Wound dressing at mother Theresa’s

Warning: graphic blog below
Before you continue reading, be warned that the description below is a bit graphic. I wrote it as a purging activity to get the images and smells of the clinic out of my mind.


A few days back, I caught a ride with phillip to Siddest Kilo. As a last decision I decided to make my way to the mother Theresa clinic. I have 4 jesuit novice friends who I know from Arusha who have been living there over the past two months. I have made my way there probably four times before now and each and every one offers its own challenges and surprises. I have already written about my experience with those children with mental handicaps the other day. This day, I was back to dressing wounds.

Upon arrival, I met another American third year med school student named Thomas, who had become connected to the clinic through Dr. Rick. He is just another tribute to how many people get connected to this clinic through rick.

The first patient brought in was a boy who had a tumor in his head. It had pushed his entire eyeball outside of his head. It is continuing to grow and the only thing that we can do in the meantime is protruding eyeball to at least prevent infection. I have no idea how the doctors might handle the situation in the US. Leaving most of the actual cleaning work to the med school student who faces this every morning, Paul (my Jesuit friend from Uganda) held his legs down, while Thomas braced the screaming boys head. I stood to the left, handing over gauze and the cleaning liquids. Even thinking back to the experience I cringe. As desensitized as I have become in my few visits there, it is still difficult to hear the suffering of one who is so young. Sadly, he will probably not live another few months.

From there, Thomas, Paul and I moved to the TB ward to dress bed sores. Bed sores are caused from one laying in one position too long. Often these are quite deep. One of the first men that we treated was paralyzed from the waste down due to TB, so he didn’t have to suffer as we cleaned the wound on his backside. The true surprise was when we expected the wound closer only to find that within it there were whit maggots. Defying my own expectations, this is not such a bad sign, because they dispose of the dead flesh. All throughout the dressing, the room was filled with the sound of one man whose cough sounded far to substantial to be anything but TB entering into the lungs.

Another man proved to be quite difficult.
When arriving in one of the normal wards, we were directed over to this man by the other patients. He had covered his head with the blanket and even upon shaking him, he wouldn’t wake. We proceeded to cut off the bandage covering the exposed flesh on the side of his knee. I had to hold him still to prevent him from being harmed in the process. He never regained full lucidity, but he was nevertheless quite forceful in his unconciousness, and it took two of us to hold him down while Paul addressed the wound. Paul had to remove some of the flesh that had died. After seeing him remove two pieced merely by pulling (which typically works, but not this time) I fetched a blade to cut the dead flesh. At one point, I am quite certain the man passed his bowels as the smell distinctly cut through the scene. It was strange seeing such a wound, but his reaction, while certainly honest, was greater than some of the other wounds that we have treated that were certainly in worse condition. All the same, the tendons, muscles and flesh facing us was a difficult site to see. At that point however, you just have to plug your nose and dive into the situation….
I wish indeed I did have a free hand to plug my nose. Long after I leave the mission, what sticks to the roof of my mouth is the smells. A few weeks ago, as paul and I were dressing wounds together, a man entered into the dressing room to have his calf addressed. It was slightly swollen and the moment paul took off the bandage, the stench of rotting flesh filled the room. This man’s leg was gangrene, and thus rotting away. When I was last working at mother Theresa’s, the smell of latex gloves stuck to my hand for the entire day. This continued to provoke in my mind the smell of the TB ward, the clinic, and the wounds. Following our morning of dressing wounds, Thomas (a med student from Vermont) and I discussed with some incredulity the wounds that we had seen that day. I even treated the Jesuits to a beer, solely for the opportunity to purge the smell from my system. I wish I could say that it worked, even four hours and a cold shower later, the smell still stuck with me. I do not, however, want to over dramatize my experience there. There is still some amazing capacity within those of us who work there, while on the spot, to do what needs to be done and leave the reflecting till later. Perhaps, however, it is as my friend Paul says to me: Some things are best left forgotten.