In the Dark

Well, in and out of the dark.

The first photo isn't a technically good photo. That's the point. It illustrates how things were in the delivery room this evening. I believe that Sister (nurse) Maria was getting me some local anesthetic in the picture. The light is coming from a small LCD flashlight that is built into her cell phone.

Many of you know that our hydroelectric plant is out of service, and is being rebuilt. Most of the time we use the public utility power, which is very inconsistent. We have an old, worn-out diesel generator, but it doesn't always run, and is always hard to start. This evening the power was fluctuating and going off altogether at times.

Through the evening the nurse on Labor and Delivery had been keeping me informed about the progress (or lack thereof) of a young first-time mom. The report that she phoned to me at 8:00 made it clear that I needed to do something to get things going, or else go ahead and do a cesarean section. She'd been pushing for over an hour, and when I checked her the baby's head was still pretty high. But with a little encouragement, she pushed a little harder, and within a few minutes moved the head down far enough that I could consider doing a vacuum extraction. That's about when the power went off for a spell.

The power came back on, and we succeeding in completing the vacuum delivery, but as sometimes happens, there was a deep tear to sew up afterwards. We were mostly ready for that when the power went off for the longest period of the evening. I just sat in the dark applying pressure to control the bleeding while we all waited for the power to come back on. When power is off in the hospital the phones are all out, so we couldn't call the maintenance person on call to come and start the hospital's back-up generator. The circuit that is supposed to start it automatically when the station power is out is broken.

But eventually it was back on, I finished my job and went home. The photos show the product of our labor. The lady in the yellow shirt is the patient's sister-in-law. She was so overjoyed at the birth of her new niece that she freely cried tears of joy. The mom's feelings (joy and relief) are clear from the last photo!

If any of you should feel led to help with the costs of the hydroelectric rebuild, or the purchase of our new back-up diesel generator, please contact us by email.