bolivian mission.  While I bragged to her about some of my past exploits she informs me that her young son has bravado too.  Elizabeth shares his powerful letter with me.  After reading the heartfelt letter written home to his mom it in fact helped jolt me back into realizing I needed to get back to writing on my blog again...
Elizabeth writes.  This is Spencer’s first email from Uganda – January 2011.  Enjoy...

This is Spencer.  This picture makes him look
taller and more handsome then in real life.

Sorry, I've been bad about communicating.

So, today... I got to do a lot more than I honestly wanted to ever do on this trip. Gideon (the only African on the team, a giant Kenyan dentist who I assist) is somehow very confident in my abilities already (Dental school here is three years long, right after high school). I follow what he tells me and I have developed a pretty neat and sterile system in which to work. I was happy reloading syringes and disposing of sharps while working the sterilizer and fire. We had about forty patients waiting just for dental when we arrived at 8:30. One woman was an albino, who was about 60 or so. She was very interesting-looking, with all the African features minus the pigment. Her blood pressure ended up being about 230/140 so we couldn't remove any of her teeth because the local anesthetic (locaine) contains adrenaline. Also, it affects the turgidity of the womb in pregnant women. blah blah. About the tenth person in,

My mentor Dentist Gideon

Gideon motions for me to come over and says, "Inject him." I immediately started shaking from all the adrenaline in my blood stream. As to not absolutely freak out the patient, I tried to stay calm and make fluid motions, but it was very difficult as I grabbed the syringe, not feeling confident at all. Gideon turned around to help another patient and left me to inject without any supervision... for the first time in my life. SHIT. uh... okay, I remembered what he said about the depth of the needle, location, volume, etc. Time to do it. I'll transcribe a little of what I wrote from my journal here: "He was a guy about 20 years old, well-dressed, but had a quite unsalvageable upper molar. I grabbed a syringe and adrenaline surged through my limbs. "What the Hell am I about to do to this man?" The needle trembled and dripped locaine, also sharing my adrenaline rush. All I could think was 1/3rd length of the needle on the outside with 2/3rds the volume (1.8 mL), and the tip into the inner with the remainder. I was quaking uncontrollably. The patient cocked back his head in the old red and gold overstuffed chair we have been using for extractions (probably overstuffed with the usual tropical treasure trove of bugs). It was difficult to pull back his lips enough the tooth was so far back in his mouth (the last). I should have worn a second glove. I stuck it in. The resistance from the syringe was surprisingly intense, so the shaking became much more apparent. The inside of the gums. Much harder to shove liquid into that type of tissue so close to the tooth. He was a good sport, as I Robot-ed over to the sharps container and faintly apologized a couple times. Ten minutes later, Gideon says, "Now you put your strength to the test." OH. My nerves glowed with epinephrine and my pores burped out everything good in the world, including a sweat that when mixed with 98.61% DEET stung like Hell. Choosing the tool. I picked right. I wish I hadn't, seeing as how it only convinced Gideon further I was to be trusted with another humans mandible. Crooked forceps in my grip. I dug into the gums around his green and black enamel and clenched so hard my hand cramped. His gums turned white with the pressure, then flowed red. Oh, boy. Then began about the longest thirty seconds of my life. Gideon was there at least. Left, right. Left, right. Holding the man's head became a two-man job. This was the same kind of tooth that blew up yesterday, so I was very careful not to make a bomb out of his upper row. Finally, it begins to wiggle. My knuckles were white beneath my neoprene gloves, I'm certain. The left, right begins to prove very effective and eventually a noise both completely terrifying but oddly relieving, because this experience was to pass. It raises slightly above the level of the other calculated teeth. Circles. Circles! They work, too! Another bitter-sweet sound. If I were adventurous with my onomatopoeia I would name this sound "Sklake" with about seventeen A's. Violently, the tooth flies into space. I look. It's still attached to the forceps. I dump the tooth in the dirt bucket and instruct the man to bite down on some gauze. He walked out. I wanted to fall on my face and bring Gideon down with me. I pulled eight teeth total today and anesthetized more."

Spencer's Dental station

I walked back from the clinic with Gideon today. We are becoming good friends. I'm glad I have been partnered with the only African on the team. He is definitely one of my favorite people I have ever met. We shared a sugar cane (which looks like six feet of Chinese bamboo) on the way back and he laughed as I struggled to peel the bark with my teeth. The people on the streets shout "Muzungu!" which means Gringo roughly. They treat the whites like celebs though. Gideon walked on and looked exactly like a Giant Panda. I remembered halfway through with my sugar water encased in fiber that I was told not to eat ANY street food, so oops.



The Sudanese election is tomorrow, so things might get a little hairy.  I'm told things should be fine, but it's going to be historic nonetheless. One bad thing I learned today was that the security with AK-47's outside of the clinic... don't actually have them loaded, so if shit gets hot, they're probably gonna hop on the back of a Bota Bota (motorcycle cab).

I hope you and Dad are okay by yourselves in the house with no kiddies. I love you and miss you both so much. Know that I am finding myself here and this trip has been the best thing to ever happen to me, no matter what.

Thanks Spence for your words.  It will be interesting to see what awaits our own Project Helping Hands team in the Bolivian Highlands...

Billy Blaze Re-Booted



My pretty grand daughter Ka'mya



It has been nearly a year since I have last jotted down words on my blog.  My personal situation has changed greatly and made many sharp turns during this idle story telling time in my life.  I have lamented long on how I could continue writing down my new stories for you Ka'mya without offending personalities in my past.  I finally decided if I offend some who reads my rantings maybe they could solve the problem themselves by not reading about my adventures and clicking to another web site...

Again I am a single man with the wind firmly blowing at his back.  Once again I am earnestly looking ahead for what exciting adventures lay before me.  During this past year I have lost some of the simple pleasures of life like having the "fake" grand kids hanging around the house due to my new non-marital status. This past month I have struggled to understand why we had to help lay to rest a young fireman friend taken to early in his life due to some silly mistakes he knew better then to take.  Lately I had the unfortunate luck of experiencing a hard drive crash on this very same typing machine, but thanks to another friend who helped me work through the problems of reloading my written life.  Please do not fear for me though.  I have not truly felt this alive in many many years.  I have already began laying the ground work for my next grand venture and the story begins now...

I have lived a fortunate life and have long desired to join one of those renowned international rescue teams that scour the planet helping their fellow man during their most dire of times during a disaster either natural or man caused.  I am nearly at that long awaited time in a man's life called "retirement".  Those of you who know me the best know retirement is not a word in my vocabulary.  I have always wanted to work hard, play hard and live life to the fullest until I am called for my last alarm.  I recently have stumbled onto a humanitarian group called Project Helping Hands.  This non-denominational group of volunteers travels the planet doing heath care work for the more unfortunate indigenous people living at the remote corners of the earth.

                                             http://projecthelpinghands.org/ 

I have been accepted for the Bolivian Mission headed into the mountainous, high elevation region in South America this upcoming March.  Over the next few months my plan is to let my readers know what it takes to plan for an adventure of this magnitude, tell of my time while in country and then to give you my blunt opinions on if we should be investing our time and currency in these foreign lands. Many of my friends think we should be concentrating our efforts on our own under privileged citizens right here in America.

For those of you who have followed along with my past romps, hang on tight, grasp my hand and join with me on my new adventure.   Take a deep breath we land at 13,500 feet in La Paz Bolivia, lets get going gang...