January Medical Trip Day 5

Today went much better. We began with a breakfast of oatmeal along with with the typical very fresh fruit and bread. I haven't mentioned the coffee yet because I don't drink it but everyone who does says it is good and gets better the more you drink it. We switched one of the Hiluxes out for another one last night so when the time came to load up, all the trucks were ready and waiting. Trips to Chadirac have become more and more fun as the group gets drawn closer together with each day. It was an absolute dèluge last night which is funny because the county (province? city?) we are staying in is actually called Dèluge. This meant that once we left the pavement the road was rougher than usual. It didn't really matter because we were joking and messing around the whole time up so that meant it was has become at least a little fun for everyone even for those among us who don't particularly like off-roading like I do.

After getting out of the trucks, we set up shop on the mountain in record time and were able to start taking patients right off the bat. I floated around for a while helping the pharmacy out and the triage station, and the doctors, mostly just running stuff back and forth moving things and looking for whatever the doctors needed. It turns out we left some IV supplies back at the hotel and I spent like 20 minutes looking for them. 

This is the part where the day took a very intense turn. When I asked why we needed whatever I was looking for, Lorie showed me. There was a child whose age was supposedly 3 but he didn't look 3 yet. He was the most malnourished kid I have ever seen. He was extremely weak and his triage form said he had a parasite, he had blood in his stool, and he was unable to stand. He went limp twice just when I was with him. They asked me to hold his feet and smack them to try to agitate him enough for a vein to show its' self in his neck because his arms were too weak for a vein to show up to use for an IV. He was being held by Lorie and Jess was trying to find a vein. His mother had been escorted over to the prayer team a while ago because this situation did not look good. I didn't get any pictures of pretty much everything that follows because of the circumstances so prepare for a big block of text.  When we were about to try for an IV, Julie, one of the doctors came over to help and decided that even if we got an IV in him, he would die later on in the day. Just after she said this, he closed his eyes and didn't open them. He went limp and she lost his pulse so she started rubbing his sternum really hard. He opened his eyes again and Julie said that he was beyond what we could do and that he needed a real hospital. Laura was there and went around and took donations from all of us to pay for the hospital. We all threw in a little cash and Jess and I rushed to the first car in the row with one of our our translators, Nathan. We explained the situation to Woodkey and he immediately got on the phone to a couple different hospitals to see who could take him. He also grabbed one of the drivers, Berry who was walking by and told him what we needed. Nathan got in the bed of the truck and the mother of the kid got in the passenger seat and Jess and I got in the back seat. 

Let me explain right now that I watch and follow a few motorsports, so when I say that Berry went down this mountain like a rally car driver, I know what I am talking about, and I can not stress enough that I am in no way dramaticizing or exaggerating the following. Speed is your friend in rough conditions because it makes the suspension of the car absorb the bumps. This is where I am going to lose everyone who doesn't care about cars or racing so just skip to the next paragraph if you aren't interested. Sitting in the back would have been the time of my life under different circumstances, but looking back on it, it was like I was the back seat of a WRC car. He took the paved mountain road fast, not unreasonable, but fast. As soon as we hit the gravel portion of the road, Berry came in to his own. I trust this guy with my life but I had a plan if he lost it and it rolled. As soon as we reached the gravel portion, he dropped a gear and we were moving extremely fast even without taking the conditions in to consideration. He held two different 4 wheel drifts around wide corners, heel-toeing and using the throttle to control the truck. He was left foot braking to keep the weight over the front wheels and help rotate the car around tighter corners. He drove like a hero, and he is a naturally talented driver. I have no doubts that he would do extremely well if he drove professionally. Nathan hung on to the roll bar on the truck like a champ. He did everything we did except outside the truck!

Sorry for the tangent, anyway, we got to the hospital and got the kid out of the car. There were 6-8 different buildings and a map designating them. We first walked to the ER and it was like walking in to the 1940s. The nurses had the whole uniform things with the hats and the conditions were rough to say the least. The looks on their faces were not reassuring when they saw the kid. They pointed to their right and outside and Nathan confirmed that we had to go to another building. We walked out of the ER and to the right, passing a large covered waiting area and up some stairs in to a building that said pediatric in creole. I haven't realized till just now how odd it was that the entrance was on the second floor. We walked in and the first thing I noticed was drops of blood on the floor. Every seat was filled. There were rooms filled with children in cribs with their parents sleeping on the floor on cardboard next to them. There was a premature ward that I just got to peek in to with very old incubators and very, very small babies. We walked in to a room with a doctor in it (that I'm not sure how Berry and Nathan knew it was the right room) who took one look at the kid and told the person she was with to leave the room. She said something to Berry, and Nathan said to tell her what was wrong. Jess just unloaded everything that she knew about him while the doctor and a nurse began taking vitals, and by the grace of God the doctor spoke nearly fluent English. She wrote a prescription on a piece of paper and gave it to us. I didn't know why until Nathan told us that you have to provide your own meds in Haiti so we had to run to two different pharmacies around Saint Marc to get the drugs we needed while the kid was being admitted. 

That was an experience in and of its' self because it was the first time we had just walked around a city in Haiti before. When we got everything that we needed we went back to the hospital and found the kid still with the doctor who said that if we would have waited to take him there much longer he would not have made it. He had disentary and a parasite as well as being malnourished and anemic. The doctor told us that they would keep him for a few days and that they would likely be able to save him. If we would have remembered to bring the IV stuff, we would have given him one and he would have died tonight. I'm not quite sure why I was there throughout the whole thing but I'm glad I was. We left the mother who seemed to be in shock with a big bottle of water and enough cash to pay for more meds if they were necessary and food for a couple days, which was Berry's idea. He likes to goof around and has this persona that he is too cool for stuff but he has a huge heart and truly wants to do everything he can for people. On the drive back he said he wants to be an ambulance driver. 

We got back to the clinic after stopping for water and sketchy Haitian energy drinks. I told everyone that the kid made it to the hospital and would probably pull through. Then it was back to work, we ran much better today and actually got through about 220 people. I played frisbee with kids and ran stuff back and forth between people. Kim, Dominic, and Tony had to start cutting pills in half to give to kids because we ran out of child doses. The joke is that they are now referred to as Breaking Bad. After our translators and Haitian medical staff staying 2 hours past when the were supposed to, we cut off the patients and went back to the hotel.

Dinner was 15 minutes late but worth it in every way. I'll let the picture speak for its' self. Everyone was exhausted so this was a nice reward at the end of the day. The lobster was a little scary but it smelled too good to pass up.

Tomorrow is the last day for the clinic and we already know that we are not going to be able to help everyone, so it will for sure be the hardest day. All we can hope for is to make a difference in as many lives as possible and let God take care of the rest.