Trilingual Trifecta

Yesterday was my first day at the clinic. My understanding was that I'd be observing and kind of getting a feel for what goes on there. But they just put me to work, and that was fine because otherwise I would've been bored. I was taking temperatures and blood pressures and subsequently added the words "arm up" and "arm down" to my creole vocabulary. There is one nurse who speaks a fair amount of English and another who speaks Spanish and a tiny bit of English, so between the three of us I get some instructions and we manage to have a little bit of conversation. The Spanish speaking nurse, Stephane, works in the pharmacy, and I spent the second half of the day with her. There I learned to say "one/two/three a day."
Today was an incredibly interesting day. I was taking temps and BPs when these two kids bring their dad in with a towel over his head, looking like he is in a lot of pain. The nurse said, "Sarah, come. You clean and I hand you things." I removed bandages and gauze (which had dried to his head) to find lots of random abrasions and stitches all over one side of this man's head, including his ear. So we cleaned and rebandaged, and that's all I know. I have no idea how the injury happened, and no idea if he got any pain meds, antibiotics, etc. Then there was a boy with wounds on the bottom of his foot. While I was going through in my head what type of dressing would be best, I discovered that we have a pretty simple system used for all injuries. My choice of peroxide or saline, then betadine, then neosporin. He left in flip flops, walking on his toes.
I didn't have much time to think about that, because there was a guy in line behind him. I didn't see any wounds or bandages. Then I hear, "Sarah, IV medication." During the 90 seconds it took to get on my vinyl, non-powdered gloves in the Haitian heat, I checked this guy over and over again for any sign of a heplock. After being positive there wasn't one, but in the rational moment I had before my heart started pounding, I thought I'd double check with the nurse mixing up the anti-infective. "Sooooo you stick this...right in the vein?" "Yes, wherever you can find." Fantastic. Someone found a tourniquet, and we checked out his hand. I wasn't impressed. In fact, I was starting to freak out. Perhaps if the needle hadn't been an inch and a half long, I might've tried the one tiny little crooked vein on the side of his hand. But probably not. So we moved the tourniquet up above his elbow. A single vein popped up, but it was a good one, except for the valve. But I somehow managed to get this needle in, and then I pushed the med, torn between whether I should give it slow because I knew it probably shouldn't go in too fast and just pushing because I knew it had to hurt a whole lot. I think it's safe to say that he and I were both a little shaky afterwards. When I got back to the house, I checked my med book: Ancef - give over 30-60 minutes.
The saddest part of my day was the boy that came in next. I unwrapped his leg (it's like a surprise every time, I never know what I'll find) and found three stitches on the side of his knee. He looked mostly healed, and he said there was no pain, but the edges weren't together right. He should've had about four more stitches. They were handing me tweezers and scissors, and I asked how long the stitches had been in, hoping to stall. But he got them over a week ago. So basically, every time I cut a stitch, I was praying that the Lord will heal his knee up correctly because otherwise it won't happen. Peroxide, betadine, neosporin, and hoping the bandage was tight enough to keep him from bending his leg too much. Then he left.
Last night a cousin or someone asked me about food. I said I know for sure we won't go hungry, but we pretty much just have our daily bread. Then this morning when we were getting ready, I told Leah that it would be great to have peanut butter and jelly to take for lunch, but I grabbed my power bar and guacamole and went outside to get my taxi. Leah called me right as I was leaving the clinic to ask me something, then said, "By the way, there's three boxes in our kitchen with food in them." I ran up to the kitchen when I got back, and, of course, found jars of peanut butter and jelly in one of these boxes. And just as a bonus, another box had beef broth in it. Thank you Jesus for caring about the little things.