Woke up around 5am to roosters crowing at the top of their lungs, and after a tumultuous night's sleep, trying to find a way to keep warm as I hadn't come prepared for the chilly mountain nights at the orphanage (probably went to as low as 55-60 degrees). We had breakfast together... Toasted flour porridge, cereal or PB sandwiches and a strong cup of Haitian coffee got us rearing to go for the days work. We met for morning devotions led by Bobby, our team leader. We loaded all of our supplies on top of our big red "tap-tap" truck, and about 20 of us crammed into the back, leaving around 7:15 for a nearly 2 hr drive into town. On our way, we stopped at the grocery store to buy bread to make PB sandwiches and ice for the Tang we would hand-out at the clinic.
We set-up shop about 20 min from the airport in the "tent church" of a small village. School had not reopened, yet we found young students sitting on the wooden benches working independently on their homework... they are eager to learn in Haiti!
Our first clinic day was a bit disorganized as we were learning how work with the limited space and logistics we had. We forgot to grab paper and pens to write with, so I cut-up some computer paper I happened to have in my backpack and scrounged-up some spare pens. We wrote each patients' name, chief complaint, vital signs, and the practitioner's Rx for that patient on each small slip... No need for massive, over-flowing patient charts here!
The patients waited patiently in line as the translators, Christine (L&D nurse from NY) and I took down their name and cheif complaint. I enjoyed practicing a bit of my French in this role! Brent (aka. "Alabama") and Denny (from NY) then took vitals in triage. Jason, our N.P. and head-honcho, and Andrew (ER tech and med student from Texas) were our practitioners performing assessments and writing prescriptions.The patients then visited our little pharmacy table, manned by Pastor Jeff & Angie (amazing couple from WI) SJ, and Erick. Kristin (student from Minnesota), Brandyn (from NY), and David prepared and served each person with a PB sandwich and "tang" juice. Then each patient was prayed-over by Pastor Brad, Bobby, and others.
We saw around 250+ patients that day, most of which had complaints of indigestion/acid reflux, dizziness, poor appetite, pelvic inflammatory disease symptoms, and dry eyes. Some came through with boils/abcesses some of which we treated w/ shots of Rocephin.
One patient I will never forget was a sweet old lady of 85... It's by God's grace that anyone should live to age 85, especially in Haiti where the average life span is 40 years! Her family/neighbors somehow managed to help her walk to the clinic... they must have carried her part of the way, because she was so weak from dehydration, and on top of that had painfully swollen legs and feet she could barely walk on! SJ put an IV in her and gave her a liter of fluid. She had no shoes for her swollen feet, so Christine graciously gave her her socks... She didn't put them on to walk though, and we couldn't bear to see her go bare-footed! So Christine, myself, and one of the translators carried her back to her tent. The trek to her tent was so difficult to pass through, we're not quite sure how she made it to us in the first place! Tents are erected side by side w/ barely any space in between to walk, and some areas were rather steep. Thankfully, we managed to get her back safely without tripping over tent poles! When we got her seated in her chair, she blessed us and kissed us, then lifted her hands and began to praise to God! Christine and I were on the brink of tears watching her there, as she reminded us both of our grandmothers... We were so thankful to have the opportunity to take care of her, our Haitian grandmother : )
After seeing probably everyone who lived in that village, we wrapped things-up around 3pm. On our way back we dropped-by the airport to pick-up Nicole (PA student from California) our second practitioner, Brian (premed student from NC), and Travis (student from Texas). We chowed-down on croissant sandwiches from Epi D'or as none of us had eaten all day (our routine each day). A few of us got motion-sickness on the ride back up, and SJ was rather dehydrated from the heat of the day. She ended-up getting a liter of IV fluids when we returned...
Our cold showers were rather refreshing after a long heated day... After dinner, the majority of the team left for revival a revival service after dinner that evening... Nicole and I stayed behind to organize our medical supplies for the following day... One thing we certainly were not lacking in were gloves, PPE, and peroxide!! (methods to eradicate disease in Haiti perhaps?)
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