A seriously broken leg!

As we were settling down for lunch one day, a group of Haitians showed up at the clinic, bearing a man on a stretcher. He had been at market nearby and a moto was coming through on the road; he tried to get out of the way, but wasn't nimble enough and fell, landing right in the moto's path- resulting in a seriously broken leg!

Here he is, sitting outside the clinic on his stretcher.

His right leg was the broken one, evident by the wrappings of leaves and old cloth.

The man seemed to be in much pain (understandably!) so Anita immediately started an IV and began a dose of ibuprofen.

As the pain killer began it's work he was finally able relax.

Before we moved him into the clinic, however, Anita made sure his vitals were good.

Once inside, we opened the wrappings and examined his fracture;

It was completely broken, about 6-8 inches above the knee.

Thankfully the broken bone ending didn't puncture the skin, and stayed where it was!

After bracing it, we wrapped it and temporarily set it in place.

Here's the finished product!

After the brace and temporary casting, we stabilized the broken leg by binding the good leg with it.

Andrew and Mose took him out to the hospital in the Gator, where he would get it set and cast.

We're hoping that he'll recover well, but seeing he was an older man, he might have a harder time healing.

Please pray for him!

A stitch job by Mis Joselaine

Yesterday a family brought their little girl into the clinic with blood dribbling down the side of her face. It appeared at first to be a small cut or puncture wound on the top of her head- but her hair was so thick it was hard to see how big it really was.

After parting her hair, the nurses found a much larger cut than at first expected...

Breanna cleans the girl's head with some sterile water and gauze...

Doesn't look too bad, does it?

Think again!

The cut ended up being over an inch long!

After finding how big it really was, we had Polvere shave around the cut, getting it ready for stitching.

After preparing the little girl, we sent them up to Mis Lieda and Mis Joselaine.

With Mis Lieda as her assistant, Mis Joselaine did the stitching job.

Here she is preparing the area for suturing.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the finished product, but it sounds like all went well!

Here, she's dabbing the area, after finishing the first stitch...

Called to the clinic. . . What will we find?

It was Wednesday about 2pm or so. Clinic was over for the day. Breanna and I had left clinic and I believe had lunch as well when Polvert, our guard, called me saying someone had come to clinic with a sick child. He said the child had been fine in the morning, but now wasn't doing well. With Michael and Virginia visiting in the States right now, I send some afternoon stuff to Mis Leda but decided to go check this one out.

Breanna and I headed out to the clinic. What I saw when I got there set me into quick action. You can see in the first pictures that the little guy just kind of has a glazed look on his face. He was amazingly alert, but his color was scary. He was kind of an ashen gray with white lips. I quickly checked his oxygen saturation--78-81%--heart rate--255 bpm. That told me enough to decide to quickly get him on oxygen. Very shortly thereafter his oxygen level was up to 88% or so and his heart rate down to 150 bpm. He was much better off, and I could check out other things to decide what he had and how to treat him.

Upon listening to his lungs I could tell they weren't clear. I treated him for a respiratory infection, and kept him on oxygen. As the afternoon progressed he continued to do well.

Now I just needed to know if by morning I could take him off oxygen or if we'd have to send him out so he could stay on it longer as we don't have a huge supply of oxygen. Steve was going out in the morning so we got up to check on him early. I took him off the oxygen and checked his saturation. He was doing well so we didn't need send him out. I kept an eye on him throughout the morning as we had clinic, and he continued to do great.

You can see from this picture that he's doing pretty well.

By mid or late morning I sent them home. It was so good to see him head home in much better shape!

A Baby!

Hello everyone!

As you have probably guessed by now, things have been surprisingly quiet around here!

We haven't had anything serious come in for quite a while, until this lady came in.

It seemed like she was a few weeks early, so we made all preparations for any trouble... thankfully, we didn't need to use any of those preparations!

The delivery went smoothly with no complications, so we are praising the Lord for that!

The lady comes into the clinic.

Breanna waits outside until she's needed.

She didn't need to wait for long- the baby came pretty soon!

...and here he is! A healthy little boy!

"Wow! This is a big world out here!"

Anita and Breanna, the happy nurses that helped with the delivery.

Good job!

More than a "rash"...

A mother brought her baby to the gate Friday afternoon, saying she needed a nurse to look at it. It sounded like it had a rash of some sort on it's neck. Shana went out to see how serious it was, and came back, saying they should probably check it out. The clinic had been closed for a while, but they agreed to unlock it and bring the baby in.

So, as the nurses got everything opened up, the lady brought the baby around to the clinic. When she came in and they unwrapped the blankets, they were met with something a little more serious than just a "rash"...

The first thing that was noted was the size of the baby- she was only 4lbs!

For a newborn, that's not much at all, but for being 16 days old, that's unbelievable.

The second thing was the sores it had all over its face, neck, and upper body.

A large gaping sore next to her left ear was testament to the seriousness of the situation.

Surprisingly enough, as they unwrapped her, 

she opened up her bright, big eyes and started looking around.

She was fairly energetic, which was unexpected!

She was so tiny, but very alert.

One of the nurses puts her hand next to the baby to give you an idea of her size.

After getting washed up and treated, they wrapped her up in some new clothes and a fresh blanket!

She'll be coming back for a checkup soon...

Update on the lady with the foot injury!

It's been a while since we told you about the lady with the foot injury (See story here: A Ministry of Love) and we thought you'd like to see the improvement!

She comes faithfully, each day, to have her foot rewrapped. It's still not the most pleasant duty for the nurses to do, but they (just as faithfully) clean and bandage it each day!

The improvement has been impressive, considering she hasn't had a skin graft!

It's just slowly closing up! 

What an amazing thing, the body is; we are truly "fearfully, and wonderfully made."

Since tomorrow is Good Friday, the clinic will be closed;

We posted a sign on the doorway- we'll see if it's heeded! :)

A short update on the cholera situation...

Dear supporters,

Thanks so much to everyone that has been praying for the cholera situation here. God answers prayers, doesn't He?

So far we have had no other cases come into the clinic, and we are indeed grateful for that! Hopefully the two cases we had last week were a isolated incident, and not the beginnings of a widespread epidemic. We were trying to make it clear to everyone that we could not treat it as we did before, and they would have to go up to another CTC if they needed care.

On Sunday the two patients went home, so we cleaned out the CTC tent and put a bunch of the equipment back into storage... we're hopeful for the best!

Again, thank you for praying!!

-Us at Aleg