The Beauty of a Haitian Sunset



Clinic day one is complete. We saw well over 100 people today, in Onaville, all in controlled chaos. We treated a couple of really hard to witness cases. Teh first was a 14 year old girl with a very large tumor growing out of her side. we presume it to be cancerous due to the odor involved. She has had 2 previous to this removed and has been told they will not remove this one. It is about the size of a grapefruit, and had a surface texture similar to the surface of cauliflower. She described the pain level as an 8 on a 1-10 scale., but never flinched as she was being treated, even thought the dressing over the area was stuck tight. These Haitian people are tough. This girl has no parents and is cared for by ehr aunt.

The second was a 12 year old girl with a large external dental abcess, about th esize of a quarter. Again, a tough little girl. Dan injected the site with lidocaine, and then made a small incision to drain a large amount of pus. She needs a toooth extraction, but we are not sure when or if that can be arranged right now. We will be back on Onaville tomorrow and she will be back to be follwed up.

The rest of the people we saw today were treated for fairly routine complaints.

Our new people had a crash course in feeling helpless and overwhelmed. It takes some getting used to, and some may find that it just will not get any easier to bear.

As usual, we saw lots of cute babies and little kids, which makes the hard stuff a little easier to handle.

We are restocking our bins in preparation for tomorrow, and ask for prayer for wisdom in treating our patients. Also for prayer for good sleep, s many of us did not sleep well last night. We are all feeling well.

Cindy for team ABC