Back at Home and Feeling Proud

Artwork in the Clinica reception area 

We arrived back home very early Monday morning.  With the time difference between Kona and Boulder, the "fall back" loss of an additional hour in Boulder, the red eye flight, and my generally poor sleep while in Hawaii -- very surprising as I usually sleep great on vacation-- I was wrung out to say the least.  Tuesday we slowly came somewhat alive, did some unpacking, did the wash, reconnected with Turbo and even took some naps.  

On Tuesday I hit the gym for some weightlifting and Paul came over for a nice long visit.  Late that afternoon I heard that the baby of one of the newcomers I wrote about on October 12 (sorry, Blogger won't link to this for some reason) was sick and I hunted around in various stores searching for a nebulizer to help him breathe but didn't find one anywhere. 

On Wednesday I helped the mother get the bambino to a clinic for some medical attention.  That took several hours but in addition to being a good thing to do it was an interesting thing to do because it showed me a side of my community I didn't know about.  I had no idea that there was a clinic here that makes this bold statement:

Clinica Family Health is a community health center, a medical safety net for those who otherwise might fall through the cracks of the American health care system. For more than 40 years, Clinica has existed to provide health care to the individuals and families in our community at a price they can afford. Young or old, people of any race or ethnicity or income level --we are here to provide them with exceptional health care because no one should have to choose between obtaining the health care they need and other necessities such as housing or food. 

Despite having very few resources my newcomer friend was treated with respect and got the care her child needed.  I was relieved for her and her darling little baby, and so proud of my community.  

I have a final post to write about our last day on the Big Island and hope to do that tomorrow. There are rumors that Blogger has some sort of new problem in loading photographs so this short post is a good one to try out and see what's up.  It's never a dull minute with this platform but it is free, and generally works, which is something!  We'll see what happens when I push the "pubish" button.