This is Elsa. She lives in a small shack made from tin. I got called higher into the mountain for a house call because she was too ill to come to the clinic. She has a high fever, her blood pressure is very low from dehydration. She can barely move. The district nurse is with her and tells me that there have not been any cases of tuberculosis or malaria in the area for many years. This is likely pneumonia. If she were in the US, she’d be hospitalized, put on IV fluids, IV antibiotics and based on her overall condition, maybe admitted to the ICU. But we’re not in the United States. We’re in Guatemala. This woman is going to have to sit in her one room tin shack, on the side of a mountain and hopefully, the injection of antibiotics and the pills I give help her recover. Maybe they won’t. This is how life goes here and in so many other places in the world. I asked her if I could take pictures and she said yes but I thought I could provide her with some dignity by providing her with some anonymity. Its the least I can do.
