Today we arrived at the hospital and I went to minor theater. When we arrived nothing was going on, but we were going to wait it out since it normally didn't start getting busy until around 9 am. A while later our first patient came in who needed a suprapubic catheter change. A suprapubic catheter is one that is placed through the pelvis into the bladder instead up through the urethra. I have never got the chance to change a catheter so I just observed. On the end of the catheter tube there is a branch, one tube end goes to the catheter bag and the other is capped off. You have to first take a syringe and drain the tube that is capped off. Once there is no more saline coming out, the catheter is able to just be pulled out. The new catheter is prepared by adding a little lube and inserting it back into the hole. You know that it is far enough in once the tube starts slipping out again. You then take about 10 mL of saline and enter it into the capped end of the catheter. Once that is inserted, the urine bag is added to the other open end of the catheter and the patient is all done. Our next two patients that came in were a young man and woman who had been in an accident. They weren't terribly hurt, but the woman had skin lesions on her foot, hand, knee and thigh. Another student and I had to clean the wounds and dress them. Once the woman was finished, the man came in and he only had a skin lesion on his knee. We again had to clean and dress the wound. Shortly after they left another patient came in. He was older, but was being escorted by about 6 guards with guns. He was obviously from the prision ward. The man had a quarter sized lump on the left side of his skull. The doctors examined him and confrimed that it was a cyst. They had to use Lidocaine to numb the area. Once it was numb, the doctor made an incision until the cyst was reached. White and yellow pus started coming out and they pushed around the incision to insure all of the pus got out. They then had to clean the wound, suture it up and dress it. The last patient we saw today was a man who had come in after he had been cut by an iron sheet, while roofing. The cut got infected and had eaten away almost the entire surface of the top of his foot and had had another big hole on the side of his ankle. He had to get them both debrided so the old, dead tissue could be removed and to promote the new tissue to heal. Before he was finished up another student and I left to go get a tattoo. A henna tattoo that is. A group of the girls her had talked to one of the doctors we had been working with in minor since we arrived here. She is from India and their religious culture includes having henna tattoos, so the girls had asked her where we could get some and she helped us get in contact with her aunt. We all got one on our hand and on our foot. They turned out really cool and I am happy I decided to get one, since they do only last a couple weeks.
Once we returned back to the compound we relaxed and ate some lunch. Shortly after four of us decided to go to the beach on last time before we left. Once we got there me and another girl decided to ride a camel! It was a lot of fun and worth the experience. We then layed on the beach to get a tan. While laying there a guy had somehow fell on my face. I was shocked and say the least a little mad because my face was now hurting. He repeatedly said sorry and that he was exercising. After he walked away I kind of laughed because I don't know how anyone exercising could not see four people laying there on the beach. But I only walked away with a small bruise and a little cut, so it didn't turn out as bad as I thought. Once home, we got to relax for the night.
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