Last Day

Last days are always sad in some ways and happy in others. Even though I am truly excited about going home, I see so much more to be done and so much more that will be done in His name.  The fields are ripe.  Did you know that Bangladesh gets three harvests a year!  Me neither 😃

My last day at the clinic was arguably my busiest.  I steadily saw patients all day which was unusual and then as the day was closing out there was a tom-tom accident (a tom-tom is a three wheeled vehicle with a high center of gravity that makes it tip easily), a rickshaw incident, a toddler who was dropped, and a guy who fell off the roof. Oh, and don't forget about the stab wound and the seizure kid.

The tom-tom guy lacerated his forehead, crushed his tibia, fibula (both those were open fractures) and fractured his foot -- he needed surgery and we had no space to keep him so he went to Chittagong.  A four year old had been run over by a rickshaw and had to go to surgery because of bleeding in the abdomen -- we kept him and he seems to be doing well with partial thickness lacerations to the bowel and pancreas. The toddler had a supracondular fracture that was 100% displaced...he needed pediatric orthopedist. When my medic translated to mom what was wrong and that he needed surgery she started crying.  It's is so hard not to be able to offer comfort.

The guy who fell off the roof had a wrist fracture that was open and needed washed out in the OR -- we also kept him and the stab wound (who looks like he will make it).  But we had to send the seizure boy to a pediatric neurologist (very odd seizure, still are not sure of the cause).  So many people in need and only so many beds and so many doctors.

Right now I am sitting in the Dubai airport (seems like I was just here).  I will try and post once from NYC as well.