He helps you to understand, he does everything he can, Doctor Robert

The clinic days have begun! I find it so weird how people get excited over different things... how my face lights up at the thought of medicine and surgery while Sam and other people cringe. Anyway, it was an awesome first day (for me? it sounds morbid to say this). It was a very slow day, but I did get to see several patients. The first patient had a large flesh wound on her leg (Kind of reminds me of the Black Knight, ha). Right now I guess I'm just going through some training because the Doctor said soon enough I'll be giving the shots and taking care of the wounds. The doctor took out a medical razor blade...basically the same as a razor blade, I think they just add "medical" to make it sound more complex when it actuality it is simply sterilized. Anyway, so you take the blade and just cut right through-- yep just grab a hold of her leg and cut the infection right off. Afterwards we cleaned of the area a bit more, and dressed the wound with gauze. Oh no, this poor woman wasn't done with... it turns out she had malaria as well. So she flipped right on over and we gave her four very painful injections in the buttox. Lovely. After this we had two more patients with malaria and typhoid... this both resulted in yes you guessed it, more needles! So I have been learning to give shots both intramuscularly as well as intravenously. The next patient I saw was a pregnant woman (about 6 months), we gave her a routine exam. I got to hear the baby's heartbeat as well which was pretty cool. Afterwards, we had to test her for HIV. While this woman spoke no English, the doctor wanted me to give her the results. It was a weird feeling. The test they use is different than the ones we helped give at school. This test is a blood test where they prick the finger, place blood onto the stick, add the reagent and wait for the lines(2-3 minutes). Two lines means positive, and one means negative. As the blood slowly moved down the stick we all looked anxiously awaiting the lines. Funny how something as tiny as a centimeter line can change your life forever, right? The test was negative. I tried to explain to the woman that it was negative by shaking my head no with a relatively big smile on my face, saying "hapana" and "hakuna," but it still took her a while to understand. The doctor and I had a discussion regarding the HIV/AIDS pandemic after this, and some things struck me as interesting. He, as had Dan, did not really believe that HIV/AIDS was an issue in the U.S. When I told him I had worked with testing people back in the U.S. they were both puzzled, and said "you have that back there?" Of course we do! HIV DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE!!