This is the before picture of the above thumb. After we all had to hold him down for the needle-numbing part, he must have used a lot of his energy because at one point he was asleep. Sleeping through amputations ... wow. But then when he woke up at the end, he was watching us sew it up and kept moving his thumb around to test if he still even could.
This is the ankle of the above post. Edmon is 12 and he was cutting down branches with his machete when he got some thorns on his shirt and dropped his machete to brush the thorns off. So this is the result of that:
I learned how to do a new type of stitch today. It is called a vertical mattress stitch, in which you first do a shallow suture and then go back and do a deeper one, in the same spot. This was done first thing, in the middle and brought the cut together so that it was easier to close up the rest. Paige really had to comfort Edmon, he was crying a lot and pretty scared, but he was happy when it was all over.
First thing in the morning we saw a weird-out-of-whack knee, but I don't have the photos. Tomorrow, we are all going to Cazale, and are going to bring him along to see if Lori has the skills and tools to figure things out.
After that, Viejeyli came. She is from last Saturday, the thumb-nail machete cut. She has still had a ton of pain, so Jamie said that was probably because the bone was exposed. I did a digital block so that we could examine it better. The bone was exposed, so we cleaned it out really well and then sutured up the spot where the bone was exposed. That was interesting, I sutured through the nail bed that was still remaining. Here is what it looked like with one of the stitches:
I better get to bed, tomorrow morning we (Troy, Britt, Paige, Jamie, Sharon + three patients) are off to Cazale. We want to show J&S a different area and they are excited to meet the Zachary's and see the awesome clinic work. The three patients are Pastor Silanse (the abscess from yesterday), the out-of-whack knee, and a different elderly man who has seizures.
Lots of people have been asking about the Zachary's. They are all doing well, but they have had problems with the internet. It is fixed now, so they should be blogging again soon. We are so excited to see them tomorrow!
