Day 6 - Bon Repo

My exam room where I saw patients...

Our Pharmacy at the Bon Repo Clinic

The 2nd floor was our clinic.. I Spent alot of time looking through those bars watching kids play in the trash piles below

Today I was extremly tired and dehydrated. I was not completly over yesterdays emergencies, my mind was still on the children wondering how they were but I knew that we had to move on with hundreds of more patients waiting to be seen today. Jeanie and I were at Bon Repo, which is starting to become my favorite clinical site. My first patient for the day was a woman who came in with stomach pain. As she began to tell me her problems it suddenly became clear to me that she may be having a miscarriage. My heart became heavy for her as I had to tell her this was what I believe was going on however as she continued to tell me her problems she decided to let me know that she took a "morning after" pill a month after her pregnancy. I have started experiencing several woman who have attempted or are looking to have abortions because they simply can not afford to feed another mouth. I worry whats going to happen to these woman and thier bodies if they attempt these procedures themselves and I worry about the children and their futures if they dont or if it doenst work. As I called in my next patient I had hoped it was going to be easier but as I saw this woman carrying her 28 day old baby with her I knew it was only going to get worse. This baby weighed 9lbs and was running a fever of 103. I could not think of one medicine we had that I would have been able to give her because of dosage. I immidatly stripped off all her clothes and began with an alcohol bath using guaze pads. The only other thing I could think of was trying to get liquids down her so I ran and got pedialight and an eye dropper. As I was going back for another pedialight I was stopped by a translator who grabbed me telling me this 12 yr old girl is shaking and running a 102 fever. Im still trying to take care of the baby so I ran into our pharmacy and grabbed another pedialight and a couple of tylenol for her to take as she waited. I went in to give Jeanie a heads up about the 12 year old and to let her know that we still had a bunch more patients waiting to be seen. I was finally able to get back to the baby but had to instruct the mother to continue to push liquids down as I sat them in a corner praying she got better. As I called the 12 year old back in and rechecked her temp it had now jumped to 105. I knew I needed to start an IV but have never done so before so I grabbed Jeanie to help me and I had a translator run to get ice while I began to soak her with alcohol. I noticed she was shaking exactly like the girl from DFO and wondered if it was Typhoid. As Jeanie was trying to take care of her thankfully the babies temp went down and I was able to send them home as I had to continue seeing other patients. We were way past the time we were suppose to close and I had finally got to the last patient. As she came in I had asked her what the problem was, she than proceded to lift up her skirt showing me a bit that was completly swollen and necrotic. I knew she needed to get to the hospital and asked her to wait because we were planning to send the 12 year old girl to the hospital as well because by now shes had a 105 fever for the last three hours. So as I go in to help Jeanie with her and continue to soak her down with ice and alcohol I guess the 20 yr old with the bite decided she no longer wanted to wait and next thing I knew when I turned back around she had left. I do not know if she is ok or what ended up happening to her but as for the 12 year old girl we were finally able to get her temp down by treating her for Malaria and Typhoid. Unsure of which often times we would just have to treat for both. It was very late by this time dark however when we got home we were greeted with a blessing of ice and coke! Tonight we stayed up late, infact I feel asleep during our nightly meeting. The new team arrives tomorrow as some of our old team leaves. It will be a bitter sweet day saying goodbye to some while getting to meet others. I am ready for bed and will have no trouble falling asleep tonight.