3.06.2010

Javonica....

My favorite love bug from Haiti....

Her mom, Margaret, had Congested Heart Failure postpartum and after the quake. Margaret when she was more ill than when I saw her.

We are not sure why but for awhile she was on a Nitro gtt. When I was there she was Lasix, Isordil, Lisinopril and Lopressor just to control her high blood pressure and fluid status (pretty serious huh?). The ICU nurse in me wanted VS at least Q8hrs (maybe Q4) but she was healing and only getting VS and daily weights every morning. She was such a great pt.... jumping at the sight of me coming with the scale and blood pressure cuff. She also loved handing off Javonica to me every morning between 6-7am. Sometimes "baby J" was hungry and sometimes she just wanted to hang out and smile at us pale white Americans that wanted to squeeze her chunky, "I am the only baby in Haiti getting formula since my mom can't nurse me due to medications" thighs! A "crib" a nurse had made for Javonica prior to me.

I even gave her a bath the last day I was there... just hours before my flight to Ft. Launderdale. It was a beautiful moment to relax and be at peace with all I had done, seen and heard in Haiti.
I also dressed her in a dress I brought from home that was a hand-me down from my girls.
The sad part about this story is that Javonica is Margaret's 6th child and if Margaret has another baby she will probably die. Heartline is trying to find her a way to get a tubal ligation but this is very hard. Margaret knows this is best for her and wants it too. I think it is so sad that if she goes back to her village and is taken advantage of by a man (like most Haitian women are) and gets pregnant baby Javonica could no longer have a mother.... fixing Haiti seems so impossible in so many ways! I just have to pray that more people who have the answers get involved and help. Last thought of the day....

Laugh... it's good medicine!




*smaller pics are from Beth McHoul

3.05.2010

Anntoinette Nassus


This beautiful woman lied in the rubble after the quake for more than a week (I think 13 days). She suffered a left tib/fib (lower leg fracture) with an external fixator, a wound on her left leg with a skin graft, and a right below the knee amputation, and she was 7 months pregnant!!!!! She went to the USS comfort for her care and a c-section. Her little boy was named Aidan and she was nursing him (or at least we were trying to have her nurse him). We were told when she had her baby she rejected him thinking there was no way her baby could have survived. He was a miracle to her. She was the most vocal of our patients. She leaned to the dramatic side and liked causing a scene. Her husband was always by her side.... a very quiet, calm man meeting her every need and command :). I really had to remind myself when I interacted with her what pain she must have been through and would still endure. We had to pre-medicate her and take her out of the tarp area and into the clinic for drsg changes because it was too traumatic for her. I changed her dressings one day and found her graft site to be too oozy for our liking, she also had some tunneling to her upper pin of her x-fix. I also tried to remove the sutures from her amputation but she was so upset (I thought she would hit me- don't blame her) so I only did half. She was so hysterical she was saying "I hear my baby crying. He has a big mouth. I don't want to feed him now!" We we took her back to her cot she told the other patients and nanny's that we tried to kill her without anesthesia.... she sure was entertaining!

The next day we took her up to the clinic area and I help teach Alisha (a newer nurse) how to do her dressings and take out the rest of her sutures. She was much better this time.

I think I just learned to have more empathy for her. She really was a strong woman! Even though sometimes she wanted to scream, cry, make a scene and I am sure crawl under a rock and forget about everything she held it all together most of the time. She also had a strong faith, paticipated in church and she was so thankful! When I went to say good bye to her she told me "Merci Cheri!" and gave me a great big hug! It was worth all that hard work in the end to help ease her pain. She still has a long recovery learning how to walk after they take out he x-fix. Remember she has an amputation on the other leg. I can't imagine the pain she has to still go through. Thank goodness she is strong, has support and lots of faith! And a little baby boy to live for and give her hope!

3.04.2010

Detached....




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Today i am feeling a little detached from everything.... my kids, my home, my stuff and even myself. I feel very lost. Maybe it is because I am feeling more detached from Haiti and our patients. I feel I helped while I was there but now what? Yeah I can try to raise money for Haiti and pray for the people of Haiti. But that all seems so distant. I just keep reminding myself that the people of Haiti have had their whole lives change and they are not detached. Yeah they seem to have hurt and loss in their lives but they had a lot of hope, joy and love for each other, themselves and us taking care of them. And they were so thankful to God for his work in their lives. The first night I was there the pastor who did church every night at our hospital asked us to come out so they could pray for us. All I could make out was "Merci Senior!" (Thank you God) over and over. They were so thankful for us and that they were not forgotten by God. They were so real! I want to be like that and not forget about them but also be very real to those around me. Above are pictures of them worshiping God as they are laying on their cots and sitting in wheelchairs!

3.03.2010

Emmanuel (God with us)


On Thursday I was having a conversation with someone from our group (can't remember who) about how amazing everything was pulling together at Heartline. The staff volunteering together and making a real medical team was awesome! The relationships we had developed with the USS Comfort, Merlin, Double Harvest and Miami U Field Hospital were so beneficial for our pts and for us knowing we could help facilitate care we just didn't have the ability to offer like x-rays, ortho surgery, skin grafts, ventilators, isolets, etc. We were doing a lot of triaging and them sending pt's to the best possible place we could find for them. And We would trade with them and take pt's needing more long term care and physical therapy. It was so obvious to me that God was working in this effort. He was blessing the 20 years of hard work by John and Beth McHoul. Every time a more critical pt came in it seemed we had the right people on hand. Even I had walked into the clinic that day (just checking in... not to work) and everyone was like "oh your here.... we need an IV in a very dehydrated woman with Malaria" (for a little while they all thought I was the pediatric IV queen.... I am not... I just found it was easier to put IVs in these Haitian people that had no adipose tissue and were vasodilated due to it being 95 degrees) I ended up getting a #24 in her foot which was okay temporarily till we gave her some fluid. But honestly I think God was right alongside me helping me drop these IVs, medicate people, think outside the box and love these people beyond what I thought I was capable of.

So Later that night when I came into work and was getting report from the day shift we learned that two new pt's had come from the USS Comfort and they both had the name Emmanuel.... my eyes almost welled up with tears. Emmanuel Siede was an older man who had Malaria and an old stroke pre-quake.... his sister was his caregiver and amazing. Emmanuel St. Germain was a 3 year old with facial trauma... He was so sweet but also a regular 3 year old. He would jump on your leg while you walked by, dance with his little biscuits hanging out, fight you about taking his meds and putting cream on his face and he gave his mother a run for her money. But I felt like them being in our clinic was a reminder that "God is with us"! It was amazing!