Doc McKelus

I am beginning to wonder if God brought me to Uganda for teaching missions or for medical missions. I have never dealt with so many wounds in my life. Just in the past two and a half weeks I've cared for three wounds.

And then let's take it back to the last time I was here in Uganda when I was helping care for little George. That was 24/7 care. Bathing him, cleaning his incision, replacing colostomy bags, giving him medicine, and much more. I was not at all prepared for something like that, but thankfully God gave me the strength.

Then there was one day when Peter asked if he could use the slip-n-slide that Izzi and I had purchased for the kids. I helped him set it up and then went to do something else. No more than five minutes later did he comes to me with blood streaming down one of his legs. All he said to me was, "Auntie, I cut my knee." And boy, did he. This thing was gushing blood. I rummaged through the home to find something to clean it up and then bandaged it. Problem solved.

Now last fast forward to this past weekend when I was put on duty to clean and bandage Bena's foot. She had gotten a pretty large wound on the bottom of her right foot from something in the yard and we needed to keep it clean and covered so that it would not get infected. And let me just tell you, these kids are stubborn! It is so hard to get her to keep something on that wound. So I am still on duty for that.

Then there is last night. At least this wound silenced Charles for the first time ever. I was in the boys' room talking to them, and joking around when Charles went silent. I looked over and saw him catching blood in one had that was pouring out of another. I honestly thought it was fake because I can hardly ever take him serious. But it was real. He had sliced the tip of his finger open on a small blade. But man was this thing gushing blood. I've never seen so much blood in my life! I went to get some TP to soak up the blood and by the time I ran back to get more and returned, the first round was already completely soaked with blood. Finally, we were able to get it to finish bleeding and were able to bandage it up. I got my first since, "Thank you Auntie Kelus" (The kids call me Kelus now). Of course, today he told me that he didn't need my help, but we all know he did.

So here we are tonight, I've bathed and am cleaning up my room a bit when Charles knocks on my door asking for a band-aid. I give him one and soon enough he's back asking for another. I just assumed he was re-bandaging his wound. He again came in asking for the stuff I used to clean his wound and I gave him that. And about five minutes later he came back once again asking for something else. That's when I asked, "why do you need so many bandages?!" And he says, "Henry cut his finger and I tried to fix it but I failed, I need your help."

For the first time ever he admitted he needed help from me. Wow.

So I grabbed some gear and went on over to the boys' room where I found Peter wiping blood from the floor and Henry with tears welling in his eyes. I wiped up some blood from his hands and started to attempt to clean the wound. The boys started to mess around so I pulled Henry out to the family room where I could get a good look. Aha! I am surprised I didn't vomit. This find of his was cut real good.

Long story short, I rummaged though a first aid kit and found some butterfly bandages and used that to close up the wound and then put some bandages on it. Just to keep it sealed up. I remembered how to use the butterfly bandages because I remember Marcy Woods using them to put on Jessica Biesanz's head when she ran through a window at a birthday party back in elementary school. I called Sherry and sent her a picture of the wound, and she went on to call George to come get Henry to take him to the doctors to get it looked at. I am not a real doctor, but it was quite deep and he couldn't feel the top of his finger, but I think he may need stitches.

So Henry is off at the doctors and it's now 10:30pm. I am waiting patiently for him to return, but who knows how long I'll be waiting. We're on Uganda time. Unfortunately a boda can only fit two people besides the driver, because Henry started to cry as I told him I would not be going with because Uncle George was going to take him. I assured him it would be okay and sent him on his way.

So, you may as well just start calling me "Moc McKelus." You moms with preschoolers or anyone who spends time with kids will get that one.

Let's just pray that there are no more wounds for me to deal with! I much prefer teaching!

Here's a lovely photo of Henry's finger before I bandaged it up.
If I have to go through this, you get to also!