Had to go running this morning. On my way I encountered at least three remnants of road blocks or burnt tires and an abandoned car with smashed windows.
Soon the rain came pouring down. As the clinic was quiet, Tom would go rounding with Mary while Sherry and I went to visit the orphanage next door and Alan went to the Pediatric clinic.
The streets were flooded and so was the front porch of the clinic. The ICU was barely half full, what with the demonstrations and the rain, we were not surprised that the patient census had dwindled to 17 to 20 patients today. The woman by the door continued to worry Dr. Shirley. A Foley catheter was placed in her earlier and she had no urine output. She worried that the patient had renal failure. Looking at her, I wondered she was not actually dry and that I would challenge her with more IV fluids and sure enough after 15 minutes she began to have some urine output. Her other problem was she continued to be wet from her profuse diarrhea and we found more dry clothes for her.
At lunch Fabian gave us the option of evacuating this afternoon to Port-au-Prince via a commercial flight which was available. She was not sure when the next flight out of Port-de-Paix would be. Sherry joined twelve other people to fly out. The rest of us elected to stay.
In the evening the rain had eased to a drizzle. On my way to the ICU, I could hear the toads croaking, it was time for them to play. I rounded with my evening translator, Sylvester at 7:30 and 10:30 pm, thinking in the back of my mind that this might be my last evening here in St. Louis.
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