A Strange Week

This week we had some new things happen.  It would have been busy enough without the new things.  I am still having a run on Dengue Fever, so far all cases remain uncomplicated and only one had to go to the hospital in the last few weeks. Dengue causes high fever, headache, body and joint aches, known as break bone fever.  So uncomplicated doesn't mean a walk in the park, it simply means you don't get hemorrhagic fever along with the breakbone part. Now what about the new stuff?

How do you treat tear gas exposure to the eyes?  Ponder that at 10:00 pm after a busy day. Never thought about that before.  Google it and you find out a lot of people on the web worry about preventing exposure at their "actions". Not really supposed to need to do much for exposure, should wear off quickly.  My Elder still has red eyes, seems they were teaching in a home when the police threw tear gas grenades in, who knew?  The Elders dashed out and weren't even stopped, but did get gas on their skin and eyes.  They don't know why the tear gas so I don/t either.

Centipedes have legs adapted to give a good puncture and deliver venom.  The centipede in this case was five or six inches long and attacked while Elder was sleeping.  Very painful but again not too much to do for it except wound care.  Almost makes you think that Someone thinks pain is good for the progress of these young Elders. I work to educate to avoid pain and to treat it when it occurs, whose side am I on?

The last new thing was sadder,  the Elder involved keeps telling me "Estoy triste", I am sad.  This native Dominican was serving in Vera Cruz, Mexico when he fell down some stairs.  He suffered a significant head injury complicated by seizures.  He flew to Santo Domingo with an AMA from Mexico on Thursday night.  He was supposed to be picked up here on Friday for the trip north to his home but he had a seizure Thursday evening and one Friday about noon.  We took him to the hospital here and he got some different medication, but he wouldn't stay to be obseerved, Saturday afternoon we were called, his mother, aunt and the elder needed to get a ride home.  We were able to arrange a meeting half way, it worked out very well for him and us.  We drove to Santiago and back.  Such a sadness I can't explain, an Elder with so great a potential, I only hope he will recover completely with time.

I have some good pictures from our Saturday morning walk to post later.