This is a picture of Hiliana. (pronounced EEL-ee-ahn-uh) She is a nurse in La Palma and is one of the kindest, most generous people you can ever hope to meet. Nursing is the perfect profession for her and she has been a blessing to the La Palma efforts for years. When the team was here a few weeks ago, she used her day off to help see patients along with Nurse Dea. She frequently uses her time off to make housecalls on patients and make sure they have what they need. When Monte was having problems with his leg shortly after our arrival, she made several housecalls to check on him and make sure he was taking care of it properly and that it was improving.
There are several boxes of medical items that Dea left for Hiliana to take to the clinic and tonight was the first time our schedules had matched for her to come and get them. She arrived and we began going through the items to decide what she could take tonight and what she'd need to return to get on Monday. As we did, I mentioned to her that Alma's mother (Alma is a member of the church here and employee at Hotel La Palma) has been having blood sugar issues and asked if she knew her. Hiliana said she didn't but asked if I could call her. I got Alma on the phone and Hiliana spoke with her. When she got off the phone, she said that Alma was coming here and would be here soon. Hiliana wanted to be able to get more information about her mother and to give Alma some of the insulin syringes in the supplies we had given to her.
While we waited for Alma to arrive, Teresa pointed out that one of the teen girls (teen class was going on at this time) seemed to be getting bronchitis. Hiliana had her come out and asked her about her symptoms and did her best to listen to her chest without the help of a stethoscope. After assessing her, Hiliana said that she needed some antibiotics and tylenol so I ran to get amoxicillin and tylenol from the medical room.
Soon Alma arrived and Hiliana got more information about her mother's condition and tried to help her understand a little more about her mother's blood glucose monitor. It was given to her by the chef at the hotel but the instructions are all in German so she had some difficulty understanding how to properly interpret the results. (I'm working this weekend on locating Spanish instructions on the internet for it and hope to have them to her on Sunday.)
Hiliana is such a tremendous help to us and I feel better knowing that if my family has any medical needs she'll be there for us. And she'll always be wearing a huge and sincere smile as she helps. The people of La Palma are fortunate to have such a caring nurse working in their clinic and community.
0 comments:
Post a Comment