Portsmouth Clinic

On Sunday morning, RAF held a clinic at a local Portsmouth church.  I got my morning boost of energy, not by caffeine, but by this man yelling outside of his balcony at us.  It took a while to understand what he was saying to us, but we figured it out eventually.  He was apparently frustrated because the children at the church had been doing some type of drill activity in the morning called “Pathfinders” so I guess they were making too much noise for him. 

We set up different stations for the “patients” to navigate.  They would start at the check-in where we gave them a check-in sheet, proceed to get blood pressure checked, auscultate for heart and lung sounds, check BMI, and finally go to my station to get their blood glucose checked.  I had to be the bad guy of the day, pricking the tips of fingers to measure the blood glucose.  I don’t know if it was more painful for them or for me, as I had to watch these kids contort their faces in vivid anticipation of a horrible pain that never came.  Most of the patients didn’t feel much.   Other times I may have held the small needle in too deep or too long… oops. 

It’s fun for me to be able to see trends along the patients BMI, glucose, and BP and predict what the sugar will be.   I also get to find out slight lifestyle differences between those with higher blood sugar (fried white flours) and those with lower blood glucose (usually eating provisions, fish, or rice and beans for breakfast).  I keep on anticipating hearing breakfasts more typical to America, but usually their breakfast is not much different than their lunches may be.  A better alternative to the cereals, bacon, sausage, we are used to.  I also noticed that they don’t eat much dairy.