A New Kind Of Patient.

I dreamed of someday growing up and being a veterinarian when I was a kid.  I never imagined that I would end up as a nurse working in Haiti.  And it certainly never crossed my mind that I would end up assisting in veterinarian work while working as a nurse in Haiti. :o) 

Fre Direk, one of the men that works at the clinic, has a mule that had a gash that he wanted the nurses to stitch up yesterday afternoon after we were finished at the clinic.  I thought it sounded like fun, so Whit and I headed out to help Ro with her new patient.  It looked as though someone had taken a machete to the poor thing -whether intentionally or not, I never found out.  The gash being approximately eight inches long and gaping open almost four inches, along with the close proximity to the rather unhappy animal's hind feet, made the task of closing this wound look a little more daunting than some. 

As the men wrapped ropes around the mule, in an attempt to restrain it enough to be able to stitch it up, Ro set up and prepared to inject lidocaine around the gash.  After the men proclaimed it safe, Ro bravely edged closer with her needle, and put an incredible effort into numbing the poor beast up. 

She managed to get the shots done, and attempted to start stitching, but the mule had other ideas.  Fre Direk, the owner of the mule, is the man in the yellow shirt, by the way.

So, since nobody wanted to get hurt, the men were told that unless they could find a better way of restraining the mule, there was nothing more that could be done.

After an inordinately long length of time, a lot of discussion amongst themselves, and a rather vigorous fight, the men had the mule lying on it's side, with it's feet somewhat treacherously secured.  It was still a bit disgruntled about the needles being dug into it's flank, so the first few stitches were ripped out from it's attempts to regain it's feet.  Mis Leda wanted a chance to try her hand at stitching it, so the suture needle was handed off to her, and I decided to add my weight to the effort in holding the mule down.  

My new vantage point also enabled me to be able to hold the edges of the wound together, keeping the stitches from ripping out, while Ro, Whit, and Kate helped by passing things to, and cutting things for, Mis Leda.

 Our team effort paid off, and multiple suture sets and rinses with iodine later, we were looking at a pretty neat stitch job. :o) I wish we had remembered to get a picture, so that I could show you the difference, but we were all too happy to have finished to think of it. :o) The mule seemed to be pretty pleased to be finally be allowed up and have us done, too, and Fre Direk was extremely grateful to have his mule looking a little more.....healthy and put together. :o) 

 On a side note, and completely unrelated to the clinic, I have been talking about getting some kind of pet since I got down here, and just never got around to it.  So I was utterly delighted to walk into my room yesterday evening and find an adorable little bunny in a box on my bed. :o) And today, the guys built a fantastic rabbit hutch for her to live in.  So this is just to let everyone out there in cyberspace know what fantastic people there are down here.  Thanks again, to everyone that chipped in to surprise me and allow me to have something to spoil rotten and de-stress with. :o)  Ya'll are the best!

Good evening, folks, and have a blessed week! 

-Kindra

This Little Piggy...

had none. :[   You remember Jean Franz?   I knew it was only a matter of time before his toe came off.  Last Thursday it was dead enough to snip the last little bit of skin holding it on without him even noticing.   I think he was a bit surprised to sit up and see it was gone!  I can't say that I enjoy the feeling of cutting toes off, even if they are dead.   It just doesn't feel quite right.  :]  But on the whole, we're very happy about how his foot is doing!

Below is a picture from today.  It's amazing to see how quickly new skin is growing back!  We were very excited to get more B&W creme, as of yesterday!  We're also bandaging it with boiled banana leaves in place of nonsticks now, which is working great. 

Right now we're spending extra time working with him to exercise his foot every day so he doesn't get foot drop or lose movement in it.   Yesterday when we made him stand up and staighten his hurt foot to the ground, he screamed and cried and begged us to stop.   Today he did it almost willingly, comparatively.  And he seemed proud to show us how much he can move it up and down!   That sure put a smile on our faces. 

Kindra, Rho, and I cheer, high five, and say "Mesi, Bondye!"  (Thank you, God!:)  

As far as when he'll be totally healed up, he still has a long road ahead, and we keenly feel our need for wisdom to know what's best to do, and when.   Right now we're talking about the possiblity of getting some skin grafting done for him, which would have to be done in Port-au-Prince. 

And this little piggy below...probably went to market one too many times without a shoe. 

Actually, it belongs to a poor old man with bad blood sugar problems.  It seems as though the whole top is mostly just rotting flesh, but sadly still alive enough that he can still feel the pain of it.  We lidocained around it and then slowly began cutting away bit by bit of dead flesh...

We decided that it was worth trying masks for this job.  Unfortunately other than fogging my glasses and making our faces hot, they didn't make much of a difference.  :)  To the right is the man's daughter helping hold his leg still. 

Well I'm short on time to write much today, the reason- or maybe excuse, being that Lord-willing Kate and DominiQue will be here tonight (finally!:), so we're eagerly checking things off our to-do list in preparation for their arrival!  ;)  So all for now.  Have a great day, and take care of your toes!  :)
 

Thanks Again, God!

   Babies are gifts straight from heaven. The more infants I see making it safely into the world, the more I believe it. There are so many things that can go wrong. In this case the baby was fine, but the mom went through some trauma after the birth. This was the first time I saw a prolapse, post-delivery, and had to work quickly to replace the stubborn inwards....
   After the mom was stabilized, and the IV was dripping swiftly, I realized that I was shaking, and also pretty much splashed with blood. I want to thank our team again. They always amaze me with their intuition and cheerleading skills. The birth is over, everyone seems to be fine at the moment, and we have a lot to be thankful for.

   And for those of you who are still in the dark about our newest addition to the staff, I will slide a picture on of Kindra Stoll. We are very blessed to have her as part of our staff.

Introductions...

Hello from the newest member of the clinic team.  My name is Kindra Stoll.  I'll be around for the next year, Lord willing, so I've been told I'm supposed to introduce myself to everyone.  I'm from Tennessee, and am the daughter of Ervin & Linda Stoll, for all of you genealogy-lovers out there. :o)  I've been here just a bit over two weeks now, and it's beginning to feel like home. 

I'm still trying to find "my" place here at the clinic, so I'm a little unsure what I should write about.  I don't really have a set-in-stone job, and I don't always feel as though I'm being much help when I'm constantly calling for Whit or Ro to translate or tell me how to do something.  I am ever-so-slowly starting to figure out where things belong, who is who, and get a feel for the way the clinic runs, though.

As you may have guessed, learning the language is pretty high on my priority list right now, so I am trying to take the time each day to study.  Easier said than done, though, here at the mission.  People stay pretty busy around here.  There are always pills to count out, dishes to be washed, food to make, and people knocking at the gate.

Since I can't speak creole, I'm fairly limited in what I can do at the clinic, as far as doing a consultation with a patient, and actually diagnosing their problem and treating it.  Things that can be done without having to hold a conversation with the person, such as taking vitals, or getting medicines, tend to fall more into my realm of work.  When I'm not busy with that, I just sorta float around and try to find someone that looks like they could use a second set of hands, whether it's holding Whit's burn patient's leg up, or one of Ro's abscess patients down.  

Those are the situations that drain me.  When children are crying, screaming, and begging you to please stop hurting them.  I can't tell them that it has to be cleaned out, cut off, or stitched up to prevent an infection from claiming their limb or their life.  I can't tell them that yes, it will hurt really bad for a bit, but it has to happen, and it will be over soon.  I can only stare into their dark, hurting eyes, and whisper the word for "I'm sorry." 

Steve & Shana and their children, along with Whitney and Rhoda, went out to Petit Goave this afternoon.  Steve has to go to Port in the morning to pick up a couple at the airport, so they are spending the night in Petit Goave and the girls and Shana will stay there while he goes to the airport tomorrow.  They left me holding the clinic keys with rather shaky hands, the only blan nurse left at the mission, while I tried to reassure myself by repeating mentally that God will not hand me more than I can handle. :o)

I was supposed to be adding a picture of myself to this post, but since I forgot to get Whit's camera card from her, I guess it will have to wait.  So, until next time...God bless!    





 

Jean Franz (Jah Frahs)

...is the 16 year old boy who first showed up at the clinic Jan 7th, with a very badly burnt foot.   (I think Rho briefly mentioned him awhile back)  They said he fell into the fire.  At first we couldn't tell how deep the damage was.  We cleaned it and bandaged it with B&W creme and gave him a rendezvous to come back again very soon.  I think it was the third time he came back for re-bandaging that we decided he would need to stay in the hospital room for awhile.   All the skin slipped right off like the skin off a boiled tomato, exposing tissues we don't like to see exposed.   It was particularly deep right on the top of his foot, deep enough that we could see the white tendon running to his big toe.  At that point we decided we would need to go sterile to clean and re-bandage him every day.  So that's what we've been doing.  Every morning we pull off the slimy bandages from the day before, and with a sterile set of scissors and tweezers, I carefully cut away all the loose dead skin, fat, and tissues.  
This was a couple weeks ago...

Thankfully that doesn't hurt him at all since it's dead.  The washing part does hurt him quite a bit.    We're down to healthy red flesh now, which is a good thing except for the fact that it hurts him more.  We gently wash and wipe his foot with iodine and gauze, and then irrigate it with sterile water.  After that we re-bandage it with more B&W, making sure we put guaze with creme between all his toes to keep them from sticking together.   The past few days there are what look like red blisters on the most raw areas that bleed really easily.   We weren't sure what to think of them, but the Doc came and looked at his foot and said to just keep doing, so we were glad to hear that!
A few days ago...

Most recent shot, taken today...

His dad and mom take shifts staying with him in the hospital, occasionally along with one of their other five children.  It's been a blessing for us to have them around and get to know them more.  We often find them reading their Bibles or singing when we come in.  It's not very often that you see Christian families like theirs who seem always ready to serve in any way they can, whether by sweeping, mopping, burning trash, or wherever else they see a need.   At this point it's hard telling how much longer he's gonna have to stay at the hospital, but it sure looks like he has a long road to recovery ahead.   We're hopeful that B&W will be true to it's reputation though and speed the journey! 
Continue to pray for us here!  We need the grace and strength and wisdom of God each day to deal with each new situation as it comes.  Ro mentioned the little boy and the mother we took out to Ti Goave yesterday.  We made it safely to the hospital with them and left them in the care of good Doctors.  The Dr was ordering an x-ray for the boy when we left, but we haven't heard anything more about how he's doing yet.  
God bless you, each in your special slot of service for Him! :) 
~Whitney

Get Up!-It's Monday....

  The other morning I woke up and ran to the door. "What?" I yelled.

   Nobody was there. It was just a bad dream.

   Well, this morning, someone WAS there, when I ran to answer the call.

   "Are you up yet?" Steve wondered.

   "Yes," I said, trying to make it sound like I had been up a long time, but tricking no one.

   "There is a pregnant lady at the clinic," he informed us.

   By the time we saw her, she was not pregnant anymore. In fact, they told us that the small baby had been born sometime after midnight. I was wishing it was a bad dream. But it was for real. A little midget of an angel was lying there, to remind us of heaven before we started the week.

   By the time we felt comfortable to leave her, it was time for a bit of coffee and then a U-turn to the clinic again. We were planning to put an IV in the lady who had come first thing this morning, but... A lady came in screaming and holding out a blood-dripping thumb. So, everyone stood back a little as we helped her into a bed, and got out the sterile scissors. A few stitches and steri-strips later, we thought it looked a bit more like a thumb again.

   Then, before we even got her bandaged, another little boy arrived. He was breathing hard, bleeding into his cornea, and not able to urinate. So, the attention shifted to him. His oxygen stats were unstable, so we put him on oxygen, and made plans to send him out to the hospital after Mis Leda administered a catheter.

   Meanwhile, another patient showed up. We are highly suspicious that he has tuberculosis, and so we also sent him out today, to a special faculty where they help tuberculosis patients. 

   So, back to the IV and the lady with the miscarriage. She joined the machine and went out to TiGoave for further care. I wanted to cry with her, when I saw tears streaming down her cheeks. What a hard day. "My children at home, they don't have anything," she whispered in my ear.

     Here is a little girl we have been seeing every day this week. She had an abscess on her chest, and a draining wound above her eyes. It is so exciting to see her improving.

                                                    It's Madeline!

   Now, as the day fades away, we are waiting to hear from Steve and Whitney, who have not yet returned from TiGoave, where they took our transfer cases. 

      The day doesn't want to stop. I try to write this little epistle and end up going down to clinic to help a few more people with skin conditions, or little problems. I know it is Monday! And that God is still in control! Thank-you for all your prayers! Mis Woda

    

    

     

It's About Time

...for another blog post!  Sometimes we have a hard time finding something interesting to blog about.  Sometimes we have lots to blog, but we get so busy with everything happening that we just don't have time to blog anything.  And then sometimes we have something to blog and the time to blog it, but really bad internet connection.  And that's how it's been lately.  :)  So we're sorry for the silence, but it will probably be awhile yet before we have good enough connection again to be able to post anything.   So until then... :)