Getting Into the Swing of Things
3/16/13
Well,
here we are. Our last full day of medical work in Haiti. It seems so unreal
that this past week has gone by this fast. Today was another early morning for us as
we loaded up in the tap-tap and drove to a large public school in the mayor’s
community. We had many of the mayor’s workers wanting to help us in any way
they could in setting up our clinic because they are just SO grateful that we
are here doing “good works” for their people.
The
clinic today was similar to yesterday where we had Mandy and Taylor checking
vitals and de-worming patients. Then they would filter people either to me at
my make-shift pharmacy or shuttle them into a waiting line to visit with Dr.
Bosworth—who would give them a prescription (if they needed it) and send them
back to me. Getting the prescriptions challenged me sometimes because it has
been a while since I have read pharmacy “instruction shortcuts.” For example, “BID”
means “twice a day.”
Forcing children to take medicine is not an easy process |
In
total, I think we treated around 210 people for parasites today. We also tried
to give everyone—especially the children—malaria medication. This whole week,
some of the most difficult medication dispensing cases came from children and
babies who absolutely did NOT want any medication for malaria or other
antibiotics because of the terrible taste. You could tell that the parents
wanted their kids to be treated, so they would help us hold the kids’ mouths
open and force the medicines down their throat. One especially tough example of
this happened today when there was a little girl, probably age 5 or 6, who we
were trying to give malaria medication to. I tried to have her swallow the
pills with lots of water but she gagged and spit them back out. Then we tried
crushing the pills, adding it to ibuprofen (basically sugar), and using a
syringe to get the medicine in her system…but she spit it out all over the
floor. This little girl would seriously do everything in her power to get away
from us; she cried, hid behind her mom, ran into a corner, and screamed at the
top of her lungs. Mandy even tried bribing her with chocolate if she would take
the medication. Finally, Michael came out from helping Dr. Bosworth and was
successful in having the mother hold the little girl and got her to swallow the
pills. It is not a good feeling to watch kids struggle as we force them to take
medicine because we so deeply want to help them feel better.
Nothing says "hands-on experience" like watching a surgery |
The
best part of my day was watching Dr. Bosworth perform a minor surgery on the
man with the voodoo/magic armpit infection. It was AMAZING to witness this
surgery. Before beginning this surgery, we had to sit down and consider one
important decision: by carrying out this surgery, are we doing less harm than
if this man did not undergo surgery at all? After making the decision to
perform the surgery, because it was likely that the man would have no other
option financially, we had to find a local anesthetic because the man would
pass out any other time Dr. Bosworth would try to squeeze out the pus and other
debris inside this wound. Michael contacted a clinic and was able to get an
anesthetic, so we pushed together two large desks and got our gloves on. Without
getting into too much graphic detail from the surgery itself, I had so many
emotions running through my head. I was grossed out by the blood clots and
debris that came out of this wound, nauseated by the strong smell of iron from
the blood (not to mention there was barely a breeze coming from the one window
in the enclosed room), amazed by Dr. Bosworth’s ability to perform such a
surgery with limited medical supplies, and simply in awe of the man’s pain
tolerance. This guy would always tell Michael that he had little pain or no
pain—he only claimed to have intense pain once or twice. After we cleaned up
our mess and bandaged the man up, Dr. Bosworth gave him instructions on how to
care for his wound to prevent it from becoming further infected by bugs, dust,
etc.
Post-surgery |
This
trip was only a week long, so I have mixed emotions about going back to the
U.S. tomorrow. I have had so much hands-on experience that I want to keep going
with this medical work in Haiti because I see the good that it is doing for the
communities we have been reaching out to…but I also recognize that I have to
get back to Augie and get back into my normal routine of studying and homework
because Spring Break is unfortunately coming to an end.