Clinic, training, and interruptions

A ladies event was taking place on the covered deck and all the children have been playing out on the lower deck. Suddenly Sheila calls my name and is walking toward me in a serious way.  A little boy has blood coming from his ear. There are no real hours to when the clinic is open around here.  We’re open when people show up.  What happened?  Somehow he got his head through the rails of the porch and got stuck.  When he finally got out it wasn’t without skinning his ear a bit.  But oh! He was so cute. Sweet little guy. We found a Peanuts band-aid for him, which he didn’t need nor was it appropriate to place in his ear.  But we stuck it on just so he had something fun to show off when he went back to the crowd.  

Two intense clinic moments this week: just as we are gathering for dinner, someone comes to the clinic asking for the doctor; there’s a man in Bently Bay who was out diving and is now throwing up and very sick...that’s known to be a bad sign around here where the men do some pretty intense free diving.  Bently Bay is the farthest community from the clinic. Paula jumps to gathering up everything we could need and I don our pack as we anticipate the long walk.  Horman, who helps around the clinic and drives us down-island, yells out. We jump in the boat he has already idling and speed off under the most amazing sky.  We were gloving up as we approached the house, had the oxygen tank ready...seems it was just a bad migraine.  Situation 2 occurred here on campus.  A mother brought her little 3 year old in.  He hadn’t held down any fluids for three days with vomitting and diarrhea.  Due to the level of dehydration, Paula faced a challenge in getting an IV in.  I got the task of holding him down while doing IVs, his big pleading eyes locked on mine.  

This week: suture lessons.  Lucky for us some folks on the North Side slaughtered a pig over the weekend so we had access to some specimens for practicing.  The team leaves tomorrow though and I am nervous about being the only one here at the clinic.  Everyone is being so patient with me.  

Now the team has returned home. I'm on my own at the clinic. Thankful it wasn't a very busy day.  The weather continued cool and cloudy today so not as many folks out and about.  It was great to have people here and it's great to just have a quiet evening.  The generator will be off soon and I have to go lock up the place and switch off things at the breaker box.  It's neat to be able to tell people that I'm not leaving with the team.  What a strange thing I think it would be to live in your community and every few weeks or so, a group of folks descends upon your world, often completely living in their own while here, many of them thinking how great a thing they personally are contributing to you...I spoke with one of the gentleman in the church a little today trying to get his perspective on that topic.  The response wasn't exactly to the same theme so I'm still curious.  I think I need to sit in this situation and observe, learn and ask questions.  From the outside I could give a lot of opinion, but there's a long history and deep context that I would be ignorant of to do that now.  

Enjoyed a 20 minute break on the prayer deck today in the late afternoon. I had some curriculum reading to do.  All day, everything I'd do was interrupted by something: babysitting the teacher training leader's baby, needs at the clinic, kids hanging around...so for 20 minutes I sat under scattered clouds in a breeze overlooking the islands around me...and then I was interrupted and called back to the clinic.  You never have everything you need in there.  My last patient today needs basic things like toothpaste and a razor.  I'd love to have a stack of stickers and colorful bandaids for the kids.  The lack of supplies equipment and in my case, training as of yet.  Lots of reading assignments right now.  And lots of praying.  Good training though. Even if I knew what I was doing, shouldn't I still depend on the One who holds every event and outcome in His perfect and loving hands?