Hey Medic

Vargus, Tarlac, Philippines

2 March 2009

It seems like when we are asked to do something it is in groups: Be a medic.

Sunday evening we were preparing to leave to pick up a missionary sister who was returning home after her mission and bring her to Tarlac for the night. She was in Paniqui, an hour north of our home when the mission president’s wife called – she is the chief medic in the mission. She was checking on us to see if we could help with a dog bite. One of the elders in Santa Ignacia Zone (about a half hour from our home in a different direction) had been bitten by a dog. Sister MB gathered up our first aid supplies and other necessities suggested by the Area Doctor out of Manila and we were off.

We knew where the elders lived but they were out in Vargus a small farming community about 20 minutes from their apartment. We found a member who rode with us and we found the Vargus Chapel and the victim. He was surrounded by a group of young adults who were practicing a musical number for an upcoming ward conference. As we worked on the wound – two punctures and a scrape – cleaning and washing with soap we had a crowd watching every step we took. We call the Area Doctor and informed him of the injury and received instructions. The wound was not very bad and after cleaning it and bandaging it, we gave the doctor’s follow up instructions to the elders.

We were told by the doctor that we must go look at the dog to see if it had any signs of being rabid. It was dark when we left our house and it was a dark night out in the country with lots of stars. Elder NB gathered up three young men – one had been with the missionaries – and set off to find the dog. We drove about fifteen minutes up an unimproved farm road then walked another 500 meters (about a third of a mile) to find the home. Along the way we met one of the bishop’s counselors and he joined the search. The “she” dog had puppies recently but had no signs of being aggressive with us so we took her picture and went back to the church. The counselor will watch the dog for the next ten days to make sure it doesn’t turn rabid.
We were home late after completing our original objective.

On the following Wednesday we were pressed into medic service again when attending the Paniqui Zone meeting. A sister missionary told us the mission president’s wife wanted us to look at a cut on her foot. We had not brought any first aid supplies with us but the sisters had done a good job of cleaning it up. She had hooked her heel on a stair tread and torn a deep cut in the back of her heel – it needed stitches. We asked the branch president to help as we took her to a nearby hospital. They cleaned it and put butterfly stitches on at the sister’s request.

At last report the two missionaries are recovering well and the dog is not rabid.

We spent Monday and Tuesday on our real job, teaching the Career Workshop to departing missionaries. This class as pictured above was another spiritual feast for us because of the spirit they bring to the class

Elder NB & Sister MB