We just got back down to Cayes to the complex where we will spend the night in the Lumiere guesthouse. Just want to let you know that we are safe and enjoyed the luxury of hot showers. We will go to the Haitian linen store this evening, but plan to turn in early because we have to get up at 3:00 a.m. for another bus ride back to Port-au-Prince. There are so many experiences to share from the past few days, but not enough time to blog. We all have so many pictures on our cameras to upload also. But not enough time for that tonight. We will share a picture of our entire group, including Sheila Moser, who wears many hats here in Haiti (and is always on the phone) and was with us all week at Bonne Fin, and Drs. Rudolph (Haitian) and Adele, a retired Navy commander doctor from Florida and several hospital staff who served us as interpreters.
addendum:
On Thursday evening, the doctors finished surgeries earlier than usual and so we did rounds before dinner and had a late dinner back at the guesthouse. After dinner, Sheila suggested that we all share the "lowest" part of our week and then go around the room again, this time sharing our "highs". This was such an emotional activity and increased the bond that we all have even more. Tears flowed, laughter rang out, and the evening passed all too quickly. We discussed patients who still need procedures done tomorrow before we leave and changed a few things around and had to go back up to the hospital to make one of the patients NPO (nothing per oral) after midnight so that they can sedate her in the OR in the a.m. So we all traipsed back up, visiting with patients and finding little tasks to do. On the way back, those who wished to went tarantula hunting -they are as big as your fist!! We had a cockroach in our bedroom and one in the bathroom when we got back tonight. You just have to block it out and go to sleep.
One of Alice's chores today was to measure people's feet for shoes and she went around the wards and handed out shoes. As soon as the people saw shoes, they all crowded around and wanted some. It was supposed to be patients first and then families, but after a while, you just kinda figure that they all need shoes! they all need snacks! they all need nutrition! they are all exhausted, both emotionally and physically. Alice also handed out toys, teddy bears, bubbles, coloring books and crayons and other treats that each of us had brought along from home.
On Friday morning we went into the chapel where the people meet each morning to pray before they go into the hospital to work. It was emotional once again as the people thanked us for coming and helping them. Dr. John forgot his Claritin (his excuse for having tears running down his face). A highlight of this service was when the pastor's phone rang during a prayer. He shut it off once and it immediately began to ring again, so he left the room and about five other people all started praying at once, out loud. Something I have never heard before!
We scrambled around all morning trying to finish dressing changes, trying to educate the Haitian nurses and nursing students who have arrived, flushing IVs, doing pin care, checking orders in charts, organizing supplies, setting up medications to be taken over the weekend (the big concern is the antibiotics) which we left with families at the bedside in case they are short-stffed again this weekend, walking patients and doing range of motion exercises, handing out snacks and nutritional supplements again and in short, trying to tie together loose ends before we leave. A few of us got to go into the OR, where an open reduction and internal fixation of a hip was being done on a woman who had arrived the evening before, having fallen and broken her hip.
The plan was to all be back at the guest house at 3:30, load the luggage (not near as much as we had when we came up as most of it was donated) and head down the mountain by 4:00 p.m. Mid-afternoon, people started arriving at the ER. There had been an accident between a Tap-Tap, a bus that carries many, many people - not at all safely, and a motorcycle. Some of our team went to the ER to try to assess people's wounds and begin treatment on them. There is just never-ending work to be done, and as the afternoon wore on, we simply had to turn away and leave, some of our team not even having the opportunity to go back to the wards to say goodbye to these patients who have wiggled their way into our hearts so deeply in just five short days. Those of us who did have that opportunity were so touched by those goodbyes, knowing that the possiblity of ever meeting these people again here on earth are pretty slim. But also knowing that we can think of them daily and remember them in prayer, that God would heal their broken bodies and also their broken hearts and lives.
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