Wednesday...

It is Wednesday, right? The days kind of get mixed up here. It was another 12 hour day today. Woke up at 6:30. Got ready. Had breakfast. Was over in the post-op ward at 7:45. The difference today was that the ward was empty, since all the patients had been moved out into tents. I missed my early morning 'bonjours' to the children. Soon enough however, we were moving patients out of their tents under the mango tree. Some kids are mobile, some use crutches, some use walkers, and some need to be carried on cots. They are all pretty happy first thing in the morning. And their smiles make for a great start of the day. We were also handing out morning medications which was tricky with some children still being in their tents, but we managed without forgetting anyone! Then it was time for wound care which took us from about 8:15 till 1 pm today. Lots of pin care, cleaning wounds from open fractures, cleaning and wrapping stumps, etc. It was a hot day today so also quite tiring. After we were done the children all got their lunch under the tree.

I think around 1:30 pm is when Alyson and I breaked for lunch. We had a nice treat of doritos with spicy cheese sauce for lunch. :) Followed by bits and pieces from MRE packs- (the ready to eat meals): crackers, peanut butter, shortbread cookie... Then it was back to work. We organized the wound care room- there are so many donations that we had a lot of random things in the room- we decided to only keep what we use on a daily basis in there and then the rest went to the supply room. It makes it easier on ourselves. We then had to move patients from outside to inside.

I then had some time to spend with the children and am thankful that some cross stitch thread I had requested, arrived. I taught a few children how to make bracelets. Some caught on quickly, others did not. The quickest to catch on was my buddy Francellot. He is so smart! After that it was time to move the children back inside for dinner and a round of night medication. And then around 7 pm we were moving children back to their tents. Of course in between all of this there were other things that needed to be done: fill up huge water jugs and bring them to the ward, help children onto and off of bed pans, cleaning out bed pans (one child has worms, so really not pleasant), making up cots, feeding the babies, helping with physical therapy, etc. There is always enough to do. We also had a new patient arrive today- a 3 year old with an amputation just above the ankle. A sweetie! But very traumatized. More about her later. Alright, I better call it a night. It's almost 9 pm and I'm sure I'll be up by 6:30 am after having woken up many times in the night due to generators, children crying, people wandering around, roosters, dogs, or other things. Hopefully no earthquake. Thanks again for your prayers.