Just another day in 'paradise'
Greetings from Haiti! We are enjoying the breezes through the mango trees, as they have become our new retreat from the heat and busyness of our days. The only danger to sitting under a mango tree is that you might actually get hit in the head from a falling mango, Mason is convinced he will be the first in our group to suffer from a mango to the head.
Today Joan has been tackling the thankless job of sorting through our patient files. She assures us that she is used to filing and enjoys it and there is enough to do to keep her occupied for a while, especially because she has the added task of teaching people how to file alphabetically.
Jody and Jaclyn had an adventure in improvisation as they had to figure out how to keep an IV line accessible without all the usual comforts of BC medical supplies. This was for a patient whom we suspect is suffering from an infection in his ankle and we are treating him with antibiotics intravenously. We are sending him for xrays to find out more.
Our little heart boy came back to see us today and he has improved slightly with the medication prescribed to manage the demand on his heart. Tomorrow he is going to Port au Prince to have a bunch of blood and diagnostic tests done to give us a better picture of what his heart is actually doing. At home this could have been done within hours of him arriving at the hospital but we have to work within the parameters of a developing nation and the resources available here.
We had a variety of ill patients; a woman with an undiagnosed goiter-like growth on her neck; a man who states he fell out of a mango tree almost 2 weeks ago complaining of neck pain; we discovered a woman who had been self medicating to control her asthma; a 6 month old baby girl with who only weighed 4 kgs; removal of a cyst to the back of a woman; Jody had the honour of being splashed with water and earwax during the removal of a ball of wax; we diagnosed typhoid twice and we thought we were getting a bit of a trauma patient when one of our staff carried an elderly man into the clinic, it turns out that the man had suffered a stroke 9 months ago and his ride wanted to leave. We hooked him up with a donated wheelchair.
We finished off our day with a walk through another part of Grand Goave today and the highlights were the cemetery and the welcome to Grand Goave sign.
All in all it was a long day, full of interesting cases and situations. Thanks for your thoughts, comments and prayers, they are all very encouraging.
2 Comments:
I was so excited to read about your day again. Thanks for posting. It sounds like you guys are all having quite the adventure and the cases sound very interesting...glad that you guys are there. It sure does make one very thankful for all that we have here in Canada. Hugs, Amber
Excited to see the stories of CHANGED LIVES!
Give my best to Marc & Lisa & the kids
~Steve j.
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