USE RAID!!! ~Journal 4~

Yay!! Combining the helpful tips from two friends I finally managed to get my pictures online! Follow the hyperlink and enjoy!
[hyperlink rerouted to my Facebook page. Look for my albums from Xocempich and Chichen Itza]
I will leave the explanation of the e-mail title until the end. Those who like bug stories are welcome to skip to the bottom.
Those who do not like injury or blood stories should skip the next section.

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The clinic was much more busy this morning than it has been since my arrival in this town of about 500 people. At about 08:00 the groundskeeper for the clinic, Don Cozumel, approached the nurse´s station and calmly stated he had cut his hand. Naturally, no one asked him which hand he referred to since everyone knows he lost his left arm in a car accident several years ago. Skipping that assessment question my next thought was "how badly?" We quickly invited him through the half door and blinked at the small pool of blood accumulated on the floor. A handkerchief wrapped around his fist was soaked and dripping at a regular rate. With the doctor in an adjacent room near the end of a consult with a patient we did not call him right away and instead began assessing the patient. I immediately washed my hands in case I should be needed and supervised the two students. Upon discarding the handkerchief I told one of the students to get the doctor right away and told the other to prepare the patient for stitches. Between the fingernail and the knuckle his middle finger appeared as if it had been momentarily put in a blender. Apparently, nearly that had happened. He was doing some kind of yardwork, left his machine running (I did not recognize the name of the machine but I think it was a weedwhacker) while he did something close to the blades. He slipped... and... well. Flesh vs. Machine. Not good. The doctor did a little bit of tugging and discovered the lacerations went through the bone. He reprimanded Don Cozumel several times for not being careful with his one good hand. He would have lost the end of his finger if the lacerations went much farther. The doctor had to clean Don Cozumel´s hand before giving him anesthesia to decrease the chance of infection. This caused him so much pain that I could not watch any more. I have discovered in the surgery room that as long as the person does not react to the pain or does not feel pain due to anesthesia I am purely fascinated by the whole process. If the person is obviously in a lot of pain and reacts to the treatments then I am left with a sick feeling in my stomach, vision that threatens to tunnel, and blue lips. I took a quick siesta outside and returned to watch the doctor anesthetize the finger, clean the wound carefully, and stitch it up. During this time two obviously pregnant women and their families walked in.
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After taking care of Don Cozumel the doctor went to consult with a 20 year old pregnant women and invited me to come along. She is 38 weeks pregnant and the doctor discovered the baby is not positioned correctly for birth. He scheduled her cesarean for next Wednesday at 6 am. He also told her that if there were any signs of labor she should come in right away and we would do surgery. The other woman is 8 months pregnant and both she and the baby appear to be in good health. That means I am "on call" for observing a C-section at any time of the day or night! Other than introducing the girls to proper singing technique, some warm-up exercises, and the concept of singing the same note as everyone else most of the day has been filled with studying and putting my pictures online. I bet that this computer is less than a 56K because it took much longer than the estimated time to upload the pictures. (I sure hope you all enjoy them!) That makes doing anything online quite a chore. Even trying to access and load my hotmail account takes a couple of minutes.

USE RAID!! A short story:
Note the picture in my photo album of the large spider on my kitchen floor. I found it last night, took a picture, and went after it with a plastic can right away to kill it. Would you like the thought of a very large spider with unknown lethality skittering around your house unsupervised?!? I decided to use the plastic can because the thought of cleaning a huge spider carcass and entrails off the bottom of my shoe was not appealing. Unfortunately, I forgot I had a can of Raid not five feet from the spider. When I positioned the plastic can above to hit the intimidating thing it dashed and hopped (yes, hopped) in search of safety. As a matter of bad luck for the spider I am quite willing to kill something even when it is intimidating! The fact it had the capability to hop made me all the more anxious to see it curled into a (relatively) small twitching ball. As a matter of bad luck for me upon hitting the spider it virtually *EXPLODED* with hundreds of spider babies!! The explosion caused me to pull back and the strike was hardly damaging to the mother. This also caused me to shout quite loudly...I must say, it is the closest I have come to screaming since I was 7 years old. Now I had hundreds of skittering babies and a skittering and hopping monster mom on my kitchen floor!! My heart suddenly pounded with adrenaline. I immediately discarded the flimsy plastic can and grabbed the sandal off my foot. Forget the guts, I wanted it dead!! I killed the mother with one swift blow and began tapping the sandal all over the floor. In several minutes it seemed all tiny black dots were either dead or within the safety of the cabinets. I got a quick drink of water and returned to examine the carnage once again overlooking the can of Raid on the counter. I noticed a couple more dots moving and killed those. This began a chain reaction. The motion of tapping on the floor disturbed others who were playing dead and the tapping continued. All in all, the whole episode lasted about 20-30 minutes. Only after I had prepared for bed did I suddenly realize that all the trepidation and desperation could have been bypassed by a simple can of bug poison. Not to mention, I would have had a better night sleep.

Prayer:
That the girls would participate more in daily devotionals. I cancelled them this morning because no one brought their Bibles. If anyone does not bring a Bible tomorrow I will tell them to go get it.
That the girls would do well in their exams this week and next week.
Thank you all for praying so diligently! I am encouraged by the number of people who send me e-mails to say they are praying for me. I am sure they are not unheard!