Clinic Day 1

Hi!
We had a fairly busy day Sunday, with a really rocking 2 1/2 hour church service in the morning (I decided that we all could use more saxophone in our lives after that service...); a visit to the orphanage to hold children; a performance by a Haitian dance troupe and more getting ready for the clinic stuff like packaging ibuprofen, vitamins, etc. in small baggies. The orphanage kids love the big boys, know their names and beg to get picked up...it's exhausting for the boys, but terrific.
Today was our first clinic day. We left the guest house by 7:45 AM and started seeing pts. by about 8:30. Daniel and Luke were the greeting and intake team, getting names, ages, phone#s, bps , pulses and temps. Paula was being a "real doctor", seeing pts in the clinic (something different than my normal "work"). As a group, with 3 docs and occasionally a nurse practitioner, we saw about 85 patients today.
Our most interesting stuff:
Paula: treated 2 cases of malaria (I know that my husband is going to be totally jealous) and started an IV for hydration in a diabetic lady with a glucose over 300 while kneeling in the courtyard of the orphanage (IV fluid hanging from a nail in a tree--very Dr. Barnett-ish, David)...they got lots of pictures of the lady lying on a mattress with her IV fluids going...unfortunately, no insulin here because of no refrigeration (they only have electricity about 2 hours each evening, otherwise the guesthouse and orphanage run on a generator.
Luke: helped one of the docs incise a large mandibular abscess on a man--got to use a scalpel and everything...(Dr. Paul introduced the boys as "the student doctors")
Daniel: talking to all the translators and meeting the security guards at the clinic (Gabriel even as a taser--a very large and scary looking man in his shades who was actually wearing his 2 year old's pink backpack while visiting the orphanage yesterday--quite a contrast)
All in all a very busy but satisfying day. Also fun to see all the schoolkids in their uniforms at the school (all the 7 year olds reciting French in cursive from the blackboard--impressive). All the kids love the digital cameras--having their pictures taken and seeing themselves in the pictures--
The food so far has been great...getting a taste of beans and rice of course, but also fried eggplant, plantains, mangoes and (fortunately for Daniel) pancakes!!
Hope you are all well and we appreciate your prayers.
Paula, Luke and Daniel