First Day of Clinic
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 11:27PM Wow! How else do I explain today? The neighborhood we went to today was very devistated. The last turn towards the elementary school revealed the entire right side of the road had been pancaked, three stories flattened on top of each other, an SUV flat in its garage. As I walked by, I realized that this was the first time that I had smelled death so far.
We held the clinic in the only classroom still stable. About 12-13 clinitians saw 527 patients in a little less than five hours. The docs sat around the edges of the room with a translator positioned between every two. Most of the nurses took care of filling the prescriptions with two translators to explain all of the instructions. Two administered deworming meds and another two gave tetanus shots. We tried to give vitamins to everyone, but we ran out.
I did well most of the time, treating a lot of coughs due to the cement dust and headaches and abdominal pain due to insufficient water and food. I lost it and cried when one woman told me that she had lost her 10 year old daughter in the earthquake. I showed her my 10 year old daughter's photo, and then my son's photo and we both cried.
Tonight, after dinner, we spent several hours putting medications into baggies for rapid distribution tomorrow. It's almost 23h30. Time for sleep.
Reader Comments (2)
I cried too. Thanks for what your doing.
Love you, Karen
I gotta tell ya, that brought the tears to my eyes....with love and profound respect!!..Marcia