One Year Anniversary
Today (1/12/11) is the one year anniversary of the earthquake that ravaged Haiti and its people. A considerable number of patients I took care of explained how they had lost their mother, their sister, their brother, or other family member. Today many of the Haitians wore black to give reverence to those that died one year ago. Tonight there will be a mass to mark this occasion and reflect back on loved ones lost. It will also be a time to be thankful for the ones that were saved.
In our 3 days at the village of Camatin our team of medical providers took care of well more than 700 patients. The patient I described in my blog yesterday with the heart rate of 177 returned today to see me. I was ecstatic when I heard that she was much better and that her chief complaint was only some mild heartburn.
There was a young boy who had accidentally been injured by a machete who came to see me. It had lacerated his thumb severely and it was quite deep. I removed the nail to allow myself to suture the wound, and had I not the patient may have lost that part of his thumb. It was a fun procedure to do for the child, and he seemed to think it was pretty cool since he had a grin on his face for most of the time.
I’m about to go do a home visit for a young child who can’t make it out of the house, so I’ll have to wrap this blog up…
Tomorrow we are leaving very early for a 2 hour hike to the village of L’azil where we will hold clinic in the afternoon, and then clinic the following day…