Invasion by "poul poul"

  In the last several weeks it seems there are some creatures that don't appreciate us living here. It started one day with an invasion by bees. I guess they were trying to find a new home. Never the less, there were many, many bees in the house and it was lunch time. Sallie and I could just hang out in our  rooms since they aren't connected to the house. Candace was attempting to make lunch in between spraying bees. I was warned not to go in the house barefoot but I had no shoes handy so just went without. I hadn't even fully sat down in my chair by the table when I was stung on one of my little toes. I don't know where I would choose to be stung if I could choose but I know it definitely wouldn't be on my little toe! Talk about full body shock waves originating from your "wee, wee, wee all the way home" toe!
    In the next several hours the bee presence did decrease. But....
Only two days later Sallie and I were talking... Neither of us had slept very well the night before. I was just terribly itchy, especially my face. I had even gotten up in the wee hours of the morning to see if I did have anything on my face and to put on some lotion to try and decrease the itching sensation. It didn't work. Then we were both in our rooms when we made a startling discovery. We both had tiny creatures crawling on our pillows. The wall between our rooms doesn't go all the way to the ceiling so we were talking back and forth and both discovered these critters at almost exactly the same time. It was too late in the day to wash our sheets, they would never have been dry and we don't have a dryer so we got out the bug spray. We coated our sheets but it did no good. They were smaller than a piece of pepper from a salt and pepper shaker and dark brown or black. They were not fleas because they didn't jump. They weren't lice or bedbugs either. They didn't bite that we could tell just crawled on a person's skin and made them itch. You had to look at your arm very closely especially if you had freckles and watch to see if these "spots" moved. By now everyone in the house knew we had a problem and had been out to our rooms to investigate. It wasn't long and everyone felt itchy just from seeing these things. Keith was looking online trying to determine what the things were and Sallie and I then tried flea and tick spray for animals on our sheets. Then we found out the wall our windows are on was absolutely covered with these things. Sallie and I slept in the house that night then the next morning Keith talked to some of the local Haitians to see if they knew what these bugs were. Oh yes, they are chicken mites! Poul poul is their name in creole. They are only around in dry season and live in banana trees. So we took all the rugs, sheets, mattresses and pillows out of our rooms and sprayed our rooms with some kind of chemical. This also meant all the clumps of banana trees in the yard got cleaned up and so on and on... Thankfully after two days they were all gone and we have moved back into our rooms.   It may not be a consolation to anyone else but Sallie and I were glad that both of us had these creature invasions... You know... Misery LOVES company!
   One day an 11 year old girl came to the clinic with some of her neighbors. She had cut her thumb 22 days before and finally the neighbor brought her to the clinic because it just wasn't healing. The end part of her thumb was almost cut off. We didn't think the end piece was even getting enough blood flow to heal plus how do you sew a 22 day old wound up? The girl just wanted us to cut the end piece off and we really didn't feel we had many other options. We did a digital block on her thumb then also numbed around where we would cut. I didn't get a picture after our little surgery but will try to if and when she comes back.

    We also had a man come to our clinic form 4 hours away. He has many large white patches of scaly skin. It is scattered on his head, chest, back and arms and almost totally covers his legs. He has had this sickness for one and a half years. He has been to a hospital for this but their treatment didn't help.  Nobody else in his family had this sickness. The skin is so dry in places it just cracks open and it is painful and itchy. We aren't sure what it is but we are treating it as a fungal infection now. Since he is from so far away and fungus heals slowly we asked him to return in one month for a follow-up.

Happy Easter!

     It's been a beautiful day here today. We have the three girls from the orphanage up here to visit this weekend. Friday morning we had a Good Friday service. Keith told the Easter story with flannel graph. Then after lunch Zack, Cam, Lacey, Sallie and I went to pick up the girls. Then yesterday we all went to the beach in Grand Gosier. The girls had never been there and we sure don't mind going either. We didn't all fit in the machine so Zach, Cam, Trevor and Mirlene went on bikes. It was a very enjoyable day. We even sang for a while on the way back up. It probably sounded pretty amusing because of all the many bumps in the road but was still fun. Keith is going to Port-au-Prince tomorrow so he will drop the girls back off at the orphanage on his way there.
    Last week one day we had a boy come to the clinic who had been in a motorcycle wreck. He had a head injury, was bleeding from his ear, was unconscious, and had scrapes and bruises. We have no way of knowing the extent of his injuries but told the family they could take him home and see what happened or we could give him a ride down to Port in our ambulance. They opted for the ride. Apparently they had to go to six hospitals in Port before any of them would accept him as a patient. I am not even sure what all they could have done for him, I haven't been to the hospitals in Port yet so I don't even know what equipment they have. I know they don't have a neurologist or brain surgeon though. Keith called the boy's brother the next morning though and he was doing better. He was talking some so who knows??
     Another young man we had came with the complaint of shortness of breath and weakness. He was 27 years old and had no previous medical history except he hadn't been feeling well for the past month and now had swelling of his hands and feet. He was very weak! I gave him some medicine in a little cup and it was hard for him to even tip the medication into his mouth. His breathing sounded clear but his oxygen saturation were 58% and his heart rate was fast. I gave him some medications to remove some fluid and for congestive heart failure then some powder for nutrition drinks. We told the family he needed to find a ride down to Port to get his heart checked out. The ambulance was not working at that time so we couldn't offer a ride that night but told him if he hadn't found a way down by the next time Keith went to Port he could get a ride. This was at about 7 in the evening. They took him home and the next morning we found out he had died at about 10 that night. I really think he had a heart problem but I don't know what it was. We don't even have an EKG machine at our clinic. I'm not sure what an EKG would have shown but it may have given us a little more of a clue what was going on.
    Till next time...
P.S. In case anyone tried to write but didn't know my email address here it is....
atoews5225@gmail.com

It is hunger season in Haiti

   The rainy season will soon be here so people are working in their fields getting them ready to plant. It is also the time of year when the people are hungry. They have no money left from last years crops and this years are just getting planted. There are fewer patients coming to the clinic now also as they don't have the small amount of money we charge. Then we have to decide who can be seen without paying...
    I saw a little girl today, 2 months old, with a terrible rash all over her body. Some of it was blisters with clear fluid, some was blisters with pus, and some was just scaly and itchy. We don't know what it is from. We gave her a bath and put a lot of anti-itch lotion on and gave her Benadryl and antibiotics. I have seen one other case similar to this but this other child had infected scabies and it wasn't over the whole body.

   A couple of days ago we saw a 6 year old boy who had fallen off of a horse. I don't know what he fell onto but it must have been sharp. He had a ragged cut on his forehead that took 17 stitches to close. We used some lidocaine to numb the site and he didn't even cry, he fell asleep while I was stitching his head.

  On Tuesday Cam, Christina and I went to a cave that is about 20 minutes from here. It is a cave that you have to get down into with a rope then has a small passageway going down even farther into the ground where you have to use a rope to get down in also. There are two opening on the top but a person needs a flashlight if they're going all the way to the end. We did. Christina's legs were barely long enough to reach some of the footholds but she did very well.  She went all the way to the end with us going down the rope twice and back up it twice. There are a lot of weird rock formations down there and stalactites (?spelling) just waiting for you to stand up straight so they could stab you. We had finished clinic early so I thought it would be a good day to see the cave while it was still daylight. We met a lady who has a house close to the cave. I guess she had just talked to Keith asking him if he could help her buy a tarp for their house roof. Her husband left her and she has three small children. I would say she could definitely use any help we can give. The roof of their house had some small tarps on it held down with rocks. Part of the roof was even falling in.
  That's all the news I can think of for now. By the way, anyone can feel free to send me an email....