More about 2 November and the Medical Clinic

Of the 93 patients we saw:
-the youngest was 2 weeks old and the oldest was 84 (she wasn't actually sure)
-many were pregnant
-many were moms with children
-most weren't terribly sick
-several had very high blood pressure, and one 19 month-old little girl had definite protein malnutrition, with orange hair, delayed growth, and lassitude.  Her mom was very skinny and very anemic.

We needed more topical anti-fungal ointments and we had nothing for the little babies who needed liquid antibiotics or liquid tylenol. 
I believe that everyone feels tired and very properly used up after today.  For me, it was a very good day, with none of the nightmare scenarios that I feared (no riots, no screaming and shoving to get medicine, no government thugs or policemen bribe, no critially ill people that we couldn't help at all).  We had an animated and joyous after-dinner team gathering.  We laughed a lot, about many things, like the little girl with a condom blown up like a balloon, like the 80+ year old lady who said she was 12 years old, like the precipice that our patients had to navigate in order to get to a dark back room where a foreign doctor who can't even speak their language was waiting for them in the shadows.
Our team is a wonderful mix of personalities and talents.  I already am imagining how splendid it will be to run into these people in the distant future and exchange sincere, warm greetings and quiet smiles as we recall wonderful shared memories without even saying a word.  To say that a mission trip is a bonding experience is almost to ridiculously trivialize the genuine sense of Christian family love that we are realizing.  These people, our team, are part of me and part of my family - forever more.  Our shared experiences, our group tribulations, our common sense of shock at the things we've witnessed, and our sweat and labor to do good things as a team have brought us together in a way that can't be easily explained, but is sincerely and certainly wonderful.
Thanks for posting comments!  It let's know that we aren't forgotten.  Montana seems very far away right now.