P.S. I love you Haiti

I'm happy to put up a picture of the same swing, in the same place, but now with myself in the picture and with the kids. Today is my first day back in the states and I'm doing okay right now. I had a tearful departure soothed  while I was waiting in the airport by a huge toblerone chocolate bar, my MP3 player and my sweatshirt that smelled of Haiti. On the plane I began relfecting on my time in Haiti.

" I'm sitting on the plane back to MN. I have a window seat. I glance to my left and see a vast darkness sprinkled with the twinkling lights from the cities below. It's hard to imagine that my time in Haiti is finished. Life in Haiti comes so naturally. It feels like my home, my family, my country. I miss my babies. I miss lying in bed and being able to Rodnashka's tiny body in the bed next to me. I miss Jenny saying "eesa!" and giggling every 5 minutes. I miss sitting in my room, watching the door creep open and knowing exactly which little tot would be behind the door. I miss giving the babies baths, the kids in their pajamas, and hearing the kids sing their prayers before bed. I miss jump-roping with the older girls, rocking the little ones on the swing outside; I miss Jasmine and Rosie and Manize. I miss Rigan. I miss the ocean and the sun. I miss cold showers. I miss clear nights and starry skies, I miss Shirley and Dr. matthew and her brothers. i miss the stupid cats, goats and other animals that scared the living daylights out of me. I miss living for each day and not worrying about time. I miss the hospital in Petit Guave and all the patients there that need medical attention. I miss the baby girl Rigan andI bathed and treated for infection and fungus. I miss tap tap ride and motos. I miss the nursing school and my friends there. I miss sneaking the kids lemonade and snacks when Jas wasn't looking.

I miss rocking Ann in my arms. I miss little Roseline and seeing her light up when I call her "Bel Fi" Beatuiful girl.

This trip taught me about my potential as a nurse in Haiti. It's really incredible when I think back on the community health fair that Rigan and I organized. It was so professional and well set up. Everyone that wanted to be seen was seen and every person had a full plate of food. The community participated by cooking and helping clean up after the day was over.

You don't need to be a doctor in order to see patients, you just need to be willing to give yourself as a servant and be willing to accept that sometimes there's not a medication to give, that sometimes the patient's situation will only get worse, but that it's important to them to be heard and cared for. Sometimes the only thing you can give is education and to listen to and validate their concerns,.

I think that a big highlight of the trip was working with Rigan at Petit Guave hospital. We were a really good team. I loved the challenge of having so many patients that need care. Every case is complicated and unique from things I see in the USA. Usually the patient is suffering from 2-3 different problems, all of which are aggravated by the issue of malnutrition.

I love pampering the patients, showering them with love, prayer, attention. I like giving bed baths and making the patient comfortable. I like taking the role of servant in a health care system where the health care workers act as if the patients "owe them" for the care they're given"

 My next trip is planned for March 12-19. I'll be bringing my mom with me this time. I'm sooo excited for her to experience Haiti and I think it will change her. I'm still not sure exactly what the next year holds for my plans in Haiti. If it weren't for my student loans, I'd move there in a heartbeat. Jasmine really needs American help at the orphanage. She's begging me to come for 6 months, but with my loan payments it just can't happen. I'm praying for direction and answers about the future.... in less than 5 months I'll be graduated from college and ready to use my nursing full-time.

thinking, dreaming, planning, hoping.....

Mwen pale Creole... bitsi bitsi!

Last time I tried to update this blog, I spent over an hour typing up everything, only to have it all lost when the power went out! I wanted to scream.

But here I sit, patient and ready to tackle this Haitian internet and race against the time of the dying battery.

I'll highlight the biggest events and then when I get back to MN I can go through things more thoroughly.

I spent Monday and Tuesday at the Petit Guave hospital. Monday I spent the entire day in the OB working with newborns. I looooved it! Most of them were very tiny. One weight I took was a baby who was one week old and weight just over 4 lbs. The labor, delivery, and infant care is so insanely different in Haiti.  I walked in the delivery room to find four women, legs wide open and completely naked as they waited in agony for the delivery. No pain meds, no comfort care, sweltering heat, mosquitos and no privacy. I couldn't believe that the women were so disrespected in being uncovered. I pointed out to Rigan and he agreed that it wasn't okay. He asked a nurse to cover one of the women, but the nurse's response was that the patient didn't bring her own blanket to cover with. That's how it works in the hospitals. If you don't bring your own clean linens, diapers, wash cloths, soap, food, etc, then you don't get it while you're there. The family assumes full responsibility for the patient and has to buy any needles,medication, gauze, etc that that patient might need for the nurse to use on them. Most of the day was spent doing thorough newborn assessments which consists of physical assessment, vital signs, checking relfexes and most of the time included changing diapers as the babies were sitting in soaked diapers. Sometimes we'd change the diaper and the family didn't have a new diaper so we had to wrap the baby in a blanket instead.  I was peed on but I couldn't get mad cause the little thing that did it to me was so stinking cute and tiny. I also changed the dressings on the umbilicus from where the cord had been cut. I think that I was the first to change any of these dressings because as mom's saw what I was doing, they lined up for me to clean up and re-bandage their babies too.

The second day I spent a lot of time working with a woman who looked near death. I walked into the internal medicine ward and saw an almost empty room, nurses sitting at the station, students leaning against the wall talking and only two beds occupied by patients. My eyes focused in on a woman who looked near death. Her husband and daughter stood near the frail woman who looked like she was gasping for air. Her face was tired, she was completely exposed on her chest, covered in sweat, and I could see every bone on her body through her thin skin. I summoned Rigan (RN), Chris(RN) and Emily (MA) to come with me and check her out. The patient was unable to speak and was choking on her phlegm. The family explained that she was able to speak but that she has been very sick for 12 years and since then lost her ability to speak. She had malaria. From her high blood pressure, right side motor retardation, and lost ability to speak/swallow, it was likely that she suffered a stroke somewhere along the line. First we covered her chest. It drives me crazy when the women are disrespected like that. Then I showed the family how to cool off the woman by placing cold washcloths on her forehead,  around her neck, under the armpits, and on the groin. We repositioned her and sat her up because she was choking, having trouble breathing, and complaining of heart palpitations. We educated the family a lot on foods and drinks to avoid and which options would be best for the symptoms she was experiencing. After all our interventions, her heart rate was more regular and she looked more lively.

Another patient we worked with was a devestating case of child abuse/child slavery. She was 12 years old and had been beaten over the head with a pole. Her skull was cracked open. We changed her wound dressing to find that the sutures done on her skull didn't seal up the injury completely. We cleaned the area really well and covered it so that nothing could infect the area. We pulled her aside from the people she was with to talk to her in privacy about the place she was going back to. We wanted to bring her back home to her family. A woman that was with her said she was bringing her back to a different home and that after her head healed, they would bring her back to her mom. We asked the little girl about this and if she was safe and thought this woman would take care of her and eventually bring her home. I hated to leave the vulnerable child but I didn't know what else to do. Everyone was assuring that she would be safe, and even in privacy the little girl didn't voice any fears or hesitations about going home with the woman. I told Jasmine ( owner of the orphanage) about this and she said that even if we brought the little girl back to her mom, her mom would just give her away again to the same situation of being a house slave/servant. It kills me that these young girls and boys just accept this way of life. They feel lucky to have a place to sleep and food to eat, but all day and night they work like dogs.  This situation has been the most eye-opening problem I've seen on this trip. I know that there are some people in Haiti fighting to put an end to this problem, but from the looks of it their concerns don't stop what's happening behind closed doors.

On Jan 1st, Haiti's independence day, we had a big community health fair in a small neighborhood in Leogane. We didn't have much medication because that tends to be the most expensive part of the event and you never know exactly what meds you will need. We brought some basics such as vitamins, childrens and adult tyelnol, cold medicine, some antibiotics, de-worming medication for kids, scabies treatment, and a few other things. We saw around 100 patients and I would say that half or more of them were children. We partnered with the women in the community and gave them 50 pounds of beans and rice to cook up for everyone along with all the spices and sauces, and hot dogs they needed to make a nice meal. We also made a lemonade type juice for all. We had a DJ, big speakers and music playing for everyone as they waited to be seen. We started out the day in introducing who we are and what we would do for the day, prayer,  and the national anthem. We had about 10-15 health care professionals and students there to help see the patients. We did a lot of collaboration with each other on the patients we saw. Chris was able to detect that a 2 year old boy was blind and had some other disability both of which his mother had no clue about. A lot of my work was in educating the patients on how to take care of their symptoms wether it be child dehydration, acid reflux, stomach ulcers, dizziness, or whatever symptoms they presented with. There were some patients who needed medications which we didn't have and Rigan and I will go back to see them on Monday after we buy the things they need. We donated the remaining beans to the family of the women who helped cook everything. They spent from 8am-3pm cooking for everyone. This family also has 14 children living in a "house" with only one room and one bed. Saying it is a hut is glorifying the situation. When it rains, the house is flooded. The little ones sleep on the bed and everyone else sleeps on the dirtt. Jas and Gregg worked with this fmaily in Evangelism when they first started coming to Haiti and they say it is thier dream to one day build the family a concrete house. So any handymen out there????


Ok that's all for now. Chris and Emily left today and Greg and jas are still on their trip to the Port au Prince airport. There are 3 babies who I need to do skin treatments on, as well as a large supply of medicine that I will organize and label for Jas before she comes home.

Thanks to everyone who read this!! Love you all


Lisa