Thank you Roatan

 I'm sitting on my deck in the most perfectly rainy morning looking out over the ocean I've come to know over the last five weeks. I know where the reef changes and where the shades of turquoise shift and the direction the tide pulls...

And this is my favorite incarnation of this ocean view I've called mine since I've lived here...

This one where the horizon melts into the sky and it's just some kind of grayish blue dome that sweeps up and back over me. The turquoise strips of water and pounded down by fat, tropical raindrops and somehow the color disappears below the surface.

I love the sounds on mornings like this.

Temporarily the chirps and Squeeks of the jungle pause as though everything alive has unhinged its jaw and turned its face upwards to drink in the baptism from the sky.

The various roofs from nearby houses echo at different pitches - the corrugated tin rooftops are my favorite.

Water lands on the palm fronds encircling my house and then pour down like a natural gutter system - a waterfall of rainwater spilling onto the dirt and sand earth.

It's my second to last day here on Roatan. Day 32. I just walked back from the school where I tutor the kids in English twice a week and made it home just before the skies opened up.

I've loved working with the kids.

We sit in a little nook filled with donated text books and work on worksheets for reading and writing.

They are such sweet little kids.

This afternoon I'll have my second to last day at the clinic! In all honesty, I am not sad to leave Roatan- but I am a little sad about leaving the clinic.

It's been such a remarkable opportunity to experience GP clinic work in an underserved community and be given such autonomy and trust by the doctors!

I really feel as though this has made me want to go into family medicine.

I love the variety of patients and conditions... The constant puzzle to figure out what the problem is and then sort out a treatment plan.

And I love taking time to chat and talk to the patients about their condition and lifestyle and habits... I love new people, so I think it's a good environment for me!

We had a little girl yesterday who came in with respiratory distress during a serious asthma attack. We had to give her hydrocortisone IV and she was nebulized for hours. She was such a brave, sweet little girl who watched the needles go into her arm and didn't flinch or cry but just toughed it out.

I sat with her and held her hand a little and let her listen to my heart with the stethoscope...

When I went to give her mom the medications and discharge them the little girl wrapped her arms around me and gave me the longest, tightest hug and then kissed me on the cheek.

My heart melted in that moment.

I love this work.

But I am ready to go home.

I told Carlos the other night on FaceTime how I had surprised myself by how much I missed him and how homesick I was.

Usually when I travel I am just so in the moment and in love with the Now, that I forget to be homesick... 

And yet on this trip- for as wonderful and fulfilling as it's been... I was never fully here.

I was always- in every minute- back home with my dogs and my family and Carlos.

I don't know if I'll ever come back here.

Something tells me I won't.

But then, when has my life ever been predicted or predictable.

If I do come back I would live on the West End- in a place like where Dr Diane was living across from Sundowners... The place I stayed on New Year's Eve... And I would work in the mornings so I could dive and or practice yoga in the afternoons/evenings at Earth Mamas

(I'm writing this here as a note to myself so I can remember if I ever look back here)...

So- I guess this is my last post from this adventure.

Thank you Roatan.