On The Loose: Medical Victories in Potam

Yesterday's trip to the Yaqui village of Potam produced several real turnarounds for our patients. Here are a couple that I was able to photograph and share with you (many more occur in the doctors' tents, and I'm reluctant to invade the patients' privacy with my camera).

Early in the day an 85-year old woman was brought in. She was too weak to walk, so several men carried her to the nurses' station in one of our lightweight plastic chairs (wheelchairs would be useless on Potam's muddy and rutted roads...and VERY few residents have any kind of a vehicle).

She had an extremely high fever and had been unable to eat for some time. She was almost too weak to be responsive in any way. She has many other medical problems as well, but one thing we knew we could help her with was to rehydrate her.

So one of our doctors started an IV of saline solution and settled her comfortably on a cot in the shade, right next to his tent/examination room, where she could be observed between his other patients. She slept and received IV fluids for a couple of hours.

After a bit she sat up, and the doctor removed the IV. Then she stood, for the first time in weeks, smiled and nodded "muchas gracias", and with the help of her family, walked home. Because of her many medical conditions, she may not live many more weeks or months in her environment, but Dr. John feels that we were able to help her be comfortable and alert for much more than the day or two that she would have survived in her severely dehydrated condition, with no acess to medical care.

Another situation I was privileged to observe was with our last patient of the day. My iPad batteries were depleted by this time, and with no way to recharge it, I'll just have to narrate this story. A mother brought a six-year-old girl in saying that the little girl was unable to hear, even when her mother shouted her name loudly. A quick otoscope exam revealed impacted wax plugging up both ears. So we had Curt haul the small generator over that we carry to each village for situations such as this. We plugged in a Water Pic and nurse Kim carefully irrigated both ears, as the little girl screamed while her mother bravely held her tightly, We were successful in popping out a large plug of wax from each ear (which the little girl was VERY interested in examining!). The screams stopped as soon as the procedure was over, and eureka! She could her her mother's normal conversational voice. Thanks be to God; she'll have a much more normal life now.

ALERT!

The third case I'll share is about a little boy with a third degree burn on his neck from a firecracker accident. It's accompanied by some photos of the burn being cleansed, so if the idea of that bothers you, either stop reading this post now, or quickly scroll down to the blog about Sunday's activities

We saw this little guy walking around and we were all happy when his turn came to see a doctor. Doctor Gabor treated him, and he brought in his daughter Danielle to assist and learn.

Here she is learning to hook up an IV bag of saline solution to be used (without a needle) to irrigate the burn:

Here is the burn before being treated. The white perimeter and the white within the burn had to be carefully removed, because it prevented healing.

The little fellow was a trooper...not a peep out of him as the wound was irrigated with the saline solution and Dr. Gabor gently scraped away dead tissue.

It was a different story once the hydrogen peroxide was applied! Although he cried loudly enough to make his discomfort known, he didn't fight. And his mom held him gently but firmly, making the procedure infinitely easier and less traumatic for the small patient.

Debriding the last bit of dead tissue was undoubtedly painful, but necessary, and Dr. Gabor worked patiently and gently, yet thoroughly, to expose the healthy pink tissue underneath.