Who'd have thought?

Who would have ever thought you could do this:  Fall off your horse, cut open your eye lid, slice your bottom lip, scrape up your top lip, AND, get this:  Disconnect your bottom lip from your gums/jaw inside.  You can see all the way down in between his lip and gums (you can't see the bottom). We sent him to Ti-Goave for further treatment.

The Cry of the Abandoned, Can We All Hear The Cry????

                                                                                                   

Jistin's Story

Here is a sad story and I will try share it even though our hearts are hurting and feel very heavy for this little man.

   Jistin, (Name given by Vicson, the caretaker.) is between 18 and 20 months old, this morning at 9:30 his dad came and rattled the clinic gate and Vicson, the young man you see sitting beside Jistin, who is also the gate gaurd at the clinic today opened the gate, and dad and son came through, dad told Anita that he wants his little boy's back checked out because he figured there is something wrong with it since the little boy couldn't walk yet.

   Anita then told him to fill out a (dossier) in order for him to be seen and all the information could be taken, that is when the dad went to Vicson at the gate and told Vicson that he doesn't have any money and asked if he would take care of the boy until he got back with money. He had told Vicson that he is going to Granfon which is about 30 minute hike or so. But hours went by and nothing happened, the little chap hasn't cried at all, around 3:30 Vicson came over to the base and as you see on the picture they are eating some food.

   This little man was shovelling rice as quickly as he could process it in his mouth, he was quite hungry. Brought tears when I watched him pain stakingly pick up all the rice that fell on his shirt and onto the bench.

   So now what? Where does a person turn to in a situation like this? What would you all do? I beg that you would all gather together and plead with God for wisdom.

   Vicson is 22 years old, a friend of mine, his wife is 27 years old and they have a little 2 month old baby themselves, but he said that he is responsible for it because he agreed to take care of him, so he will go and talk to his wife about the matter and if she agrees they will go talk with the area judge (Kazak) and he will issue them a paper that it is legal for them to keep the child and look after it, waiting, hoping and praying that the dad will return. Please also pray for Vicson and his wife that they would agree to take care of Jistin for now and also wisdom how to deal with him if it happens that they need him for a while.The dad isn't known to us and neither does he live in the area, we don't know either if Jistin has a mom. I again beg with you that you plead with God together that he would soften the dads heart and come back for the Jistin.

   I will try to keep you posted as much as is possible. Remember that God knows the situation but we need to talk to Him about it in order for Him to give us an answer.                       Jonathan

Hurry, Hurry

     Supper is just finished, and I'm thinking of spending a night with the other girls, when I hear Anita calling me to go with her to the clinic. Not thinking that anything much is up, I didn't even grab a scrub top.
    We saw a couple ladies, one in labor, and a man waiting for us outside the gate. We said some polite little hellos to them, and then told them they can follow us to the clinic.  Nothing appeared just too urgent. Then we picked up a nice little trot and headed for the clinic ourselves. Suddenly the little man came puffing up to us and told us the lady couldn't come right now. We didn't think a whole lot of it, figuring she would rest a bit, and soon join us.
   "Probably the baby will come at four o'clock tomorrow morning," we told each other.
   But before we could enlarge on the subject too much, the little man came puffing up again. "The baby is on the ground!"

   Now fast action was needed. We had a very adrenaline packed hour ahead of us. We quickly finished our entrance to the clinic, grabbed gloves and a few other needed articles, and raced back out.  When we got to them, the mother smiled courageously at us, and the baby cried. Both were good signs. After caring for the both of them, we tucked them in for the night, and smiled as we walked away from the clinic, shaking our heads.

   "Hopefully, we will be sleeping at four o'clock now," we thought."Since this is really making our life easier, maybe we should tell all the ladies to have their babies outside!"

    Do you want to hear about our bad leg day, too? Poor Mis Leda. She got in for it this time. Our whole clinic smelled like something was wrong with that leg. As you can see, it is. A big infection. Since the initial cleaning, the man keeps returning on a motorcycle to get new bandages.

By the look on his face, you can tell he doesn't enjoy the ordeal

Mis Leda cleaning the leg--donning a mask to help with the smell

The leg, looking better already

   On that same day, Anita spent a lot of time stitching on a big cut on another man's leg. Poor man. He sat there, basically quiet as we picked and picked tiny little rocks out of the big cut. When Anita finished stitching him up, he slowly limped down the road, walking alone to his home. I sat there watching him hobble away, and wishing I could offer him my moto. But I don't have one.
   
 

   

A Few Pics

This young boy came in and could hardly swallow.  Under his chin was very swollen.  We put him on IV antibiotics and sent him home the next day doing much better.

After delivering twins, this lady was carried into the clinic.  The one baby was born dead, and the other was doing fine.  We ended up sending her to T-Goave for further testing and treatment as it seemed she might have still had some deeper issues that we weren't able to treat.  

Yesterday a man came into the clinic with a rag tied around his leg, just under his knee.  Upon first glance it didn't look too serious, but when he took of the rag, there was a huge gash about 4 inches long and an inch or more deep.  Rhoda and I worked for probably 1 1/2 - 2 hours picking out tiny rocks and dirt.  Finally we decided it was clean enough to stitch back shut.  

Happy Faces

 As I was greeted by this girl's bright smile this morning, I resolved to share some happy faces with you all too!  

She is the one that had a really bad infection in her foot, who we sent down to T-Goave for further treatment.  If you've been following the blog, you would have seen her again a few weeks ago when she came back for bandaging.  Her foot is continuing to heal well, minus one toe which was amputated due to the infection.  As shown in this picture, she is now walking on her foot again.  

Her bright smile is special to see as she sits among the people waiting to be seen.  

This was taken this morning after she was re-bandaged and ready to head home.  

This is another familiar face, Arlene (or maybe better known as "foot lady").  She still comes in a few days a week for bandaging.  We are just waiting for the last little open spot to close up.  After her coming for over a year, I'm sure we'll miss her once she doesn't come see us every couple of days!

Then there was the little smiley boy and his mom.  He just needed a quick check in his ears while his mother is a returning hypertension patient.  We are monitoring the hypertension closely as she is also pregnant.  She comes from quite a distance, but still manages a bright smile!

Here is the man Rhoda blogged about last week--her first stitch job.  His wounds are healing nicely.  Today he seemed quite proud of the little booklet he got too--Torch of Truth put out by CAM.  

As I was busily seeing patients this morning, these happy faces blessed me.  Many times at clinic we see the sick people, smelly wounds, and bloody cuts, but there is a brighter side too!  

Robbed and beat up

     This morning started out with a beautiful, sunny walk to clinic. That is another wonderful benefit of our new location. We get about three minutes of sunshine every time we walk to work. And then, if we forget anything, we get to have another three minute walk back home.
    Just as I was putting the blood pressure cuff on the first patient, Fre Dolph said there was a problem outside. He slapped his hand into his wrist in a pantomime of a crash accident, and I went outside to see what he was talking about.
    Sure enough, there was a little man, sitting on the end of the bench with a knotted up cloth around his foot.  I told the people to unwrap it, and saw a sensible, bleeding gash in his left leg. By now, Mis Anita was heading inside for a big, absorbent pad to catch the blood.

     After the man was safely transported to the bed in the room. Anita went to work cleaning up all the dirty debris in the wounds, and making sure no other overwhelming issues were affecting the man's well-being. He seemed to be swollen around his eyes...
    Poor man. He was slightly crippled and his feet were all broken up and calloused. The man who brought him in seemed to love him, though, and when he crawled down gingerly from the table for a break between stitch jobs the other man looked at us joyfully and said, "He's walking!"
   It was a bit difficult to piece the whole story together, but it seemed like the little man was a servant to the other man who brought him, and that he had gotten his wounds when someone tried to rob him last night.
     Anita stitched shut the biggest slash in the man's left leg and then she looked at me with a look that I was afraid I understood. "I think you can do this one," she says.

    I can't believe the day has come that I actually put the needle through human flesh, and not just a piece of practice foam. My favorite part, though, was covering up the finished cut, and putting salve and a bandage on. It feels better to not look at the pain.

     Thanks especially to Anita's patient help with teaching us beginners how to have enough courage and knowledge to proceed. Bless her! And hopefully the Haitians will reap the benefits, too.
     Do you see any more bloody bandages dripping in the courtyard??Or is it time for a three minute walk out the door for some fresh air and sunshine?
 

Ever get tired of baby pictures?

You guessed it, there was another birth at clinic.  

The lady came in late Sunday morning so we ended up spending the day there.  Now that we're at the new clinic, we can hang out in the nurses' room or another room of the clinic and still be near enough to make frequent checks on our patient.  

A healthy 7 lbs baby boy was born around 8:45 pm.  We wrapped things up and headed home at a decent hour.   

Mother, baby, and I

The sad thing was that our night was short lived, as someone else knocked on the gate around 1:30 am. This time it was a lady who was 8 months pregnant but having complications.  We decided we should take her out to T-Goave for further treatment.  So on about 1 1/2 hours of sleep my cousin Julian and I prepared to head out with the lady and her husband.  By about 5:15 we pulled into the T-Goave hospital, and got our patient admitted.  

We loaded up a few things from Pastors Levi's, fueled up the Gator, and headed back up the trail around 7am.  Just where you leave the main road, there was a stand selling fresh hot "pates" (a fried dough with meat inside).  Julian and I were both starving so we bought a few.  The pates along with a jug of tampico a piece made for a good breakfast on the trail!

By the time we got home clinic was just starting, but I was so tired I could hardly stay on my feet.  I headed to bed and slept a while.  You just never know what a day (or a night) may hold.  

Wednesday Night Birth!

During clinic on Wednesday, a first time soon-to-be mom arrived at clinic in the (very) beginning stages of labor. We checked on her throughout the day, and by 11:00pm, she still had barely progressed and didn't seem to be too active.  We thought about staying the night at the clinic but decided that due to it being her first baby (labor typically takes a long time), and also the fact that'd we have a busy day of clinic the next day, we should just go home and wait for them to call us. We told the laboring lady's friend who was staying with her to contact us if she became more active.

At 1:30am, I heard CLANG CLANG CLANG at the gate. I woke up Anita, and we got ready as quickly as we could. I must confess, I was mumbling, half asleep during the 3 minutes it took me to get ready, and during the 2-3 minute walk on the way to the clinic - that this was ridiculous for that lady to be getting us two hours after we had just checked her and almost nothing was happening! Out of our warm, cozy beds, out into the chilly evening...On the road on our way there, there came an excited figure running towards us from the clinic, as soon as she got to us, she turned around and high tailed it back to the clinic in front of us.  What in the world? I knew it was the lady's friend. I could that she was quite worked up, and she was mumbling something about being out of breath, that's all I could understand.  I was about laughing then, this lady was such a crazy sight running up and down the road, and I started mumbling again in my half asleep state that we'll probably get there and the laboring lady will most likely be in the same state we left her. That's usually how it is when they wake us up at night. :)

Well, we stepped into the hospital room, and were all shocked (the lady's messenger too!) to hear the wail of a baby! 

There she was, a healthy baby girl and a happy mom, and a relieved messenger. :) 

Can't you just imagine what she's thinking?