Clinic news

    So now, a little info about the clinic... One day I had a six month old baby come in with an abscess on her butt that needed to be drained. I was pushing around on it to see if it had an opening or if I would have to make an opening when... Pus under very high pressure shot out into my hair and over my head to hit the wall. The baby's mother was rather horrified when she saw this stuff in my hair and just stared. I told the mom she could pick her baby up and I would be back in a few minutes to finish what I had started. I attempted to get the smelly stuff out of my hair and was minimally successful. I really wanted to just wash my hair but we had benches full of patients waiting so I did what I could and went back to the baby and this time did not stand in the line of fire but rather by the baby's head. The abscess hadn't looked very big but had lots and lots of stuff that needed to come out. Then I let the mom put the baby's diaper back on while I got some antibiotics ready. For some strange reason the rest of the day I kept getting wafts of abscess smell and didn't waste much time getting a shower when clinic was finished. 

   Another day a local school teacher brought in a little boy who was probably 4 yrs old and who had stuck a crayon in his nose and it had broken off and was now stuck in there. This little guy was a trooper! He said it hurt but didn't even cry when I stuck a tweezers up in his nose to try and dislodge this green crayon. After a couple of tries I got the crayon loose but was unable to get a hold of it with the tweezers because it was so big and now slippery with snot. So I told the boy to sit up and blow hard out of his nose. He did and the piece of crayon shot out and hit the table. Did he learn a lesson about putting things in places where they don't belong??? I guess time alone will tell.

    This week out cistern ran out of water. Keith had been worried that it would already before the wedding but we had several little showers that helped us out. There are not a lot of options here of where to get water. There are no wells, only cisterns, and the river is a long ways down the mountain. Thankfully the clinic cistern still has plenty of water so several days Keith hired three local boys to haul water. Someone had a 200 gallon tank that they put in the back of a komyon (truck). Then they went to the clinic and had to pull water up out of the cistern with 5 gallon buckets and fill the tank on the truck, then rode on the truck for a short ride to the house, going over the many bumps and splashing water out of the tank, only to get to the house and now had to empty the tank with five gallon buckets also. The sad thing is, we pump the water into tanks on top of the house so we can get some water pressure and those tanks hold about 400 gallons each and we have two of them. We might have to haul water again but at least its getting close to rainy season when our supply will be replenished.

    The other day a lady came into the clinic with something like a cyst on her arm. Apparently she had had it for 3 yrs but it caused her a lot of pain so she wanted us to look at it. I called Todd because I wasn't sure what to do about it. He came to the clinic to look at it and thought we really should remove it. So he put some lidocaine around the spot then he got out a scalpel and made a small incision. After the incision was big enough the cyst or whatever it was popped out. It was about the size and shape of an uncooked bean and was hard. Todd thought maybe it was from a worm but we're not sure. But maybe now her arm can heal and not cause her pain anymore.