Medical rotation and adventures in Mexico

So its been awhile since my last post... For all my devoted readers (namely Emily) I am truly sorry to deprived you of my awesome wit and intellect. I will now remedy the situation.
So since May I have been in medical clinics trying to learn all the doctors are throwing at me so that I can be an amazing PA someday. So far I have done family practice, Ob/Gyn and internal medicine. For those of you not savvy on all things medical that means I have seen lots of people with diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart problems. Also in my Ob/Gyn rotation I have had the pleasure of spending lots of time south of the border... Anyways there have been some highlights from these rotations that I thought I would share...
1. Little boy that decided poison ivy would work well as toilet paper
2. Man with huge hole in his pants... who liked to go commando...
3. 51 year old woman delivering twins naturally
4. Meeting the grandson of the guy who invented Monopoly
5. Man with two hooks for hands that could do anything... I'm still impressed just thinking about it
6. Cutting out skin cancer
7. Suturing really cool wounds
8. Diagnosing my dog's umbilical hernia...now you are really impressed in my mad skills
9. Doing trigger point injection and manipulations... osteopathy is rad!
10. And free food from the drug reps

So now that you are all insanely jealous of my awesome life I am going to tell you about Mexico. For those that don't know my brother just got back in July from a two year mission for our church. To celebrate this my family decided to take a family vacation someplace cool. It was decided that we would go to Mexico (during the summer... and the rainy season?). Not Cancun, where most American tourists go, but Veracruz... where no American tourists go. Why not, you ask? Mostly because no one speaks English. But don't worry you can totally live someplace for a week without being able to communicate. Talking is totally overrated. And having no idea what your eating actually makes life more exciting. Okay so now I'm being slightly over dramatic... My dad speaks Spanish and my brother speaks Portuguese so we could communicate a little (emphasis on little...).
We thought we were going someplace like Cancun so we were a little surprised when we pulled onto a dirt road and then drove into the jungle to go to our villa. When we got to the villa we found out that there was no air conditioning. It was 100 degrees outside and 100% humidity... this time I'm not exaggerating. Someone had decided that going to Mexico during the rainy season was a good idea...and it proceeded to rain every night and most of the days that we were there.
On Tuesday we were going kayaking on the river. We are all going along having a good time and then we see jelly fish in the water. I thought jellyfish only lived in salt water but guess I was wrong. It was jelly fish mating season. Our guide said we would be fine as long as we didn't get into the water. Then my Dad's boat started to sink... soon my Dad's boat was completely submerged and he was in the river with the jelly fish... He proceeded to try and get the water out of the boat but he failed... miserably. It was quite entertaining until we realized that two of us were going to have to ride together in one very small kayak... Me and my youngest sister got into one boat and tried to paddle back which was very difficult. And my other sister pulled the broken boat, which continued to take on water... After we got back to our very hot villa we went to get lunch. The menus were in Spanish... and they didn't teach me in Spanish class the names of very many foods. My meal ended up being fish filled with shrimp, scallops, eel, and octopus... yes eel and octopus... not good, quite disgusting actually, sorry to those of you who like those varieties of seafood.
On Wednesday we went white water rafting and zip lining which was amazing... really it was the highlight of the whole trip. However while we were rafting our raft decided to tip and throw me out in the most dangerous rapids we went through. After I got sucked down for about 10 seconds my handy life jacket pulled me to the surface and I got smashed against a rock at which point they were able to pull me back into the boat. Then we had to rescue my flip flops...The best part of this story is as the boat was tipping I looked across from me and saw my mother. I reached for her and she just stared at me as I fell into the water. She could have totally saved me, but she didn't. Guess I'm not the favorite after all... just kidding Mama, I love you, even if you did let the rapids take me. That night we were all gathered having scripture study when this black thing crawled along the floor and into the bathroom. We all freaked out and my Mom said she thought it was a scorpion... which it was of course. And when we tried to catch the scorpion, it tried to attack us. Those things are fast. My dad proceeded to kick it across the room and then we flushed it down the toilet... The next morning we found it sitting in the bottom of the toilet bowl. It must have tried to crawl out... which is super creepy. Needless to say, we were all very careful to check our shoes and beds before we got into them for the rest of the trip.
Thursday we went scuba diving... the day started out cloudy and I could just feel that it was going to rain. We got all geared up and in the boat and it proceeded to downpour. It rained so hard that it hurt to open you eyes. We ended up getting out of the boat and going back to the shop to wait out the rain. About an hour later the rain stopped and we got back in the boat and proceeded on our way. Halfway to our destination the heavens opened again and we got dumped on for 15 minutes before we got to this little island. We took refuge at a light house and ate lunch and it proceeded to rain for a good 2 hours. We also found out while we were waiting that the toilets didn't flush... We finally got into the water to go dive, but because it was cloudy the water was dark, and my claustrophobia decided to act up and I wasn't able to dive. So I had to sit in the boat for 45 minutes while everyone else dove.
Friday we went to see the native American pyramids which were really cool except for the fact that I was deathly ill that day. I was so nauseous and light headed that I couldn't even stand up without almost passing out. The locals call it climate sickness... Don't worry the rest of my family proceeded to get it the following days... Anyways, I was trying to walk around and see everything but I ended up lying down on the ground and waiting for my family. When we got back I proceeded to sleep for like 18 hours.
Saturday we rode horses which was fun and then went out to eat which was also fun... They had air conditioning... which was awesome. They spoke English... which was really exciting. The menu was in English... amazing. And it was fabulous Italian food... at this point in the week heaven couldn't have been any more perfect.
On Sunday we went to Church (which also had AC... those Mormons are smart people). Church was in Spanish, however I could still feel the spirit and the meeting was run the same way it would have been in the states. Then we gave the primary children presents. It was really awesome to give the children things that their parents couldn't afford to give them. They especially liked the candy!
We flew home early Monday morning and our flight was delayed (because of rain) and we missed our connecting flight, and then my mom's luggage got lost. A fitting end to our vacation... Don't worry they found her luggage and sent it to us later.
So now you all know why the Dillon family doesn't go on cool family vacations very often... We go to Utah or Arkansas where nothing too exciting can happen. But who knows maybe next year we will get really adventurous and try someplace like Canada...