Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Tuesday's Toe Trauma

By Britt:

My day started off with a bang when my mom and Jack came to wake me up at 6:45 this morning. A new machete cut was here, they said, and it was pretty bad. I got dressed and headed out to check it out. I'm doing something new with this medical post, per my mother's advice/request. Since I guess it is *mean* to post graphic medically-related pictures, even with warning, I will be linking to a separate post with the details/pictures included.

So for those of you who don't choose to get the whole story, here's a quick run-down. And I would describe the photos as kind-of gross/bad-ish. I mean, they will be to all of you who find pictures of blood and severed digits gross. If you fall in this category, then don't click the link below. I personally find it awesome (not the fact that somebody's digit was severed ... just that ... well you know what I mean, right? ) I know that some of you do too but I figure I need to practice good blogging etiquette and warn you.

(Photo shows our excellent degaje - "make it work"- skills. Bucket for elevation, blood pressure cuff for tourniquet, chair for attaining right height for operating, plus cute girl for assistant)

I'll briefly give a run-down on this post so you can decide if you would like to proceed to the post where the pictures will be. It's a machete cut on a foot. The 28 year old man, named Tiroy, was standing and cutting branches below him, parallel to/below his feet. He had just sharpened his machete, so at least rust/dirt was kind of less of a factor. The cut is in-between the third and fourth toe. When he came to me, he had roughly 4 1/2 toes. Now he has 4.....

..... click for the rest of the story.