Thank you for your emails and prayers! The past week has been crazy and sad as we realize that we're going to be leaving Calcutta soon. Jill and Kyli fly back to the US on Sunday, the 11th, so Kim and I are going to be taking the last week of our trip to travel to a couple of places in India. We'll be going to Darjeeling where the Himilayan mountains are and is supposed to be super beautiful, Agra where the Taj Mahal is, and Dehli were we'll be flying to Chicago from on the 20th. We're getting pretty excited about our little adventure, but we're nervous at the same time. I guess going new places always brings out those emotions, especially when they are not anywhere like where you've been before in your life!
Work at Kalighat was really busy today. I thought I was able to handle everything pretty well until yesterday when we got a new patient. She has about 10 wounds that each take about 20-40 minutes to change the dressings. About half of them are full of maggots and her left leg is severly broken. All over her body are abrasions; it looks like she has been thrown from a moving train. (They found her at the train station, so maybe that is what happened.) It took us about two and a half hours to get through all of the dressings. For a while we got her to sing and tell us stories (even though we couldn't understand them), but after a while, she was not coping very well, either because she was in a lot of pain. She ended up biting, scratching, and spitting on the girl who was trying to help me hold her still and distract her. When everything was done, she was so much calmer and fell asleep. I felt so bad for her! This is the biggest nursing/humanitarian job I've ever done! We had to start an IV on her today also, which did not go very well. Her veins were so small that I couldn't see or feel them at first. Finally I did get the needle in her vein, but as I tried to put it in more, it went through the other side. It's harder than in America because in the US, the metal needle is taken out of the vein and a plastic catheter is left in that can bend to the shape of the vein as you advance it in. The needles we have to use here are all metal with no plastic catheter. It was frustrating, but another girl was going to try later. Poor lady! She's been through so much already without us poking her with needles!
Other than that things are going well. I'm pretty excited because our friend, Bernadette is flying into Calcutta tomorrow night, so we're going to go pick her up! We'll only be here at the same time for a few days, but she'll be able to celebrate Kim's birthday with us on Friday, which should be a good time!
Thank you again for your prayers and emails! You are so good and faithful! Know that my thoughts and prayers are with you as well!
God bless you,
Kathleen
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