Basement Clinic

Today’s clinic took place basically as close as we could get to the front lines without being on the front lines. This is the city where our doctor lives, and the same city that people all week have been telling us they’re refugees from. We had to get up at the crack of dawn to drive all the way over there, and thankfully many members of the team were able to get some extra z’s on the way over!

We arrived at this beautiful church which was basically a megachurch compared to yesterday’s church!! We had the whole upstairs all to ourselves with separate rooms, fans, and a nice breeze!  (Oh, and no cigarettes ;))

We started seeing patients shortly after we arrived and my translator wanted to learn how to run all the tests so we were teaching her as we went along. She ran a glucose, cholesterol, took vitals, and even ran an ECG! She was doing so good, I barely needed to be there ;)

They warned us ahead of time that we would likely hear sirens often throughout the day as this city gets bombed pretty much day and night but not to worry: they would let us know if the threat was serious to our part of the city and evacuate us to the basement if needed. (That’s the other thing: this was the first church to have a basement or anything that could act like a bomb shelter)

At about 10:30, I heard the sirens going off, and didn’t think much of it. Because again, we had heard them in other clinic locations and they told us ahead of time that they would probably be going off all day. But then people started coming into all the rooms and telling us that some sketchy stuff was happening and we should probably head to the basement. So we unhooked patients, gathered papers, and headed down the two flights of stairs. During this process, we heard two bombs hit somewhere in the city. after making it to the basement and finishing our assessments of our patients (tests aside, obviously), our local doctor and med student started answering calls and texts from their affected friends, families, and patients. Apparently the bombs landed quite close to a friend’s home and one of the clinics the doctor works at. This really freaked them out and led to us sheltering in the basement for the whole day. 

But it was okay because the church’s basement was plenty large enough to have clinic there! I’m not sure why we didn’t just start down there but it’s okay ;)

We saw far fewer patients than we have in the past, probably because of the bombs, but God brought us the people we needed to see. We even ended up taking someone to the emergency room for an appendectomy! Super glad she came in because that could have turned sour really quick!!!

We also organized and packed up medications for the missionary to take to the front lines after we leave and for the doctor to take to her clinics for the refugees. A pretty chill day, but a good one. 

Strangely, the final patient of the day was a literal Russian! And he was so mad the translator wasn’t talking to him in Russian. He was in his late seventies and came in because he was experiencing muscle atrophy. Shocker! We told him he could order protein shakes online meant for rebuilding muscle in the elderly, which he did not like very much, but our team ended the consult with a prayer which I hope did more for him than any protein shake ever would. 

Back at the hostel, we said goodbye to a few of our translators and headed to the store next door for some snacks. While there, we noticed the meat counter was selling pig’s hearts and the professor in Dr. Kirk came out and he bought two hearts!

We had an anatomy lesson with our cardiologist, who is coming down with a bad cold!! So it was a whisper lesson ;)

But you can really tell she’s in the right field. She was so excited to help us explore the heart, and was taking pictures of my pig’s heart because some of the anatomical features were very cool and visible! 

She also gave us an extremely short section of one of her lectures and it ended with a slide that perfectly explains this doctor. I’ll try to recreate it here:

She really does… she cares so much for her patients and it so clear to see if you watch closely. I’ve seen her cry over multiple people and their struggles… She works six days a week in a literal war zone… In a city that a million people have fled from… And yet, in the middle of all that chaos, pain, and destruction (when she has every right to get calloused or jaded) she truly cares about people. What an inspiration!! What a humbling experience to work with such an incredible person :)

And she’s also a massive geek about the physical heart 😆

After the anatomy lesson, Dr. Kirk taught me how to suture!!! I’ve always wanted to learn how and thought I would really enjoy it and guess what? I did enjoy it!! But my back hurts really bad from putting in four stitches so maybe I shouldn’t become a surgeon…

Kirk definitely blew my head up a little too big though, he said that my sutures were the best he’s ever seen a brand new baby surgeon do AND said if we’re ever on a mission trip again and someone’s FACE needs to be sewn up, he’d want me to do it!! So nice of him (and I am kind of proud of my first time…) definitely makes me consider going to more med school. But maybe that was his plot all along ;)

God is continuing to do great things here! And I am so excited to see what other unexpected things He has for us in the coming days :)