Day 5- DFO

Patients waiting to be seen at DFO by Amanda and I, More are waiting outside
Baby with 2 club feet... This can only be corrected surgically by braking both feet and realigning them.

16 Year Old Girl

Little Boy with cut to the bone

15 Year old boy

Today Amanda and I were assigned to the DFO (Daycare Fake Orphanage). I was excited to go back and see all the kids from the previous day. Jamie who was helping with the business side of PID decided to go with us for the fun of seeing all the kids and Chip our photographer taged along as well. However with this being a traveling station and not a clinic we first needed to stop at Blanchard and pack up supplies and medicine to take with us. We filled a suitcase and two boxes of things we might have needed and headed out. As we began to pull into the village and up to the tent we saw hundreds of children waiting for us, we quickly unloaded and set up our "pharmacy" the suitcase and boxes on their stage infront of the tent. Everyone seemed excited that we were there and began to sing in praise. They started pushing us to the front and had us sit facing them as they continued in song. But we were quickly faced with our first emergency, 2 men came carrying in a 15 year old boy half unconcious. They brought him up to Amanda and I where we immediately rushed to the boy trying to back people up, we were way overcrowded. As soon as I touched him I knew his fever was high. We were able to get a cot and I helped carry him to the back of the stage where we layed him down and got a temp of 105. Amanda was able to start an IV as I was trying to get meds down him, We high fived each other for the small victory of doing all that we could for the time being even though he wasnt out of the woods yet. Suddenly reality set back in as I turned and remembered the hundreds of others waiting to be seen. Jamie soon went from business to pharmacist as we did our best to set up meds and make a clinic. My first patient was a little boy whoes toe was cut so deep I could see the bone. He was screaming as I held him while trying to clean the wound and attach as much of the toe back as I could while wrapping it up. None of the kids wore diapers and I was completly drenched with urine by the end of the day starting with this young boy. Next I had a girl who had such a bad infection that half of her face was swollen and she became blind in one eye. Next was a girl who had broken her leg in the quake and it had not healed correctly as you could see the bone poking against the inside of her skin, along with a baby who had club feet to both legs. Etc. Between the two of us we saw 110 patients that day as we continued to go back and forth between our patients and the 15 year old boy. At the end of the day we ended up having to shut our doors turning hundreds of people away. As you shut the doors at the end of the day you know fights are going to start breaking out and so you always have that fear of the saftey of those outside as you hear the screaming and arguing, this was the hardest part of the day for me even though I was completly drained by this time because I knew of the need left and was always worried about that one emergency that may be left out there. However we are going back fri and sat so we began to pack up. We had kept the 15 year old boy there the entire day for the fact that he continued to vomit bright green with his fever going past 105. We had sent the translators out to find ice and started pouring bottles of water on top of him, as they returned with the ice and we started packing it on him we heard the scream of a 16 year old girl. At first when they carried her in I thought she was injured the way she had been crying but when we layed her down and took her temp it was at 102 and she was shaking uncontrolably. Everyone around us started saying repeatidly that she had typhoid which I was not exactly sure of the signs and symptoms of typhoid nor sure how we were going to treat it. So we started an IV on her and began to throw ice on her as well. We had no choice but to call a PA on our team who came rushing over to DFO to help. We spent what it seemed like hours on these two patients before the 15 year old boy was ready and able to go home however the 16 year old girl's temp had climbed to 106 so we made the decision to take her over to Doctors Without Boarders who took her in. I didnt realize how big of a problem finding a hospital for our most critical patients was going to be and later realized how big of a blessing it was that we were able to get her in. Tonight we had ice as a blessing and I was able to eat PB for lunch along with rice for dinner. Its raining as I sit in my tent tonight and the only blessing about that is knowing there will be less gunfire.