Tuesday night's pizza expedition was fun...it was nice to get a way from the hospital compound. Sticking my feet in the pool felt so good. There was an armed UN officer prowling the poolside. I wouldn't have gone down there by myself if he hadn't been there, but after a while I got creeped out and went back to the table. The pizza was....eh. Hard. But that's okay. I am grateful.
Wednesday was another clininc day, but I was again in the OR. It was slow at first....a few unsterile TSF proceedures that I could only watch. But it picked up again and I was more involved.
I like to go up on the roof when I have a break in the evening. The last few nights there's been a breeze. It's fun to see the ocean and the building of Port-Au-Prince on the hillside. Haiti, in all it's destruction, is beautiful.
I saw a teenytinybitty gecko on the wall the other night. He's my pal. His name is Buddy.
There are other critters that oft like to hang out at the hospital: BUGS. Terrible things. Normally, I don't really care. But if they come anywhere near my sterile field.....bad news bears. Stacey is an animal with the bug zapper. "Vermin! OUT, out! Vermin....." Dr. Tym and Jonathan (med student at LLU) have both cought flies with their hands. I think they're secretly ninjas.
Jonathan has been Dr. Tym's apprentice this last week. He's never done anethesia before, but we wanted to run two rooms, so Dr. Tym would let him monitor the patients while he bounced back and forth. It's pretty cool. We're all getting to do things we never would be able to do in the States. I mean, I'm 17! And scrubbing! How cool is that?!
Today our friend Adeel Husain, a resident at LLU, was trying to tell a patient his name. He was giving examples: "Adeel, as in, let's make a deal." But his last name was the clincher: "Yeah, and Husain, like the famous guy." I like Adeel. He's a crackup, and always positive. A patiet urinated all down his leg today, and he has been joking about it all night.
Today, Thursday, has been a long one. We started, as we do every day, with 7:30 worship. Then we do our rounds, and finally head to the OR (or the clinic, depending on the day). We operated from around 8:30 this morning to 9 tonight. We just finished dinner, and now we're going to shower. My feet hurt!
The operations we have been doing here in Haiti are very different from what you would see in the States. We did four hip fractures that have been broken for over a month, and all on geriatric patients. There are a lot of things that should have been fixed a while ago, and lots of infections. ]: There's also a large amount of club foot cases, and we do TSF proceedures every day. Blouts, Ricketts...stuff like this would be recognized and treated closely after birth in the US. But before the earthquake, there were no capabilities to recognize or treat these type of conditions. Because of the earthquake, the hospital has better equipment and treatment options. In this way, God has brought a blessing out of turmoil and tradgedy. Today, we treated a 9 month-old boy for club feet. This is great, because 9 months is close to the age when he would be treated for club feet in the US.
Our last patient today was convinced he was going to have an amputation. He kept asking. And when he saw my big Hohmann retractors, he nearly fainted. (They're really not that bad. They just look scary!)
I am hoping to be able to sneak out of the OR tomorrow afternoon: a Haitian artist is dropping by the hospital and I really want to take a painting home. But Dr. Dietrich says there's lots of places to get them, and he knows his stuff.
The president of Haiti had planned a visit to Hopital Adventiste for tomorrow, but then he changed his plans. ): Nathan (Amy's husband) said he is probably coming sometime next week, after we are gone. Boo.
Stacey and Brad say hello to everyone home!(: Dad hates you all, so he doesn't say hi. Just kidding! He's just not around at the moment.(:
I must do something productive before I go to bed. I've uploaded some new pictures to the flickr account, if you want to take a peek. Most of the pictures will be uploaded after I get home, off my dad's big camera. The wifi is faster in Cali.(:
-Chloe
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