week two. done.

So another week completed in Haiti. My goodness this week was tough.

The new team at the hospital was fantastic and I met some really wonderful people. One of the women, Barbara, has led the life I aspire to lead one day. I guess I'm already starting to, but her stories are incredible and I love talking to her about her year in Indonesia and working for the Air Force and the clinic she goes to in Central America. It's always reassuring and quite exciting to meet new people who have been where I want to go and still love doing what they're doing.

The hospital itself was a little frustrating however. A little boy came into the ER having a ton of general pain and he was moaning in bed. We tested him for malaria and found it to be negative. After about an hour of asking for more symptoms and getting a more complete history, we found out that his mom has Sickle Cell Anemia. Sickle Cell is passed on genetically so we concluded that he probably has Sickle Cell and was having a Sickle Cell Crisis. Basically the treatment is supportive. A crisis can bring on severe generalized pain so you give the patient pain meds, oxygen and hydration and usually treat for infection (which can precipitate a crisis). We started treatment in the ER and sent him over to the inpatient unit. We don't have a ton of nurses this week so we had the Haitian nurses taking care of our admitted patients. Well the next day, the boy isn't doing well. Turns out the Haitian nurses didn't give the kid any of his meds throughout the day. He ended up dying later that night after the team intubated him and bagged him for several hours. He was 8. I wasn't there to experience all of craziness that happened through the night, but I do work closely with the nurses that failed to look after his care and it's been hard to know how to best approach the lack of quality care in our hospital and best be an agent of change in that place without being insensitive and crazy bossy.

Monday when I was just about to grab my bag to leave the hospital, I heard an ambulance pull up outside. We've only had a handful of "ambulances" pull up to our hospital in my time there and it's not always been an emergency. This time it was a brown land cruiser with a siren (good enough to be a Haitian ambulance) that came to us with victims of a car accident. I've not really been around a lot of trauma so what I saw next was a huge test for me. The woman who got out first was kinda moan-cry-yelling and was completely covered in blood and dirt. Her jaw was huge and her mouth was full of possibly broken teeth and blood. She was shocking. I was the first one to get to her and I almost kinda froze. Two big men helped walk her to a bed so we could start cleaning her up. The next guy was my guy. He was walking fine but had huge abrasions all over his face. We got him to a bed and started cleaning him up too. At this point in the ER was have a Pediatric Neurologist, a resident an ER nurse (Barbara) and myself. Was I kinda freaking out? Yes. Just for a sec though. I wasn't sure if we were going to have a ton of head injuries that we wouldn't really be able to treat and honestly, I didn't know if I really knew what I was doing. After maybe 10 minutes, a bunch of other nurses and doctors came to help out with the 4 other patients that came in from the same accident. My guy ended up needing some stitches in his arm cause a huge chunk had come out and some staples in the head. I ended up helping staple his head shut so... that was kinda cool. I'm also kinda awful at injecting lidocaine into a skull. Practice makes perfect though right?

I've also been really helpful here on base. I've been ceaning up wounds, squeezing out some cellulitis puss, handing out Cipro for some intense diarrhea, consulting people regarding their different wounds and what to do. I love it. It's been so good this week to feel really helpful at the hospital as well as on base.

I went rubbling with a group earlier this week also. We started working on a two story house that collapsed during the earthquake. I was lucky enough to also help finish the project and see how much of a difference it's going to make for her. She lives with her 6 month old daughter, sister + her kid and their mom. The house wasn't super big to begin with but apparently they make do. It's amazing what you can do with a bunch of shovels, pick axes, sledgehammers and wheebarrows. I mean, seriously. To see that house pre and post was incredible.


Now we're dealing with some management issues within the non profit that hopefully will resolve themselves soon and bring about a more unified place to work.

I love you guys. I feel at home here though. I feel loved and helpful and encouraged everyday to continue to do what I've been doing. It's glorious.