Few doctors will admit this, certainly not young ones, but subconsciously, in entering the profession, we must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness. And it can. But it can also deepen the wound. - Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone.
I worked the dressing room today with some help of a couple other volunteers and it was oh. so. crazy. I didn't have time to take most of the pictures but here are a few...
I can officially check gun shot wound off my list of things I have yet to see in Haiti. This young gangsta lookin lad walked in sat down on the bench and said he was just standing around and got shot in the leg (just above the knee) and never saw a person. There was blood all over his pants but no entry hole from a bullet. I have seen one too many episodes of SVU/ER/Grey's to believe this story. He was not concerned at all about who shot him and wanted to take home the bullet as a prize. Again, not buying his non-story. But glad I got to see Lori take this thing out, pretty darn cool :)
Then everyone decided to have an asthma attack, I seriously can't count how many breathing treatments I did today.
Then everyone decided to get breast abscesses. Sooo many today. We saw a double breast abscess on the sweetest little teenage girl who has had them since the pregnancy. Her baby is 1 month old and she has been unable to breastfeed. She sobbed to us telling us that she had no money to come down here from the mountains and I can't obviously show or explain to you how bad this was, but I can just say I might have self inflicted death before going a day with the kind of pain she was in. No way to measure the amount of drainage that came from one breast. She is staying here tonight so we can keep her on antibiotics and lance the other side tomorrow. Please pray for her pain and for her heart.
Then everyone decided to get cut.
This one is a guy who tried to break up a fight and got a rock thrown at his head. The cut was pretty bad and Lori had to do several internal stitches. His eye was super swollen and after sleeping it off for a few hours, he was acting all crazy so i'm praying for no head injury. He is going to be in so much pain for the next few days.
Machete cut on the hand.
For those of you who know no-lips guy, I have seen him twice this trip. Once, he brought a man to the cholera house and today he passed in the clinic today with a massive underarm abscess.
Lots of burns. More abscesses. Dog bites. C- Section incisions. And more antibiotic injections in rear ends than I would like to count.
Just as I was cleaning up the room and closing up for the day, a pregnant lady came in who was in a moto accident and just to spare Lori 10 extra minutes I sewed the gash on her head.
I'm officially starting a helmet safety campaign, right after we solve the food, water and infectious disease crisis.
Marilice is the third of the critical kids up in the house. She had a horrible night last night and Anna had to bring her down and put her on oxygen in the middle of the night. She was super dehydrated when we took her, and we weren't really sure what was going on, but after a couple days on IV fluids, she didn't improve and began with fevers > 104 and a floppy neck, so we are treating her for meningitis as well as the respiratory stuff just to cover all our bases. I was in the dressing room with her all day today and her breathing really improved, but we are still having trouble keeping her fevers down. She cries most of the time begging for water, but in order to keep all her fluids down we aren't able to let her drink by herself and just syringe a few ccs of fluid at a time. She also has a nasty mouth infection. She is a sweet little girl, with tons of fight but has a long way to go. Please pray specifically for her fevers to stay down and any infections to clear up quickly. I just love her a lot.
She looks like Aunt Jemima with her cold cloth tied on her head :)
And in other news...
- Cholera is out of control. 118 patients this morning. 2 nurses. 65 IV bags to keep dripping at all times. 118 buckets (well actually double, one for vomit and one for the other) of stuff to clean up.
- Yanick, the non-nurse who can start IVs than any other person I know, usually works the dressing room doing wound care and injections on clinic days but she was needed up at the cholera house so I manned the dressing room all day.
-This little boy came in today after what appears to be his foot getting caught in a motorcycle. The bleeding was pretty bad so we put a tourniquet on to stop it until he could have it sewn up. His heel was in really bad shape so we gave him some pain meds and sent him into Doctors Without Borders because he'll probably need a skin graft.
- Henley and Trey ran around all night having water fights with 20 cc syringes. I got caught in the warfare many times.
- Don't get syhpilis or you will have to get 4 giant penicillin injections at a time in your bum for 5 weeks.
- A team from the Austin Stone is coming for the day tomorrow and we are going to put the to work. It's pretty cool for me to think about God using my trip with the Stone 3 years ago to move my heart for Haiti.
Off to rest up for another big day.
Goodnight friends
Gachny is the second of the 5 kids staying up at our house and he is freaking adorable (an ET look a like kind of cute). He has been here a little while and I can't tell you what is wrong with him other than he just looks bad. Anna picked him out in the RC and I agreed that he has that look of a kid that is going to die. He is really puny and won't eat anything. We've had him on IV fluids with some dextrose and he'll drink milk really well but he has bad diarrhea and won't eat any solid food. I had a nightmare last night that I woke up and Anna told me he had died. I was thrilled to see him doing okay this morning, but by no means do I think he is over the hump.
We got another curve ball thrown at us today when Erline's poop (I know, but get over it) all of a sudden looked like cholera. We tested her and sure enough it was positive. This is not good for so many reasons. One being that she is fighting so hard against the Kwashiorkor that she has no reserves. The other is that she has been up in our room for 2 days with us and 5 other critical kids and we were all exposed. We sent her up to the cholera house tonight and did a massive bleaching of everything. We went ahead and treated all of the other kids with antibiotics and will ask you to pray pray pray that the cholera stays away from this house. We also brought up another little girl with severe kwash so that keeps us at 5 critical kids. Tomorrow is a clinic day and you can pray specifically that there are no bad kids that we have to take as the Rescue Center is at capacity
God is good and His mercies are new every morning and a lot of days I just long for the morning.
Erline is one of the 5 very critical kids who are staying up at the house with me and the other 4 volunteers here. She is in the fight for her life and I'm asking you to pray with us. She's had kwashiorkor for several weeks now, and seemed to be doing better, but took at turn for the worse yesterday when she stopped eating and drinking. We put a tube in. but she is not able to keep much down. Although she looks "healthy" because she is not small, none of the fluid in her body is in the right place. You can see the severity of her dehydration in her sunken eyes and deflated umbilical hernia.
She is such a little cutie!
Lori and Licia threw me a welcome back party. It went a little something like this...
Land in Port and get out to Cazale mid afternoon. Unpacked our bags and sat in the office catching up on all that has been happening around here. About 10 kids in the ICU tent, one was a preemie on oxygen with a bad respiratory thing but was deteriorating quickly. Made a plan to get up early and head up to the cholera house to help the day shift this morning. Ate a quick dinner and was going to get ready for bed when they came and told us that they preemie was bad. Went to the dressing room to check on him and knew it would be soon. Anna held him and we just prayed that Jesus would end his suffering soon one way or the other. He died within an hour and Anna and a couple of the other volunteers bathed him and dressed him to be buried today.
I jumped in the shower and right when I got out a volunteer came running upstairs and told me that Lori called and there was a woman in labor up at the cholera house, and asked if I could go up. I threw on some scrubs and grabbed a few lights and a birthing kit. We ran up to the house and found the laboring woman (who by the way, also has cholera) fully dilated and ready to push. She was very small, so I got nervous that the baby was coming early, but she assured me she was 9 months along. Lori said she would call one of the local Haitian midwives to come up in case I needed some help, given this was my first solo delivery. I could feel the head really well and knew baby was in the right position so I was really calm and just excited. I pushed with her for about 30 minutes, and when the midwife, David (who I'm pretty sure was under the influence of something other than water) came in to help. We moved her onto the floor to give us all a little more space. Mind you, there are at least 70 other patients and their families in this small house dealing with cholera so the background sights and sounds are just awesome. David was really hands off and was just letting mama do the work, so I backed off and just got ready to catch the baby. It only took a few big pushes and baby came really easily. She cried immediately and looked fantastic. Anna cut the cord and then David put the end of the cord in baby's mouth so she would drink the blood. We all gasped and the Haitians laughed. My first thought was what the! and second thought was um hepatitis? The midwife delivered tugged on the placenta and caused her to bleed quite a bit. He left, so I massaged her until she was firm again and gave a dose of pitocin. She did really well after that first dose and we let mamma and pappa bond with baby girl.
It was a beautiful paradox of death and life in a matter of a couple hours, and pretty much sums everything I know and love about this place. Welcome back.
This morning Anna and I went up to the cholera house to help out a little bit and tarp the porch. We rearranged many of the cots to make room for all of the patients. There is a steady 65-75 patients a day, which is just insane. I was really overwhelmed with the thought of caring for all of these patients, and really respect all of the Haitian staff who has managed to save almost 3000 lives in the most intense conditions.
Who gets to work in a hospital with this view everyday?
Currently sipping a diet coke and enjoying an afternoon rain storm. Off to work the 6p-12p shift in the cholera house tonight. Would love prayers for continued health and endurance!
Lots of love from Cazale.
Only 12 hours from now I'll be in my not so favorite city of Miami en route to PAP. Would love your prayers for the traveling as well as the next month I'll spend at Real Hope for Haiti. The last several weeks, and few days in particular, have been insane so I don't feel totally prepared for this trip, but I am thankful He covers all my insufficiencies. I plan to share all that happens from that little island I love so much.
Thank you in advance for your prayers and encouragement!
