Is it seriously Thursday?

The last 48 hours have been absolutely insane. Here is the quick re-cap:

10 o'clock Tues night we are hanging out upstairs dosing the Mamba and chatting about the day.

10:15ish I discover that there is running water as of 3 weeks ago and we have a good laugh about the fact that nobody told me and I was still using bucket water!

10:30ish one of the ladies from downstairs comes up to tell us that Patrick from the RC is bleeding a lot. He has a very bad decubitus ulcer because he is paralyzed from the waist down and earlier in the day, one of the doctors from the team here opened up the wound to help it heal. We run down there and realize that he his having a pretty massive hemorrhage. He had already lost a ton of blood so I hopped up on the bed on all fours and put all my weight on the site while the others started two IV's and got things ready to find the source and stop the bleeding. After holding pressure for about an hour and getting the doctor who was sleeping down the road, we used a machine to cauterize all of the spots where it was bleeding. It was really scary, but we changed the dressing this morning and it seems to be doing better. He is still very weak and will take a while to recover from all of the blood loss. Licia took this picture in the midst of the madness and the flash was in the dark, but you get the picture. Literally.



3:00ish go to bed.

7:30ish wake up and head downstairs to see that Delva and another kid had died. Meanwhile, there are so many patients to be seen. The team that was here did many wonderful things, including seeing women for yearly exams and PAP smears (this is something I am super excited about, more coming on that!) They were leaving in the afternoon so we had to wrap up all of the research they were conducting so I spent a lot of the day collecting the charts, surveys and specimens. Many patients were seen, which was really great! Lori and I wrapped things up in the clinic while Licia, who had been translating all day, taught a class on malnutrition.

6:00ish We were worn out so we grabbed our dinner and sat down to relax and watch a movie. We didn't make it through without having to run downstairs and deal with something in the RC, but we did finish the movie and got to bed fairly early.

This New Year's Eve day we have been very busy with dressing changes and other things going on around here but I am so very thankful. I am so thankful for my life and all of the inummerable blessings and I am even more thankful that today I am here.

Ten years from now I hope I am doing the exact same thing.






Happy New Year's Eve from Haiti!!!!