And I thought I had a lot to write about last time...

    Friday afternoon we were supposed to have a members meeting at church to hear the converts tell their experiences then we would vote to see if they were all ready for baptism. Friday afternoon when the meeting was supposed to start it was raining. So we waited... When it quit raining about an hour later then we were going to have church so all of us from this household went. The ministers were still finishing up with a few visits so we sang... For an hour and a half... Then the ministers decided since not even half of the members were present we couldn't proceed with the meeting so we scheduled another meeting for Saturday afternoon. Saturday afternoon it was raining off and on so we went to church but once again not even half of the members were present... So we sat and talked, and talked, and talked... Until the decision was made that we would try one more time to have this meeting. This time we would have it after the Sunday morning service. So... To make a long story short... Sunday morning's service lasted from 9 am until 1:30 pm. There were 28 candidates who told their experiences and they were all approved for baptism. So this next Sunday will be another long service with 28 baptisms...
      For some reason I wasn't even present for half of the service Sunday. We had just finished Sunday school when a moto comes to the church with an injured man. This man got between a man and his wife when the man had a machete. Apparently the lady wanted to leave her husband and he was upset about that so was going after her with his machete. This other man stepped between them and got a whopping big wound to the side of his face and jaw. He lives a long ways away from here. He walked an hour up the mountain to get to someplace where they could get a moto. Then he had another hour ride to get here. When we got him to the clinic his blood pressure was 50/???. He was almost dead. Isaac and Heather had come up for the weekend so I was very glad for her help because Todd stayed at church. One of us held pressure to his face and the other one got two iv's started. When the fluids were dripping in as fast as possible we started to repair his face. He was cut from his ear to his lip.

Two places were through into his mouth. Several teeth had been knocked loose also. When we removed the clots we found some spurting blood so it hit an artery. We couldn't find two ends to sew together so had to sew it closed. It took several stitches but it worked. Then we could go about cleaning the wound a bit more and sewing it closed in two layers. We don't have blood products at our clinic so this man got 4 liters of IVF's. This brought his blood pressure up nicely. We used lidocaine where we stitched but that was the only anesthesia he got. I did have a couple of hydromorph pills that I gave him when we had finished stitching. He did amazing. We had just started stitching when this guys pregnant wife showed up. Someone had brought her on a moto. I think she was pretty much in shock about the whole thing too, probably not sure if she would find him alive. She watched the whole thing though and did well after we got her something to drink. I would really like to know what this guys hemoglobin and hematocrit was.  He had to have some stitches in his one arm too and some superglue to a cut on his thumb. After a short recovery time he headed home on a moto. He came back on Tuesday for dressing changes etc... And looked good. His blood pressure was good too. He is to return again on Friday.
    Sunday early evening a little girl and her dad show up at our door. This little girl somehow got burned. I don't know for sure how, the story seems rather sketchy. She has burns to her upper arm, shoulder and lower back and buttocks. They also come around close to her belly button etc... Pretty
much she has dressings all around her abdomen then part of one arm and part of one leg. Second degree at least.

One more strange thing, this child is three years old and she didn't make a sound while we dressed her burns. I didn't scrub them. I have found if I cover them with a thick layer of burn cream and dressings and change the dressings often that works as well as anything I've tried. Plus it is much less painful. She came again on Monday and Tuesday and got her dressings changed. Tuesday she did cry a little but it has to hurt terribly! She didn't come today so I sure hope she comes tomorrow. One thing the people here all have in their heads is that a burn should never be covered. They think it needs to be open to air. I do not agree with that. Even cold air hurts a burn and they need to be kept moist to heal properly. So that is always an education issue.

     Monday morning at 4:30 Keith got a call about a patient with cholera. Since I had had several cases on Sunday he called Githane to handle this one. I was very thankful. This was an adult man who had gotten cholera the night before at about 8pm and he was almost dead from dehydration. They got him IVF's etc... Were at the clinic with him for a couple of hours then came home for breakfast then we all headed back there again. We moved him and his bed outside so we could start normal clinic operations. Several hours later another family showed up with cholera too. So now we had four cholera patients plus the rest of our normal patients. We got them settled with IVF's if needed or lots of oral hydration then once again went back to our other patients. This family had lost two girls (a 8yr old and a 26yr old) on Friday from this same sickness but they still wouldn't believe that it was cholera. They said the other girls had something else then the "devil" got them. After numerous phone calls to the health agent where there is supposed to be a cholera center opening back up we got a health official of some kind to come visit the clinic and our patients then they told us where we could take these four patients. So late in the afternoon the ambulance headed down the mountain with them. Luckily since then we haven't seen more... Yet...

     There was a baby born at the clinic that day too. It wasn't too bad of a delivery, the mom just wasn't the most cooperative person I have ever seen. The baby was fine though. Hooray!
    Monday while I was home for lunch we had a storm. It rains here but that day there was thunder, lightning, and hail with the rain. The lightning hit the house too and messed up the inverter.
   Then today I had a grandma bring in her grandchild who was 17 months old, and weighed 5 1/2 pounds! It was terrible! I asked what she fed the baby and she said soup. I asked why she had waited so long and her reply was that the baby's mother is in Port-au-Prince and she kept phoning her to ask her what to do. I'm not sure what changed but she brought the baby in today. He has swollen feet and hands and eyelids from malnutrition. I hope it isn't too late for this little one.
     On Wednesdays Githane always has classes with the pregnant ladies so I see most of the rest of the patients. She usually sees 50-80 pregnant ladies on those days. Today while she was in class a lady came in in labor so I took her into my exam room. She had three children already and soon everything was set to go. This lady was very quiet and cooperative and after about two good pushes the baby was born. We surprised Githane by taking the newborn baby in her room to show the class. She hadn't even known there was anyone there in labor. Wow! That mother was amazing!
   Ok... Enough said for now...
P.S. I really enjoy reading those comments!

I was just reading over what I wrote the other day and decided there were a few more details I need to add. On Tuesday also the little boy with the prolapsed rectum came back in. He hadn't had any more problems until that morning when he prolapsed again. This poor little child knows he has to relax his body for us to get it back in and he tries hard, but it hurts so bad and your body's reflex is to continue to push. We finally gave him some water to drink to try and distract him. He was laying on the table on his stomach so couldn't really drink out of a cup so we were giving him water with a syringe. It wasn't long and he was refilling the syringe himself and having as good of a time as he could with all that was happening. When we finally got it back in this time he was squinching his butt cheeks together for all he was worth. He didn't want that problem again! We gave him some more Benadryl to help him relax and so far he hasn't been back. This day though his mom had brought his little brother to the clinic too for vaccines. We didn't want to risk another prolapse so mom took the baby home and then came back so she could carry him home too. Thankfully they don't live very far away. The little boy must have walked to the clinic that morning very painfully...
     Also, the little girl who we suspect had meningitis died the other day at the hospital. They did no further testing ( that is what we were afraid of) and I don't know if they kept giving her IV antibiotics or not.