A cut knee and the sniffles...

First up today is a lady with a split knee. She was going to market today, but since it has been raining a lot the last while there were a bunch of loose rocks on the road. She slipped on one and fell straight down on her front- her kivèt (that she had been carrying on her head, full of merchandise) fell down behind her, landing squarely on her back! When she got up she realized she had a large gash on her knee and a very sore spine!

Michael did the stitching. 

6 stitches, nicely done!

***

Next, there's been a lot of sniffling going on around here- runny noses, coughs, fevers- it seems like half the community has been coming into the clinic with this really bad cold. It's a relief not having really serious cases going through, but at the same time this cold is ferocious!

Cough syrup, fever reducers, etc., have been going out of the pharmacy at a good pace. The cold lasts for up to a week and a half, and really drags the victim down. Some of us here at the mission have come down with it too, so we know how it feels! :)

Some latecomers at the clinic, waiting for Virginia to get them some meds for their sniffles.

Another baby...

Yesterday there was another baby born!

Thankfully it was born around 3:30 in the afternoon instead of the middle of the night!

It was a baby girl, weighed a mere 5.5lbs and entered into the world without any complications!

Here she is!

The proud father!

The proud Grandmother!

And the happy nurses!

Unfortunately, the mother wasn't available for a picture at the time.

A busy day...

The large number of patients coming into the clinic continues;

Within the last week the nurses saw over 400 people!

People sitting outside, some waiting to be seen, some waiting for medicine, 

others crowding around the pharmacy window.

***

The nurses sterilize the medical instruments each month.

Here are some shots of the tools they use on a daily basis:

An accident with a pick...

This man, unfortunately, had an accident- an accident with a pick, that is. Yes, he was working in a garden crew and someone hit him with their pick and split his nose wide open! 

(Please, no jokes about picking noses... :)

He came into the clinic Friday afternoon and Michael got right to work on it.

Nice split, eh?

Stitching was very tedious, using fine to extra-fine thread on the outside AND the inside of his nose!

After a good while all 9 stitches were in place and he was ready to go!

He doesn't look all that thrilled, does he?

I wouldn't be feeling too good either, if I had the same condition!

Now, today, he came back to have some of the stitches taken out.

The task wasn't too easy, seeing how small the stitch was Michael was searching for!

Ah, there it is!

Wow. That's very small!

He should be back in a few more days to have the rest removed!

The boy with the spliced ear...

Often we have patients come in with rock-related injuries; a rock fell on them, they fell onto a rock, some rocks gave way in their garden and they fell down the hillside... But none are more interesting than the stories which accompany the cases caused by thrown rocks: there is always some excuse, some reason, for them having the rock thrown at them. And they are, more often than nought, innocent, of course. How much of each individual story you would like to believe is entirely up to you, but sometimes the circumstances surrounding the injury are just a little too fishy to support the entirety of the individual's innocency...

Such was the case with this young man yesterday. At the beginning of the operation his story went that he was just passing by a fight, minding his own business, and someone threw a random stone at him; but as the evening wore on, he eventually confessed to have entered into the brawl and thus acquired this pretty souvenir...

Looks pretty bad...

The rock smashed his ear up against his head, splicing and slicing it in at least two places!

The instruments were prepared...

And Michael began the operation...

After sterilizing the area, a clean and sterile pad is placed around his ear to keep the operation area clean.

One, two, three...

Four, five, six, seven stitches!

Feeling much better!

He was fearing for his ear at the first, because his buddies outside the 

gate were telling him we'd probably have to amputate it! :)

Michael made sure to let him know that this was not the case :)

Another busy day!

Yesterday was another big day at the clinic!

We had over 75 people come through.

Last week we discovered why so many people have been coming through lately... there was a clinic about 2 hours away that was turned into a CTC because of a local epidemic- so all the people that normally would go to that clinic have begun coming here!

At 9am the crowd has begun to assemble...

Within an hour the place is packed to capacity!

Michael took some time in the pharmacy to explain a few things to a patient.

Again (inside) the room was overflowing with people.

Now the time is about 1pm... even though everything went smoothly and quick, there were still some people left outside, waiting for their turn.

A major infection!

A few weeks ago a man appeared at the clinic with some cloths wrapped around his lower leg- he was limping and seemed to be in quite a bit of pain.

When the cloths were taken away this is what they found...

The man's ankle was being eaten away by a huge infection- his whole leg (beneath the knee) was swollen, rock-solid, and the flesh was slowly rotting off.

As you can see, the infection had progressed to such a degree that we feared for his entire leg.

Apparently it started as a small infection higher up on his leg and was never taken care of.

That was 2 years ago, he said!

The nurses decided to begin treatment immediately and have him come in each day to have it cleaned and redressed.

Here, Anita cleans all the rotten flesh off and begins to cleanse it.

She wrapped it with gauze and told the man to come back the next day.

After several days Michael cleaned it off and trimmed more dead tissue away.

There was a marked difference, already, in his condition.

Each day he came in to have it cleaned off with anti-baterial medication and rewrapped it.

This picture was taken just yesterday when he came in for his daily appointment. 

After just 2 1/2 weeks of treatment the swelling is almost all gone and new skin is forming on the open wound!

It's amazing to see how much he is improving and we are praising the Lord for healing this man thus far.

Please be praying for his physical recovery and also his spiritual condition- I don't know if he is a Christian or not.