This post is about...BANDAGING!
So if blood and wounds are not for you - scroll down slowly to give your stomach time to process the sights. :)
While Anita, the two Haitian nurses, and Michael perform consultations, etc. I typically clean and bandage most of our regular bandage patients.
Here are some wound care patients that came into the clinic over the past couple days...
Above, is a picture of (now known as) the "First Leg Guy's" leg. :) Remember him? He has been coming daily for several months to be bandaged for his leg infection. It is slowly improving. His real name is St. Luke. He recently was saved! That was exciting. He comes into clinic so cheerfully and we can definitely see the light of Christ on his face now. He recently brought in another person two days ago with the exact SAME problem he has!
Above is "the second leg guy" when he first arrived. I could hardly believe it was the same thing! Perhaps it's good that pictures cannot communicate smells...!
This man has two bandages as you can see. Any ideas of what they could be from? The front is covering up an entrance wound - on his back, it's covering an exit. He was kidnapped and shot in Port-au-Prince, and came to us then to have his stitches removed. I uncovered his prior bandages and removed the stitches they gave him in PAP, and was finding his wounds to be unlike anything I've seen before. So Anita asked him for his story, and it is really very amazing he is still alive. He was kidnapped in a market place in PAP, and was brought somewhere out in the country where they tried to suffocate him (breaking some of his teeth), and then shot him. They left him to die, and "then God loosed him". We don't think he knows how he got to the hospital. In the picture above, Virginia is giving him some medicine to aid in his healing process.
This man is supposed to come every day for an abscess in his hip. Sometimes he does - sometimes he doesn't. :-/ He lives quite far away. Here he's getting his wound packed, a relatively painful procedure.
Above is a wound caused from tuberculosis.
Above is a young lady who was hit on the head with a hammer by her husband. Her head was very bloody when she arrived (the day after it happened). Her skull was cracked and we could see the blood pulsing inside. We cleaned her up a little, bandaged her head, and then sent her to Ti Goave to the hospital for further treatment.
This young boy cut his thumb with a machete-like tool. I did the initial cleaning, and then Anita did a great job at stitching him up!
A few days ago, this lady had a lump on her head filled with pus. Anita inserted a needle into the lump and began to drain it. The lady was initially sitting up in a chair, as it is mostly a painless procedure. However, Anita stopped for a minute and set her needle and syringe on the table. The lady took one look at it and the liquid contents which had been emptied from her head and began to say, "M'ap kouche! M'ap kouche! M'ap decompose!" (I'm going to lay down! I'm going unconscious!). Well, that sent us into immediate action - supporting her, and trying to keep her upright. She's an unusually large lady for a Haitian and she began to sink lower and lower to the ground as Anita, Virginia and I tried to keep her upright. This lady was totally letting herself go mentally. We tried to get her up on the table, but she would offer no assistance, and she became some form of feigned unconscious. We asked for help from the other clinic workers (and half the people in the waiting room got up to watch), and finally got her up on the table where Anita was able to finish the process. She was fine when her head was turned and she could no longer see the "instruments of torture". :)
So...those are just a few of our most recent bandage jobs in the past couple days!
Breanna Keller
