Capstone Log 10

Today: 3 hours
Running Total: 18.5 hours

"We're not just us, we're the germs we carry."

Wise words of Dr. Kelly; studies show that there are actually more germs in our bodies than actual cells that make up our bodies. Quite an interesting tidbit for the curious readers.
Today was a very very busy day! Amazing how much can be squeezed into 3 hours. I'll try not to ramble.
When I got there, we went to see an 8 month boy who has had diarrhea, He took antibiotics for an ear infection, which could've been the cause, however the antibiotics were in effect last month which disproved our observations. The common cold simply caused his irregular bowel movements.
We then saw a 6 month girl for a checkup and diaper rash. Dr. Kelly was asking for the milestones, and she's very healthy, having reached most of the major milestones at 6 months. She sits up and was smiling at everyone. I was allowed to listen to her lungs and Dr. Kelly pointed out that her breathing is a lot faster than that of what a teenagers would be, which is no surprise at all.
After that, we quickly went in to see a boy who said he had his ear cleaned yesterday only to go home and find blood coming out of it. Dr. Kelly looked in his ear and concluded that the passage towards to the inner ear was scratched on accident and will heal on its own.
We saw a boy who has frequent headaches and has had it going on for many many years. Dr. Kelly checked everything and he was okay, so he sent him to get a CAT scan, a blood sugar test and a sodium test. If he drinks too much liquids, it could dilute the salts in his body and unbalance the fluids, causing more headaches.
A boy with a major speech delay then came in. He is 3 years old, however, he rarely talks. He only says "yes", "no", and "baby", which is very very unusual for a child this age. But his mother was not worried because there is a history in the family of major speech delay like his. Even though he doesn't talk, it has nothing to do with attention span problems because he'll listen to stories, and sit down and solve puzzles. And Dr. Kelly said it has nothing to do with intelligence, which surprised me as well because the boy can only count to 2 and doesn't know any colors or anything. He won't talk at all, doesn't interact too much, and doesn't make noises. It was quite intriguing to me to see a boy this age not say anything. But with proper speech therapy, he'll come to speak perfectly well one day.
Next, we saw a girl who had a minor eye infection, and the mother was scared it could be contagious. It is contagious but will only spread if the girl touches the gunk in her eyes, touches something else and then another child comes around, touches the same thing and touches their own eyes.
To end the day, I was allowed to sit in with another prenatal but this time with experienced parents. However, they still had lots of questions. What surprised me is the fact that they're having a home delivery, with a midwife. I was unaware of the fact that midwives still even exist. Dr. Kelly doesn't strongly approve or recommend home deliveries because many complications could occur and distance from the hospital puts the mother and the newborn at a risk of not having the right instruments and tools around if something goes wrong.
For next week, I have to read a little bit about coxsackie A6 which connects to my topic from last week: hand foot mouth disease. It's a fairly new virus though, and is similar to the other hand foot mouth disease: EV71. I also have to read about headaches, which could better educate me on a more personal level since I get headaches a lot.