It's lovely to love

Below are obsessive pictures of my new found love. He's smaller than the past men I've loved, weighs significantly less, doesn't argue with me, and boy do I love him! This is baby Michelet. He is 3 weeks old, weighs 4lbs and was my baby for the past few weeks. His story is a mix of sadness, sweetness and hope. His mom is 22 years old and married to a 44 year old man. She is epileptic and had many episodes of seizures during her pregnancy. At 7 months gestation, she was required to have a C- section in order to protect the life of the baby inside of her. The result was itty bitty Michelet! I took care of baby Michelet before I even knew it. I frequently visit the NICU to feed and hold the babies there. Michelet was there shortly after birth. I have pictures of us together from his first few days. He is swaddled with me in my scrubs  

Michelet really caught my attention when I found a little isolette in the hallway next to his mom's bed on Med-surg. When the beds fill up, patients are required to take a bed in the hallway. This is a common sight to see, but children and babies are never on this floor. After her many seizures, Michelet's mom had some mental repercussions. The first day I found them the mom was quite literally covered head to toe in her own feces. Not only this, her feces also were also smeared on her IV tubing and the rails of the bed. She was very weak and would not look anyone in the face. She could only mutter a few words. In Haiti the family members are responsible for cleaning up their loved ones. There was no family near her, so I gloved up and spent the next hour cleaning her, her bedding and sending the cleaning people to mop of the floor around her. After I had mom fixed up, I could fix my attention on the tiny baby in the isolette next to her.

Many visits to Michelet and mom were to follow. A Sister at the hospital stocked me up with baby formula, a bottle, miniature sized clothes, a baby blanket, and a baby hat and booties set. I set up a feeding schedule for him and kept a little notebook by his bed side to track the care I was giving him. My next strategy was to get some volunteers hooked on him, which was quite easy! Michelet became a heart-throb immediately, and I soon had various volunteers checking in on him throughout the day to hold him, feed him and change him. I made visits as often as I could- both day and night. The volunteers noted that he recognized my voice and knew me. I felt so special to have his love in return!

Over the days and weeks, I finally met more of Michelet's family and developed a great care for them. His dad worked during the day and would come at night to sleep in a chair next to mom and baby. I taught dad exactly how to mix the baby formula and would instruct him on what times to feed Michelet during the night. Dad would show up in the same over-sized and dirty clothes every day, but he always had a toothless smile that made me smile in return. One day he brought me a 10lb bag of fresh oranges that he had grown as a thank you for all I had provided his baby with. His gift was a big surprise to me and a sacrifice on his part. I reaped the benefits of fresh squeezed juice the next mornings :)

Mom, Dad, and baby Michelet

Michelet went home from the hospital a few days ago. Dad brought me by motorcycle to show me where they lived. He said he hopes I can continue to visit Michelet now and even on my future trips to Haiti so that Michelet can know me. I love this little baby boy so much. My arms ached when I passed my first day without seeing or holding him. His family is very poor and short on resources and I often think of Michelet and hope he is well fed and in a clean diaper. I fear that those expectations might be too high given his situation. One thing I have peace in is that I know his family loves him and I also know his family loves God. I visited him again in his house and was happy to see that dad had bought him a little mosquito net to sleep in so that he doesn't get bit. I hope to do home visits at least once a week. Also, I instructed dad to bring Michelet to the Children's Nutrition Center at our hospital every week to be weighed and given a new supply of baby formula. Below is a picture of Michelet's home. His grandma, aunts and uncles, cousins all live here as well as his mom and dad.

There is so much more to tell you all about, but I'll just give you a quick summary. I love the life I have been blessed here with in Haiti. I am thriving in my environment and learning so much from the doctors and nurses that come to volunteer. I deliver babies, sew up wounds, do CPR, and many other things that come my way.  This past week there were some riots in the town of milot and some violence directed toward the hospital. As a result, I had to temporarily leave the hospital. I am now volunteering at Children of the Promise. It is an infant care center about 40 minutes from the hospital. I live with 60+ toddling babies under the age of 2. They are so sweet and I am kept busy as a nurse here! I will make it back to the hospital as soon as I can, which will hopefully be sometime next week. Love you all and thanks for reading my update :)

Happy Hour

The title of this blog is "happy hour." Here I sit in Haiti, on a Saturday night in my room alone with candle lights flickering, Coldplay streaming from my MP3 and although I may be missing out on happy hour at my favorite restaurants in the states, I find myself sitting in the happiest of hours. It feels like a pretty big accomplishment to be sincerely happy with my life. I waited for a long time to come to Haiti. It had been pressing on my heart and calling me here since my very first trip in March of 2008. In the last year or so, I began to wonder if there was something wrong with me that I could not find contentment with the life I was living outside of Haiti. I worked day in and day out, the same schedule just watching the days go by and crossing them out on my calendar. Actually, for the past couple of years crossing out the days on my calendar has become a bit of an obsession for me. Most of the time I was counting down until my next visit to Haiti. 

A view in Milot. Making the trek in the mountains to the Citadel. 

I can't believe I waited so long to come to Haiti full time. I look back and can't believe what I put myself through emotionally by not being here. I see the value in the last year that I spent in Minnesota, because I can't imagine coming here fresh out of school, with minimal nursing skills. With all of that being said, I'm so glad I didn't wait longer to come.

I moved into my new place in Milot, Haiti on Jan 2. I have been here for two weeks now and the time has absolutely flown by.  My role here has become defined more clearly to me over this time. I am the nurse leader. I am responsible for greeting and orienting every team of volunteers that walk onto campus. Today over 30 people arrived. I also work alongside the Haitian charge nurse in making sure that the hospital is staffed appropriately with nurses. A typical day would look like this: Wake up at 6:30ish, breakfast at 7am, walk through each ward in the hospital to have a general census of the number of patients, meet the charge nurse at 8am and go over shift assignments for my volunteers, orient my volunteers to their ward and the nurses they will be working with and ensure each volunteer has a translator. By this time it is about 9am. I have a 3 year old in the peds ward and a few infants in the NICU that I check on several times a day so at this point in the day you will find me here. 10am I make rounds throughout the entire hospital again. By this time the volunteers may be having conflicts with the Haitian nurses or worse may have been left alone in the unit while the Haitian nurse leaves without saying anything, my nurses may be missing medical supplies they need for their nursing, may wish to move to a different unit and anything else that might happen. The next couple of hours I run around trying to fix these problems.  By this time it is usually close to 12pm and once again I go through the hospital again and do the same thing. 1pm is lunch and between 2 and 3 I go to the hospital again to make rounds. The shift ends for the volunteers around 5. I have a short break from about 5pm-7pm. 7pm is dinner, 8pm is a nightly meeting I lead with all of the doctors, nurses, and nonmedical teams that are here, and by 9pm I am getting ready for bed, showering, and getting ready for the next day.  I am very  busy with my new job. It feels like I work around the clock. Part of this is my own fault- there is so much going on with the guests and at the hospital and I don't want to miss a beat.

I have a room of my own most of the time. I will have someone moving in with me for a few days tomorrow. I live in a complex that has 6 rooms and a large men's and women's dorm. There is a nice breeze that comes in through my windows and I have a fan over my bed. I have decorated with candles, a calendar, some Haitian art a friend bought for me and my personal linens. Next to come are new curtains, flowers, and hopefully a rug! Milot is a very quiet town. The hospital is the busiest place the town has to offer and it is about a block away from me. Sometimes I go for a walk with some of the docs and go to a hole-in-the-wall store to buy crackers, cookies, or canned milk. I discovered a blender here and have been making smoothies almost daily- thus the canned milk to compliment the fruit and ice. I took my first run at 5:30 am two days ago. It felt so good to be active, but I had so many weird looks. People don't exercise for leisure like that in Haiti. I smiled and said "Bonjour" to everyone I saw. I think next time I'll wait until I have someone to run with me for some company.  A couple days ago I was on a walk around noon and the kids were let out of school to go home for lunch. Suddenly I was flooded by little school girls in their uniforms and braided hair. They grabbed my hands and showed me how to get to the market where I could buy fruit. I can't wait until I know their names. 

                                                               Below is a picture of my room

I love the people I am working with. It's a lot of fun that we all live together. We all work together to make sure all the needs of the hospital are met. 

I'm happy to report that tomorrow I am taking my first day "off!" I am going with some of a volunteer surgical team to a beach called Cormier Plage. It is supposed to be pristine. I can't wait to get away, sit with a book in the sun, and be away from my responsibilities for a few hours! Bon nuit a tut moun.