Some of the most important work our mobile clinics do never shows up in a statistic. It happens in the quiet moments — a wound cleaned gently, a patient who finally trusts someone enough to let them help. This month, our Director of Village Medicine, Rocío Bamaca, shares one of those moments. We’ll let her tell it in her own words.
By Nurse Rocío, Director of Village Medicine
Not long ago, a young woman came to our clinic. She was eighteen years old, and she lives with rheumatoid arthritis — an autoimmune disease that leaves her in pain all day, every day. For her, even an ordinary touch can hurt two or three times more than it would for the rest of us.
She came to us because of a chronic ulcer on her foot that had been growing worse for two months. But healing it was not simple. When I began to clean the wound, she twisted in pain. To treat an ulcer like hers properly, I had to clean deep — and for someone whose body already magnifies every sensation, that was almost unbearable. She had refused treatment before. When others tried to help her, the pain was so great that she would not let anyone near it.
That moment taught me something I carry with me into every village we visit. Sometimes we travel to these remote places to care for people that other health professionals might not fully understand. God has given us the ability to heal wounds — but He has also given us the ability to show mercy, and to understand pain that isn’t always visible.
So I worked as gently as I possibly could. I cleaned the wound completely and covered it with topical and oral antibiotics, and by the end, it was finally clean enough to begin healing. My prayer is that when I see her again, she’ll walk in with her foot healed — and with a little more trust that being cared for doesn’t always have to hurt.
Would you pray with me for her? That this ulcer would finally heal, and that she would find relief from the pain she carries every day.
