Please, don't play in tin cans, children...

Some of us went up into the mountains for a cell group service yesterday and, after the service, a woman came to us with her little toddler- he had blood dribbling down his chin and was looking a bit stunned.

We sent him back to the clinic while we did a house call elsewhere, so when we arrived back home we were all curious how things went.

Michael had taken care of the case and the little guy was now officially minus one tooth on his bottom jaw :)

How did it happen? That was the question on all our minds! After asking the parents, Michael had the story: apparently he was playing and had put his face into a tin can of some sort- someone came by and had swiftly yanked it off, his tooth catching on the can's lip in the process!

Funny thing was, he had the most cheerful attitude the entire time! Such a happy little guy :)

Michael holds the tooth he just extracted...

They said during the operation he was grinning the entire time :)

The tooth had actually pulled out of the jaw bone, instead of snapping off.

"kontan" is the Creole for "happy"

He was definitely a "kontan" little guy!

Ouch... that must've hurt!

What happens when you are working to break up large rocks and one goes flying, smashing into your hand against another rock?

This unfortunate man found out the hard way...

The tip of his bone was actually sheared off by the rock's impact.

The tip of his finger was irreparable, so Michael decided to cut the severed part off and stitch it.

He numbed the entire finger for the operation.

After the finger was numbed completely Michael was able to proceed with removing the damaged tissue.

After about an hour the job was all finished up!

A typical Monday at the clinic...

Some patients await their turns outside the pharmacy window...

Others wait outside for their numbers to be called...

Still yet more wait inside for consultations...

Breanna and Virginia fill prescriptions inside the pharmacy...

At the close of the noon hour, almost everyone is finished!

3 more babies at the clinic!

Over the last week or so there have been 3 babies born!

The first baby's mother had come in for a checkup before she went into labor; the nurses detected an irregular heartbeat in the baby, so they had her go out to town for an ultrasound and further checkup.

She came back a few weeks later to have the baby at our clinic and all went well.

The baby (though healthy) still had a strange heartbeat, so we advised them to have it taken to the doctor in town and checked out further.

Joelle Hess helped with the delivery.

The little boy weighed 7lbs 6oz.

Mis Breanna with the baby...

And Mis Anita...

 The little guy looks like he's waving for the camera! :)

***

The next birth was on the 29th of April.

This little guy presented face first during delivery, so the nurses were hoping and praying that all would go well; things progressed and baby was born!  Baby and Mama both did very well.  Baby just had a swollen face.  Praise the Lord!

Michael and Virginia use a suction machine to clear his throat of fluids, enabling the little guy to breathe.

The suction machine was donated to us a while back and it has been a tremendous blessing!!

Here he is, all cleaned up and ready to go!

He weighed exactly 7lbs!

Michael, Virginia, Breanna and Anita helped with this delivery.

***

The third baby born came just yesterday, May 2nd!

The mother came in to have the baby here at the clinic and had pre-eclamptic signs, but as the labor progressed everything went well!

She delivered a beautiful little girl, weighing 7lbs 9oz's.

Anita and Breanna did a great job as the nurses on call.

Mother and baby, almost ready to go!

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!