Visiting Elvie

 

Whitney, me, Dr Felix, Bro. Mark (background), and Elvie's daughter
Elvie on the bed

This story

This story didn't just happen, but I still wanted to tell it!

 After clinic last Fri, we gathered supplies, headed home for a quick lunch, and then loaded into the Bobcat to do a house visit.  This house call was a little different as we intended to do a paracentesis for our patient who was in the hospital a few weeks back, Elvie by name.  It was Glendon, Dr Felix, Whitney, and I who went.  We could drive as far as Brother Mark’s house.  From there it’s a little trail down the mountain about 15 min.  We had tried to send word for them to have her at Mark’s house, but that didn’t work so down the mountain we headed.  They were very happy to see us.  Before we could start to remove the fluid, we needed to start an IV.  I was able to hang the IV from the beam; it worked well!  J  Dr. Felix then set to work, and we removed 3,850 ml (a gallon) of fluid. 

It started raining while we were there so we waited out the rain for a while before deciding we better brave it even if we got wet.  The climb back up was a little slippery since the trail was now wet, but we made it.  I was glad to be able to visit her again, but I would say she seems to be getting weaker.  Do pray for her and her family.  

                                                                                                                                                                     My little friends and I (on the far left is Elvie's                                                                                                  youngest daughter)

The little Sam boy...

 I was just letting out a deep sigh of relief after a rather stressful birth on Saturday, when I was called outside to check a patient. He was laying in the arms of his mother...and I almost had to dig around in the blankets to find him. A tiny, itsy-bitsy, face peered out at me. His name was Samuel.

 After gently laying him on the exam table, I unwrapped him and just stood and stared a minute. His legs were so tiny and so wrinkled they looked like they could break as easy as a pretzel stick. Not only that, but I saw he was totally club-footed. He had no strength, and only mewed out little cries like a baby kitten. His limbs flopped flaccidly against the blanket. He weighed 3 lbs. 12 oz. His little nose was so tiny it looked like he almost forgot to grow one. :)

 Then started the hours of trying to get that tiny little mouth to suck. I dribbled milk into his mouth with a medicine dropper, until he had the strength to suck from a preemie bottle nipple. What a JOY to see him finally latch onto that bottle nipple and suck away as if his life depended on it.  "That's life and health, little Sam boy," I whispered. Overnight, his sunken cheeks started filling out, his little limbs started flailing around, and he started nosing around hungrily for milk.

 ...Our little head boy came in for rebandaging today. He looked very doubtfully at me when I removed his bandage, and a few huge tears squeezed out when I cleaned his wounds. No doubt he's still traumatized from the stitch job the other night. After his screams of, " I'm going to give you all shots and beat you ALL!" while we were stitching him, Ro and I are trying to make him believe we're his friends.

Loud, kicking, screaming, uuuuu another hit.

Sunday afternoon we got word there's a dad by the gate with his son who needs medical help.
The picture talks plenty enough. He fell and he cut his upper for head open and his chin as well. He would not be comforted whatsoever and after hours of hard work Rhoda and Katie were excited to take a breathe of fresh air. The little boy screamed and shouted and tripled the effect with his hands and feet. Finally a few of us had to hold him down and what tired arms some of them ha after hour and half of holding him!!!!
I really admire the nurses for being able to stitch something like that. It showed the skull and we were scared that he had a concussion. Doctor in Port told Anita to keep a watchful eye on him overnight and then sen him out Monday morning. The doctor said there was no concussion so they are back up here in the mountains again. We are thankful it wasn't worse.

Diagnosis of the boy with the clouded eye.

Here is the diagnoses we received from the clinic out by Titayan where we sent the little boy with the clouded eye. Also an update from this morning. He came to the clinic this morning and Anita is now working on trying to book him in with a surgeon in Port for the needed surgery. Pray that we would find the right surgeon and that it would be successful.
>
> And now for the details from Dr. Hager. The official diagnosis was a cloudy cornea likely as a result from a herpes eye infection. He does not currently have an active viral infection.

> His recommendation was to see an ophthalmologist in PAP for surgery to remove the cloudiness from the cornea. He said that even in the US, under the best of circumstances, the best outcome would be a lazy eye with poor vision. But, there is a chance that the surgery would not be successful at all.
>
> The eye was a bit infected so he gave him the besivance eye drops, 1 drop in the eye four times daily for 7 to 10 days. He also put some drops in his eye for pain.

If you wish to see a picture of the boy with the clouded eye just scroll down to one of the post from last week. Thank you all for praying and for the interest in the work here.

Patient transfer and house call.

Taking a patient to Grafu.

    On Wednesday I came home from church to find out that Glenden is taking Anita and Katie to Grafu for a house call, so I jumped with. First we picked up this gentleman above, he is I believe 87 years old and has different ailments, shigilosis for one and I'm not sure as to what the others are. But we dropped him of at the catholic school there and after finishing the house call, he was still sitting. It seemed to me he couldn't last much longer.

Thought this picture would give you an idea of how little certain colors mean
to Haitians. This is Boss Marks house, I was amazed at how thorough and
perfect everything was built. 

Anita and Katie posing for a picture with Boss Marks mom.

Where Is My Toothbrush?

      Besides telling some people it is a good idea to brush their teeth, we have been having fun giving out a few free toothbrushes, tooth paste, and bath towels recently.
     Somewhere in the fluff and stuff we found we have these nice little hygiene kits waiting for recipients. Well, giving things away is a lot of fun. So, yes, this week has been good so far.
    Monday, Katie and I took a nice little tramp up the mountain to Madam Jill's house. She is a tiny, shrunken up Grandma, with hardly anyone to care for her. Her blood pressure is dangerously high, and her feet are swollen. We had fun taking her some meds, praying with her, and handing her one of the little hygiene kits. She wanted us to tie the towel from the kit around her head to keep her warm.
     Another day, we got to give a little old Grandma we call Freckles a hygiene kit. Today we gave our little friend, Chelo, a kit.

    He was so happy to have his picture taken. Chelo lives with his mom. Sometimes he asks her why their dad doesn't help to take care of them. Sometimes he reads the Bible to his mom, now that they have one in their house.
     Please pray for us as we do the best we can with what knowledge we have. Sometimes the reality of our shortcomings is depressing. In the medical world, so little room is left for mistakes. Please pray that God would empower our minds and hands for His work in this tiny, hilly corner of Earth.

~Mis Rhoda

Saturday...........Sunday...........Monday................

Whitney entering med's inventory

Rhoda and Whitney spend a good part of each Saturday
in the pharmacy restocking and doing inventory,

Last night I answered a knock at the gate before the others got home form
the orphanage, there were 36 people with him, he was said to have fallen on
the mountain and hurt his eye. Smelling of alcohol it's not that hard to believe.

It's badly swollen on the inside, so gave them a choice to stay here, or we
would pay him has way to Ti Goave to see if there could be more wrong then
we can see at this point. He does see out of that eye but not as good.

The pharmacy workers busy as bees like usual.

This old gentleman we have dubbed "tap tap" he always comes tapping
onto the mission compound, tapping his way across Steve's porch, and then
the regular "tap tap" sound on the door asking for food.  He lives up the
mountain and is almost blind. I don't have a picture of him and his wife but
they are quite the lovely couple. He walks the steep mountain trails quite a bit
each week but sometimes he falls and then ends up at the clinic needing tender
loving care. Miss Katie is in charge of him this round, and he wanted a pain shot
so he asked Shana if she could tell the nurses to give him one. He was so happy.

Here is another of those cases where we don't know which way to turn, because we know
there is help out there for him possibly but they/not we don't have funds to do anything about
it. He has been like this for 2 years now. Coming for check ups regularly but not getting
anywhere closer to finding out what's wrong with it and what if anything can be done with
it. But we decided to send him out to a mission close to the CAM base this coming Friday.
There is a team of eye specialist and surgeons coming and they are willing to do a
consultation for him and see if he can be helped. Once we find out, we will need funds to
pay for the procedure and up keep afterwards.