Kyle Week 3.2: like rolling up a tortilla.

I have decided to go into greater detail about last Monday. Javier left without me this morning so I have a lot of time to reminisce.

It started like every other morning. Waking up to David climbing out of the shower, walking downstairs to the smell of Heather´s fried egg breakfast, driving two hours to Las Pitas; the usual.
I feel the need to point out that I suffered from a strange case of insomnia the night before this all took place, not to make any excuse but to identify that I wasn´t my normal "able-bodied" self.
Katie and David were with me at the clinic and we sat with Dr. Javier seeing patients for twenty minutes before he sent Katie and me into the treatment room to give two shots to a gentleman. Mind that I had never before given a shot let alone filled a syringe. Neither had Katie. So with help from Lexi, the nurse, we filled appropriate amounts of whatever this particular bloke needed and, in turn, stuck him on both sides of the buttocks. Moral victory. You´d be surprised at how much pressure you have to exert on a syringe to get the needle to pierce the backside. Didn´t even phase me. I took it all in stride and so did Katie. Katie did have trouble keeping her hand from shaking but we blame it on the adrenaline. When Loren came in, he had to give a intravenous injection to an older lady by using a butterfly syringe. He did great. The old lady claimed that she didn´t feel a thing.
The three of us were feeling quite proud of ourselves for accomplishing great feats of medicine, when Javier sent the next patient in. "This time you will help Lexi, next time you will do it on your own," were the only words he said to us. The patient was a girl in her early teens that had an infected big toe that looked like a polish sausage. The toenail had to be removed.
All focus of thought and effort for the next twenty minutes was spent on a single purpose within my mind; make it through this one time and pray to God that another one never comes.

I remember holding the disinfectant while Lexi cleaned the toe.
I remember Lexi filling a small syringe with lidocane to act as an anesthetic.
I remember the pain on the girl´s face when the needle was stuck all over her toe.
I remember looking at the syringe and noticing that not very much lidocane had been injected.
I remember doubting that the toe had gone completely numb even though the girl no longer responded to Lexi´s touch.
The rest becomes a bit hazy, yet forever branded in my mind is the image of a small pair of pliers digging under one side of the nail and then lifting and pulling the nail up and away from the skin. The last that I remember of those few minutes was thinking that the way that Lexi gripped the nail with the pliers and twisted the nail away from the bed was that it reminded me of rolling up a tortilla.
Somehow I stumbled out of the room and into the waiting room, mumbling something about "I ... air... breath..."
I fell into a chair and began sweating like I had been in a sauna. I had the distinct impression that the room was much to hot, and the noise of the girl´s moans were still to close, and there was definately not enough air even in the waiting room, but by far the most ominous feeling was that something bad was going to happen if I didn´t get outside fast.
Staggering now, I swayed past all of the Hondurans waiting outside, and, leaning against the wall, made my way towards the back of the clinic. I was quite sure that my whole sense of balance was gone and just before my eyes rolled into the back of my head, I let myself down so that I was reclined against the corner of the clinic. Two Honduran boys stuck their heads around the corner just in time to see me vomit.
A while later, with no dignity left, I came back inside looking like I had stood under a shower with my clothes on. I was still dizzy when Dr. Javier lectured me on the importance of keeping my head in an emergency. "If it is just you and a doctor in the room and the patient is bleeding to death, you don´t have five minutes to go outside and catch your breath!"

Please God, don´t let another infected toenail come through the clinic. Or, if it must, let it be on a Wednesday. Wednesday is my farm day. Amen.