On Sunday Jay took a pregnant lady down to Port in the ambulance so he was gone most of the day. After we got home from church Sunday morning an "emergency" showed up at the house. A young man who was carried here on his bed. He said he couldn't walk and his "malady" was his right hip. He had a large area on the side of his hip that looked like a burn. The skin was peeling away and it had some blisters. His leg was swollen also. the story is... No, he had not been burned. This just happened. He fell in a pit months ago and his leg has never been right after that. This wound had only been there a few days. I let Chancela handle this one also, but we really didn't know how to treat it. She gave a few medications and dressed the wound and told them to come to the clinic on Monday. Monday morning he was there on his bed when we got to the clinic. Jay was helping us see patients because Roseline was on her way back up from Port. He looked at this guy's hip and talked with them a bit. They admitted then that this guy had been to a "bone doctor" who pulled around on his leg and put some cream on his hip. I don't know if he had broken bones or what but we gave him some pain medication and told the family that he needed to go down to a hospital where he could get an x-ray to find out what was wrong. We really doubted whether they would take him down but that was our recommendation. The next morning someone told me he had died that night. I have no idea what actually was wrong.

     On Tuesday I saw a young man who was there with his mother for a consultation. Both he and his mother were trying to tell me the story of what was wrong and I was not getting it, at all. There were too many words that I was not familiar with. Then he asks "Can I speak to you in English?" Yes, certainly! He was fluent in English and explained to me that his mother had some mental problems and he was wondering if there was any medication we could give her to help decrease her anxiety. I did a little bit of research and decided to give her some Trazadone to take in the mornings and some Benadryl to take at night to help her sleep. Hopefully those medications will help her.

     Wednesday wasn't a long day, we probably finished at about 1 pm. I made some granola bars then was going to go back to the clinic for a while to try and organize a few things in my room.  Jay was working at the clinic and just when I was ready to leave the house he messaged that there was a lady there to have a baby and it looked like it would be soon so could someone come help with the delivery... So I thought I was going to help deliver a baby.  While we were waiting a moto pulled up with a sick baby. The baby had been born at the clinic several days before. The family had brought him back the day before because his eyes were yellow. They were very yellow! But otherwise he looked good, alert, well hydrated, etc...  We advised to cover his eyes and put him in the sunshine, also how important it is that he eats as often as he can, as the bilirubin is excreted in the stool. Now he looked horrible! Raspy breathing, gasping, oxygen sats in the mid 80's,  VERY jaundiced eyes and now his face was very yellow also. His hands and arms almost seemed like he was having spasms too. Brain damage from hyperbilirubinemia? ABO incompatibility? I don't know. We had him on some oxygen and Jay transported him down to a hospital that evening. I don't know what the outcome will be for him. Meanwhile, the baby still has not been born. Over the next several hours, Roseline and Chancela both came to the clinic also and we tried everything we could think of to help this mother deliver, without success. At about 10:30 pm she still had not delivered but we hadn't been able to find anyone to transport them down to the hospital. Our ambulance was already down with the baby. The baby's heart rate was strong and the mother wasn't in distress so we encouraged the family to find a ride down to the hospital and came home, tired. I haven't heard what happened since then.

     This afternoon's emergency was a moto accident. I don't know exactly how it happens, but so often with a moto accident the wound or injury that needs stitching etc... is on the face or head. This one literally looked like he had a hole in the side of his face, by his eye. It was deep also. This guy was in a lot of pain so I gave him a shot but still couldn't really wash it out like I wanted to so I got out the Lidocaine and numbed it up. Then I was able to irrigate the wound and get it as clean as I could before I stitched it up. I had been unsure how the skin would come together as it seemed to have pulled apart quite a ways but I was able to get the edges approximated and sent him on his way after giving him pain meds, an antibiotic, and instructions to return on Tuesday.

     The clinic is going to be closed tomorrow and Monday. The Catholic church here in Oriani is having a big party that will bring a lot of people here from Port and will include a lot of drinking etc... So we are planning to get away somewhere before the party starts here. We were initially planning on going to the Dominican Republic to the beach but they say the border is closed today and tomorrow because of mourning for the president or something. So... I'm not sure where we will go, but we are planning to leave Oriani tomorrow for the weekend.