Alone in Corazón : And Other Tales from the Treehouse
Prelude
14 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
Ten years later , Facebook flashes me a memory of my time in the Belizean jungle , where a single link is posted to a blog that cataloged my first eight days there . I read through the vignettes , smile and still agree with the nagging thought I had 10 years ago : I should have written more .
Over the next months , I ’ d like to share these blog posts from the time I now refer to as my “ jungle doctor ” era , memories with a bit of humor but also reminders of those sometimes-lonely formative moments as a young doctor , the brave twenty-something who was always in over her head .
It was the spring of 2014 , my fourth year of med-peds residency , and possibly the last time I might have in a while to take a global health trip . I applied for a Belizean medical license and one of two temporary attending spots for the Hillside Health Clinic , a small volunteer clinic which serves villages of Belize so rural , the Ministry of Health won ’ t even venture to them .
Since then , things got busy : two fellowships , a divorce , another marriage , back surgery , two cross-country moves , two kids and a full-time job as medical director of the adult congenital heart program . I remember this coming-of-age era tenderly , as someone years removed from the benevolent third world country hitchhiker I used to be , someone whose Tempur-Pedic bed could not-so-easily be traded for a dirt floor and a mosquito net , whose day-to-day medical practice involves 3-Tesla MRI scanners and 3-D transesophageal echocardiograms instead of a rudimentary
by MELISSA L . PERROTTA , MD , FACC , FAAP blood centrifuge , stethoscope and a penlight .
Medicine is hard . It ’ s an altar onto which we hurl our nights , weekends , relationships , exercise , creativity and that soft cookie center of our twenties . But sometimes , when we ’ ve left ourselves a few crumbs , we find the pilot light .
Day # 1 , The Trip
I ’ ll start by saying that anything , especially traveling to a third world country , is exponentially more difficult when afflicted with the flu . It was bound to happen , I guess , after working basically nonstop for the past month during flu season and then trying to plan a trip abroad , but I still haven ’ t resolved what could be worse : nausea and vomiting ? Unrelenting nasal faucet ? Tuberculosis ?
I could tell immediately that most passengers were going to have a completely different experience from mine , with their leopard flip flops with shiny gold insignias , giant diamond wedding rings , flowy tops , and khaki pants and loafers for the men . There was one older woman dressed a la Crocodile Dundee , with khaki cargo pants tucked into hunter green rain boots , who met eyes with me loaded down with my large camping pack , and I think we had … an understanding , like , we ’ re going to see the REAL Belize . Affirming nod .
My future roommate , Jillian , and I were lucky enough to discover one another the day prior via a forwarded email and planned to meet at the ticket counter of our connecting puddle jumper flight . We exchanged headshots of one another , which I tried to commit to memory . Sitting in the tiny crowded international airport ( which looked more like an old schoolhouse ), I waited for a familiar face to come through the customs door . At