Wounds and Stitches

“Is the doctor in?” A young boy's head popped up at the window.

“She is seeing someone right now, but you can...”

“Can you fix my toe...”

I looked out the window and down at the toe. The nail was totally gone, and a dirty, bloody surface was left exposed. Soccer game gone wrong.

Leaving the pharmacy, I led him back into the treatment room, and cleaned and dressed the wound from what was available. His young friend sat giggling nearby, while the injured boys face showed no change. Some of these kids are are seeming to be fairly tough when it comes to pain.

Today, a young man hopped in the treatment room around 10am, his left foot bound tightly with tattered and stained socks. I could see why. Dark red, blood was beginning to seep out near the sole. While working in construction that morning, he had been deeply cut with a blade. I turned my back, retrieving scissors to remove the sock. Meanwhile, he rapidly flung it off with his hands to reveal the wound, flinging blood into the air. I needed to communicate more quickly.

In inspecting the wound, he took our his cellphone and *click*, took a picture.

"Facebook?" I asked. He laughed. Some things really do not change between countries.

The wound was at least 1/2 an inch deep, tearing through fat and muscle near the base of his foot. I irrigated it with Normal Saline and Hydrogen Peroxide over a plastic basin, while Dr. Irene prepared for Lidocaine for injection. She handed me the syringe.

“Just inject around the area.”

These people have tough skin. It wasn't smooth, but I managed to inject mL of Lidocaine all around his wound to numb the area, praying the needle would go in each time. I heard him praying too...

His skin was so tough, that the needle bent during the first stitch, and then threatened to not come through the other side. Thankfully, there were enough suture kits at hand.

Forty minutes later, after applying a dressing over the final sutures, he hopped out of the clinic towards home. I hoped it wasn't far.

“I knew that skin would be tough,” Dr. Irene stated. “You do the next one.”

I made a mental note of the number of oranges I had to peel and stitch, back at the apartment, and grabbed a couple expired suture kits from the cupboard before leaving work.

The beautiful little clinic