Woke up to that very confused rooster. He must think that it's always early morning! Got all cleaned up, I meant WIPED down, LOL and decided to wait for Denise and the rest of the night shift crew to get ready. Some of us decided to sit on our mattresses out on one of the verandas. It was windy this morning. Nice breeze!
Walked over to the hospital to get our usual meal before the shift began. Saw a lot of people again. Some of the teams were leaving, some new ones just arriving. I actually stayed and helped out in the main hospital for a few hours. I remember seeing a little girl in a room with her family who wanted to clean her, since she had wet her cot. She was yelling and screaming in pain, chanting in her native tongue. You could hear her a mile away. I decided to give her some narcotics through her intravenous line and explained to her parents via an interpreter that it would help her calm down, and that it would help her pain ease up, since she had fractured hips. I started worrying about when the time came for me to leave this place......would someone else take my place and go around to help and medicate these poor people? Surely, they had medication orders that the nurses could give them. But, I had noticed that many of them needed stronger medications, far more stronger than what many have had ordered for them to have. I could only hope that someone, an anesthetist would be ideal, would recognize this need and go around the compound like I have - making sure that these poor souls had adequate pain relief...
The whole shift went by uneventfully. There were some issues about "an elective" case that a bunch of Russian surgeons wanted to do the next day. But I will not get into it in this blog. Nothing terribly exciting went on the rest of the shift. Good, I thought. Nice to have a quiet night for a change. Managed to sit down with Janet upstairs and just catch up on what's happening. Was told that COTN had planned to leave Jimani because the organization had decided to commit and care for 11 sick children and their families who were currently in Jimani. Vicki and Peggy had the hard job of choosing who these 11 kids were. They are to be airlifted to a clinic in Barahona, close to the COTN mission house. Therefore, some of the team members were scheduled to leave for Barahona later on that Sunday to help set up the clinic and care for them. I found out from Janet that I was one of the members that was scheduled to go back, along with Denise. The rest of the Weeks Medical volunteers were staying another night and would be scheduled to go back the following day (Monday).
Went back to the orphanage to check on some patients. Saw Vicki and she told me that she had convinced the security personnel who were checking the building to loan her the key to the bathroom on the second floor. It had been locked up since they had declared the building unsafe for people to return to for the moment and that it had just been cleaned and had running water to the shower stalls! WOW! An opportunity to FINALLY shower! I told her that I would be back at 0530 that morning so that I can get cleaned up.
I went back to the house that morning after my shower and slept a few hours. I needed to get ready for our departure that Sunday afternoon. Denise and I were both saddened to be leaving the 3 of our colleagues behind. But, it was what it was...we were needed somewhere else...
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