Tracking Ed Monroe as he travels to Haiti and other exotic(?) places

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Our last night at the FOTCOH clinic

Why did I take that shower before supper? I am sweating as much as when I finished work. Today we served around 200 patients for a total near 2600 patients. No wonder we are all tired. I understand we were unable to see about 16 patients at closing time today. One young man was about to be turned away when he suffered a severe asthma attack and was rushed to the breathing treatment area. I have no concept of time when we quit for lunch. After lunch I had some really great help with inventory and I was able to review it and check out the questions that I had. Most of the questions centered on Dr. Bill’s handwriting. Dr Nelson is here and we think he is in love with one of the volunteers-no names mentioned. The child that Donna and I recently acquired as a sponsor child came to the clinic during inventory and I fell in love with him immediately. He has red curly hair and a very proud papa. Red hair in this population means malnutrition, so I inquired if he had been seen during the clinic. Renel acted as interpreter and told me that the boy was well but I asked Dr. Bill to look him over just in case. He is a fine healthy boy. I gave him s Snoopy with a soccer ball, another soccer ball and a small rubber ball and one of my gliders. I think it was Jane who shot the pictures and I am anxious to see them. I wish I had shaved today for that picture and the further video interview with Dan for us to use to recruit more pharmacists. There is nothing like seeing me at my worst.
This has been a great team to be apart of and sadness abounds among the team as we realize that the experience is about over. -Of course, we still have the adventure of Jacmel airport, the flight in the small planes to the small airport in Port-Au-Prince, the ride in the truck with all of our luggage to PAP airport and the zoo that is PAP airport. We purchased rum in Jacmel today and it is in our checked baggage, We fly into Ft. Lauderdale and I hope to be on the cell phone to my wife as soon as I get my feet on the ground. I have tried to reach her on the VOIP phone but have missed her each time. I am going to post this. You will not have to hear from me till sometime on Saturday when I am back home. Thanks for being my readers. Thanks for all the kind remarks and most especially thanks for the prayers. Bonde Bene Ou! May God bless you!

Thursday morning

It was another night of tossing and turning in bed. I will be glad to get home and rest on our comfortable mattress. Yes, I corrected Marna’s name on the picture blog. Sorry Marna but thanks for catching it. Speaking of Marna, the beautician who practices in Haiti with out a license, I never did explain Marna’s moon and some of you might get the wrong idea. Yes, this the time of the new moon, but that is not it and she defiantly did not moon me or anyone else. She is helping me in the pharmacy and part of our job is to draw pictographs of the rising sun, the noon time sun, the setting sun, and the crescent moon. The joke came when I noticed that she put the moon the opposite way that is displayed on our pre-printed labels and I teased her about it. Yesterday the joke was she shot more people that a certain Marine that we know as we gave a lot of shots of Rocephin to patients. I also spent some time reviewing the importance of reading the label of the medication prior to drawing up the medication as we have the Rocephin in two different concentrations available. All of the nursing students are eager to learn and everyone enjoys the teaching opportunity. I am encouraging all of them to use this experience and the tutors as references when looking for work as we all worked under some extreme conditions and all have had to multi-task, think on our feet, react to sudden changes, and provide that most important gift of our love and our care. Again, I wish to mention how great this team is to be a part of.
Dr. K and I are still fighting and no serious blows have landed yet, just a lot of smiles and laughs. Dr. Edwards has finally come to realize that if I do not understand what he has written, (I’ll let you figure that one out) that I proceed with out consulting him and provide the medication that I think he might have been trying to write. It is late in the day usually when that occurs because 11 AM is late in the day, isn’t it? I told Dr Elsa that I was upset because I had no issues with her yesterday. She misses her daily running here; no one seems to want to go for a run with her. People are starting to pack up, I have inventory sheets to print up and Garron's surgery medications to prepare, and all before breakfast so I’ll spell check this but not check for typos just to keep my readers on their toes. Thanks again, Gayala for the feedback. I’ll try to write after we finish up later today.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Wednesday evening

It is almost 6 PM and I have enjoyed 3 beers to celebrate the last full day. We saw somewhere over 300 but totals not in yet. I did edit out some of my typos but left the evidence. What was I thinking? What was I drinking? That Haitian rum devil got a hold of me again. Ha!
So it is off to the shower with a promise of another early dinner. Hopefully I will not have to work on a computer again tonight. I'm told that Aaron will be happy to pay the bill for getting Marna's running again. She claims that he pays all the bills. Gayala- is that true??
BTW. Thanks for all the comments. I love posting them.

More pictures from Becky Reeser's camera

Thanks Becky!!!
 
Basin Bleu
 
Waterspout
 
Getting water from our reservoir
 
Becky and the lady with breast cancer
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Pictures

 
CAT generator building
 
View from roof
 
Marna and Christala
 
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Wednesday early

I am just back from Son-Son’s bar. We celebrated Sharon’s birthday tonight with a cake, a very brief team meeting, and a walk to Son Son’s for a drink. I came back with the first wave. I do not know why I took a shower after dinner as I am drenched with sweat again. Today we saw 383 patients and I think the number was 336 yesterday. We were still done by 4:30. I want to say thanks to all who come into the pharmacy to help. It is wonderful to have such great helpers. I am thrilled to death! David is not feeling well today. I think his peanut butter diet and lack of water is catching up with him. We are experiencing satellite problems and all of our internet feeds are as slow as or slower than dial up. It is very frustrating for all of us. The VOIP is not working well either. I tried a call today and could not get through.
Also, I have not been able to download the pictures that I promised as the feed from My Space came in garbled and blurry. I will try again later. Today was OCP and condom day at the pharmacy as well as many STD’s. Garron reports that surgery went well except for an anesthesia problem with the last patient. The pharmacy is out of all vitamins and getting very low on dispensing bags. We only have 1 ½ days to go. I’ll need to look into the bags for the September team for sure as well as vitamins. I think I have figures out why we are out. I dispensed an 80 day supply for a 63 day gap. If you count over 1500 patients times 20 that is a lot of product. Prefilling the vermox doses is helpful. We have used all of the 2 and 4 oz bottles for BB Sirop and the iron prep. We have pre-labeled the BB Sirop and the Lugol’s solution. The doe charts for the Ivermectin and Chloroquine are helpful. I wish II had the file with the Griseofulvin doses but my son has been unable to send it to me. We have used all of Preckshot Professional Pharmacy’s Ivermectin and are using the blue veterinarian bottle. The look on the faces of the children tells me that I still do not have enough sugar to mask its taste. I did get involved in a treatment today of a lady with a carotid aneurism. I was able to us Hydralazine to bring down her blood pressure to a much lower level than when she came in. The aneurism is big and pulsating and it would frighten anyone who has seen it. Or nursing students are getting quite an education here in Haiti. They see things here on a regular basis that that they would seldom have the opportunity to see in their training. They are all helping in the pharmacy and we discuss what the drug is, why it is given, what to expect, etc. They are eager to learn and such a great help. And they tease well! I got into a little trouble today with my water gun. A little boy of about 5 years old did not like it when I sprayed his leg. The look on his face almost made me cry, so I put on my clown wig, made him a glider, and got him some candy. I am amazed that those 5 cent gliders and bracelets are still here. I wish I had more time to give them out as I almost always get a beautiful smile. I’m going to signing off now. I have not slept well the past two nights and the crowd is noisy in the dining area so I may opt for the third floor balcony in a chaise lounge. Some of the girls are getting bug bites but I must not be as tasty as they are.
Ow it is 5 AM and the internet is working better. I must laugh at myself, along with every one else about my comments, or is that typos, on ant virus and shit the light. I’m sure there are more as I am not taking enough time to proof read before publishing. If I get this published, I must go to the pharmacy for a video session and it will be before 6 AM. The things I get my self into. I stayed up till 10:30 last night helping Marna and Becky with computer problems

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Early Tuesday

There are lots of things I want to publish but I have to get the medications ready for our surgeon, Garron, by 6:15 AM and it is already 5:45 AM. I will publish as much as I can with this post with a promise of more later. My laptop picked up a virus last night, as did Josh Bradshaw’s. I was glad for the anti (corrected from ant) virus software as it cleared it up with a reboot. The laptop was really running slow, even at shut down so I know something was up.
The crowds Monday morning were tremendous. It was said that the word on the street is that you will get into the clinic with baby in tow. We wondered how so many babies showed up at the gate. With that said, it was a “cute baby” day with sets of twins, children grabbing at me as I passed by, my favorite-the screaming child, accidents on the floor of the pharmacy waiting area, and lots of tears from me when I was least expecting them.
I cannot resist mentioning Marna’s moon. I did find out that she teases well and smiles a lot. Her family should be proud of her. That makes me compliment the young people on this team. They are some of the best that I have ever worked with. This whole team has gelled and there is laughter aplenty, helpers when ever needed, the laundry and dishes are no problems, and live is as good as it can be here with these wonderful team mates. With that said, I must report that Beth and I are fighting and I plan to in the battle, but I fear her battle tactics. It involves her orders and I really think she just wants me to keep on my toes but it gives me the break to go out and ask “What is this for? Why did you order this? I cannot read this!” And then we go round and round. She claims I am killing her! For her fan club, ask her about the ocp.
On Sunday night, really it was early Monday morning; I got up to shut (corrected from shit) off the lights in the kitchen and walked (corrected from waked) in on the girl’s slumber party gab session. They were whispering so I was not (corrected from nit) disturbed by the sounds but rather the light. This morning, when I again got up to douse the light, I had no surprises. Just more to teases them about today.
Garron arrived sometime in the afternoon and saw patients up until he had his surgery schedule filled. Dr Nelson worked with him and I believe there are about 30 people he plans to operate on. Today will be the 13 year old boy. This reminds me it is time to go down and prepare his meds so I’ll write more later today.
Yes, we have a birthday to celebrate today. Sharon is now an older woman!

Early Tuesday

There are lots of things I want to publish but I have to get the medications ready for our surgeon, Garron, by 6:15 AM and it is already 5:45 AM. I will publish as much as I can with this post with a promise of more later. My laptop picked up a virus last night, as did Josh Bradshaw’s. I was glad for the ant virus software as it cleared it up with a reboot. The laptop was really running slow, even at shut down so I know something was up.
The crowds Monday morning were tremendous. It was said that the word on the street is that you will get into the clinic with baby in tow. We wondered how so many babies showed up at the gate. With that said, it was a “cute baby” day with sets of twins, children grabbing at me as I passed by, my favorite-the screaming child, accidents on the floor of the pharmacy waiting area, and lots of tears from me when I was least expecting them.
I cannot resist mentioning Marna’s moon. I did find out that she teases well and smiles a lot. Her family should be proud of her. That makes me compliment the young people on this team. They are some of the best that I have ever worked with. This whole team has gelled and there is laughter aplenty, helpers when ever needed, the laundry and dishes are no problems, and live is as good as it can be here with these wonderful team mates. With that said, I must report that Beth and I are fighting and I plan to in the battle, but I fear her battle tactics. It involves her orders and I really think she just wants me to keep on my toes but it gives me the break to go out and ask “What is this for? Why did you order this? I cannot read this!” And then we go round and round. She claims I am killing her! For her fan club, ask her about the ocp.
On Sunday night, really it was early Monday morning; I got up to shit off the lights in the kitchen and waked in on the girl’s slumber party gab session. They were whispering so I was nit disturbed by the sounds but rather the light. This morning, when I again got up to douse the light, I had no surprises. Just more to teases them about today.
Garron arrived sometime in the afternoon and saw patients up until he had his surgery schedule filled. Dr Nelson worked with him and I believe there are about 30 people he plans to operate on. Today will be the 13 year old boy. This reminds me it is time to go down and prepare his meds so I’ll write more later today.
Yes, we have a birthday to celebrate today. Sharon is now an older woman!

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Sunday evening

I have some words on the day while the light is still with us. We had a prayer service early this morning at it went well. Kathy Roehm had sent along some songs that I thought Josh could play. It turns out that Josh does not read music after all. Jon Wagner, who had restrung the guitar with new strings, played “Amazing Grace” and “Just a closer walk with Thee” for the service. CJ, Barb, and Diana did the readings and the responsorial verse. Bruce read the gospel and brought it home for us as we server the Haitian people. Pancakes and bacon for breakfast and most were off to Bassin Blu. We had someone stay behind and require an IV but I have been sworn to silence unless the bribe money reaches an acceptable amount. I have picked on this team mate before and I enjoy teasing h__. Put your thinking caps on to guess whom it is. Ha Ha! I though about taking a nap while they were gone but I was unable to fall asleep so, for the first time since I have been here, I was able to relax and read one of my books. There was one injury from the waterfall and I was asked to apply triple antibiotic ointment to someone’s back. I hate these secrets as much as you do but let’s say I did nit mind the application. While I am into the teasing mode, I have to mention a pediatrician who still hates decimal points and continues to try to sneak in pediatric doses for full grown adults. She claims to just be testing me. I have also been teasing one of my dark haired pharmacy helpers that she often thinks too much-or was that stinks too much. I think it was one or the other.
Our trip to Ti Moulage was an adventure as there was some sort of a festival in Cayes Jacmel as we passed through and the one main street was crowded with people. We had our beach party outside of the place we normally go but that was the only difference. I brought along my backpack so the shoppers, and there were many, could purchase their art, statues, jewelry and rocks. I think CJ spent all that he brought, I had to loan Eric $ 20.00 and Dick and Barb $ 18.00. I spent a total of ZERO. I hope Donna will be pleased. The best bargain I saw were the straw hats at $ 2.00. The tee shirt lady wanted $ 8.00 per shirt and did come down to $ 7.00 but had no takers. We did buy some statues for the upcoming golf outing for FOTCOH. Have yu made your reservation yet? Have you volunteered to help FOTCOH at the golf outing. It is on August 6 at Arrowhead country club amd you can let Mary Hedges (mary123158@aol.com) or leave a message with Larry Shank at 691-4846. We really need your help. This is FOTCOH’s biggest fundraiser and we do need the money. But I need to go back to the beach story. The water temperature was near 85 degrees based on my experience with our 86 degree pool in Illinois, There was a strong undertow so we asked all not to swim out too far. The waves about 100 yards out were still around 4 to 6 foot. The beach wmore crowded with Haitians than I have seen in the past. The funny looking house with the blue concrete filled barrels for pillars has been worked on and all of the cement sacks that were mixed into the flooring were covered up with a new layer of concrete that looks like a product called dryvet in the states but this was gray in color so it may have been cement. The food at the beach was delicious as ever but a few team members, no names mentioned-darn, had queasy stomachs and did not eat. One of those queasy folks just stopped by and told me I could release her name but I am a good boy., right?
One of the most interesting things at the beach was the appearance of two water spouts and the beginnings of a third one. They were part of a cloud formation that appeared to me to be about 5 miles out into the Caribbean and headed westward and not towards us. The first one lasted about 10 minutes and then the second one completed its formation and it lasted about 8 minutes. That attracted the attention of the entire beach population. Everyone agreed that is was unusual. I understand that a waterspout is a precursor of a hurricane so I’ll need to check the weather forecast. Our ride home was the usual bumpy ride through the crowds at Cayes Jacmel. When we arrived at the turn off for our compound, the people in the streets cheered us and that made us feel good. The ride in and out of the compound in the truck and tat tap is an adventure in trying to dodge the vegetation that hits the passengers as we sway back and forth under the trees. To our dismay, we found some of them have thorns. Ouch! So now it is dark and we are trying to stay cool. A shower is in order for me. Poor Sharon rode home in the tap tap directly under my arm pit and there was little I could do but apologize. It is time to go, fill requests for aspirin, steroid cream and triple antibiotic ointment. You would think they would be able to find it themselves. Ha! There are 3 full days and one hectic half day left. I still hope to see our new sponsored child and have spoken to Boyer about it. Wish me luck on that one. I did get some news from my family today and I feel better about that. Keep us in your prayers. We prayed for you today

Sunday morning

Wow, I slept in today as it is almost 6 AM. I did not get my planned nap yesterday so I will try again today while many of the group makes the trip to the waterfall. Saturday was a short day at the clinic and we finished at the pharmacy at 12:30 PM. For those of you keeping track, we treated 142 on our first day, 324 on the second day, 342 on the third day, 293 on the fourth day, and 200 yesterday. That totals 1301. So we have done some good work and, at that pace, should see over 2000. As I feared, we will have to limit the adult vitamins but I expected that. I am not sure that my scoop method works well for those tiny pills. I had extra help again as the time to close drew near and they are more experienced in what goes on , they are swifter and have less questions. The doe chart for the chloroquine liquid saves time, pre-filling the vermox oral syringes saves times, and the pre-printed bag labels are still a blessing. Last night was our trip to Jacmel. The first wave left the compound around 2 PM to shop at the art stores and experience the city. I have been warned NOT to make mention of any purchases of paintings, statues, and jewelry, so in keeping with my promise I will not even begin to have you imagine a US dollar figure that might have boosted the Jacmel economy. For those who have been here, Boyer’s brother Jacky, stopped by yesterday and invited me to come outside the compound gate to look over his selection of paintings, statues, and jewelry. He has about 20 oils and some of them are eye catching. Donna has already warned me not to buy any as we have no where to hang another one. Jacky’s prices were $ 20, $ 40, and $ 60 for the paintings. We will likely see more merchandise for sale this afternoon at Ti Moulage, the beach where we will swim and have our Sunday dinner. I’m not sure what time today we will have our prayer service but I imagine it will be early as they will have to leave for the water fall before 10 AM. Today will be a busy day of rest. Ha
During our meal at Ambians last night, a storm came in from the east. Weather here comes westward off the coast of Africa. I watched the clouds roll in and wondered if and when it would rain. Fortunately it occurred while we were eating. I was sitting in the row closest to the street and felt an occasional spray from the hard rain. The storm had a nice variety of lightning but I did not notice a string wind. There was a limb down in the road on our way home so there must have been some wind. We watched in sadness as the rain washed the garbage down the street and knew that it would soon end up in Jacmel bay. The team has spent enough time together that any and every one is open to be teased at any time. I took some teasing about my pretty pint Jacmel shirt and that was one of the reasons that I brought it along. There continues to be a tease about some undergarments and I would just love to name names but I fear retaliation or Haitian revenge. I’ve told my new pharmacy helpers that I plan to spread the word that they did drugs while in Haiti. Our visit to Ambians was much better that in February. We had the place to ourselves except for a few others during the evening. I did purchase a bottle of Argentine Chardonnay and shared it with any willing takers. I also had a rum punch and a Prestige. Serving the dinners turned out as usual. First the rolls, then 10 minutes later the butter, then 10 minutes later the salad. You begin to see the pattern. When the entrĂ©e was served it came out in shifts and they substituted some plates as they did not have enough of something, but I’ve forgotten just what that was. I had ordered the kabob and it was a good as ever. Luckily the rain stopped and we made it home fairly dry. As we drove down the lane from the main road into the compound we did get sprayed from the wet tree limbs. It’s time for me to help set up the prayer service so I’d better close this and get a move on. Thanks to those who have submitted comments to the blog. The only one I rejected was the one I could not translate but it appeared to be an advertisement or a link to who knows where so it will remain unpublished.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Friday the Thirteenth evening

We were done before 5 PM today thanks to my helpers. They have been great. I did loose one this afternoon as she was really dehydrated but she came back near the end to help us finish up. I do not know the count today buy yesterday it was 342 patients. No wonder I was the first one in bed last night. Even with that I did not sleep well. That was the first night I have not slept well here. I may have been just too tired. Most of the team is at Son-Son’s. I chose to stay here andr\ sit down. So far I have had only two interruptions. One was to help prepare a shot for our miracle baby, Kristala who gets a shot daily for a few more days from her adventure of being born and being dumped. The second was to help Andrita, one of our housekeepers, with her acid stomach. I was asked by someone to reveal more about the squeeze, the lips, and the rash but no money was offered so I’ll hold out for further bids. I did discuss the flying bird with the husband of the person who started the joke and I can now reveal that it was a goose. The rest is up to your imagination. When Sharon had to lie down with her dehydration headache, I was given Becky Reeser to help and she did great. Janet Mai also pitched in, as did John Wagner so we had a great day, with a few laughs and a few squirts of the water gun. Some of the bracelets and gliders from the February mission are still here and I love giving them out when I have time. Boyer made a run to Jacmel today and brought back some wine for me for the weekend. Yeah. I will not be going to the waterfall on Sunday. I’ve been there twice and I’ll take that day off. Today was also a cry day for me when I took the time to play with the children as I constructed and flew the gliders and put the bracelets on the little girls arms. The look of surprise and joy in their eyes sent me crying back to the safety of the pharmacy. We had instances of Haitians writing on their dossiers this clinic and, today, I caught a patient going to two providers. Who, you might ask, was the second provider, and why did the provider not notice that the patient had already been seen? Three guesses, and the first to do not count if you consider the country of origin of this particular provider.
A note here, again, to say a special thank the people at Preckshot Professional Pharmacy for the Ivermectin solution. It is so beneficial. We are in trouble with ace inhibitors and adult vitamins. We will need to revisit that area and also to increase the kids vitamins supply for September. The Kids vitamins with Iron are GREAT. The baby vitamins are wonderful also. Dr Beth wanted something for kids who pee the bed today and will likely bring that issue up at medical advisory. We continue to have men’s complaints about painful urination and need to check on that issue. Many of the people who did not go to Son-Son’s are headed out to the south end of the property known as the rocks. There, after they navigate the sharp and uneven terrain, they will be sprayed by the crashing waves as the wind is from the south and mild. They will all come back wet and smiling. There remains two half days and 3 full days of clinic. Colson Mores brother came in right away to pick up the radio and pictures and came by today o tell me that Colson’s family would be coming in on Wednesday. I HOPE to see our new sponsored child sometime this weekend but I do not know just when that will be. I also tried to call home today on the VOIP line but I ony got the answering machine. It is quiet so I’ll go and enjoy a peaceful shower and maybe a short nap.

Friday the Thirteenth

Friday the 13th

It is a little after 5 AM, and it is nice a quiet and the sun is beginning to light the sky. Last night was Hamburger night and I recalled how that was Chip Moodie’s favorite meal. They got started late cooking them and I don’t know why because no one left for the beach or Son-Son’s. The burgers were well done but tasty anyhow. Our normal bakery is closed so we actually ordered buns in town and they were made for us. I understand that this bakery will only make buns by special order as only the blancs eat the buns. We had over night guests. Now that has happened before when a very sick blanc was brought to the clinic. This time it was a Haitian lady and her friend. Her asthma was so bad when she came in early yesterday. She came in at a time when our generator was down due to a broken belt and we had no power. You may recall that we have power from EDH via the lines from 2PM till 6 AM and then we use a Cat generator for the power. Thankfully, I could hook up her nebulizer to the large tank of Oxygen, and thankfully I remembered to bring along the regulator this time. She stayed here all day with her friend and some team members got up over night to give her treatments, Yes, she did eat with us. I forgot to mention that we had another of my favorite Haitian foods, the beet potato salad. I do not remember it as having the kick of a hit of hot peppers but it did. I also found out that it has quite a bit of garlic. But it is tasty…
As I recall, I was to tell you about the visit from the police. Early in the morning two Haitian police arrived at the clinic as patients. It caused a small stir, as I understand, and they were rushed through the system and the pharmacy line. I was handed their dossiers and got them filled and brought them out to my interpreters. The man with the family smiled, shook my hand, and thanked me in English. So, see, there was no police problem but I may have gotten the attention of team members families who may be reading this.
Our team meeting started after the hamburger feast. There is a pharmacy issue but Dr Bill and I put it off due to the lateness of the meeting and the need to keep checking on our patient. David Coleman was assigned to be the enforcer of the provider benches and that worked out well until he moved out of sight and then the Haitians rushed to the provider benches. It has to be hot for them and there is very little shade in the staging area outside the compound and not a lot more where the providers are sitting. I think we will continue to use an enforcer in that area. One of my interpreters took an extended lunch hour yesterday. Pharmacy was already backed up from a heavy morning load and that put us further behind. I did a quick run outside and could not spot him so this morning will be a lecture time. My pill packing girls have, for the most part, kept us up. I did not need to use team members to package last night. Hooray!
Another tidbit that came out of the team meeting was a comment about our Haitian physician. It seems that two young Haitian women came to triage to be seen. They did not present with any discernable symptoms (chief complaints in our terminology). They, both, insisted that they must see Dr Nelson and no one else. It turns out they wanted to have “a relationship” with the young doctor. When asked about the incident, the doctor told us that he was still learning.
The pill counting machine is officially dead. I asked Dan Hoehne to look at it and the circuits are fried and corroded. So the pharmacy committee will have to address that issue at some point or seek a donation of another machine. Last night, at the team meeting, we were discussing how our patients consistently seem to have elevated blood sugar levels and blood pressure levels due to the fact that they had not taken their medications. They claim that they ran out. Our suspicion remains that they feel that if they come in with the levels regulated by the medicine that they will not be seen nor be given more medications. I am going to suggest to the pharmacy committee that we, somehow, ask them to bring n their medication containers, both the empty ones and the partial ones. That would give us some indication of how the medications are standing up in our packaging and also if they are taking the meds at all. I just do not expect that this will be easy for us.
I’ve had no inquires about the squeeze issue, the lips issue or the rash issue yet so the auction remains open. Today, being Friday the thirteenth, some of the team is going to the voodoo ceremony that the Haitians will put on this evening. I think I’ll pass on that, sit here on the back porch with my Prestige beer, and think about home. Speaking of home, what is the Ray reaction to the cigars?? Let me know, please.
One last joke on myself, not only did I fail to bring along the correct file on my flash drive, and that I have been waiting for my son to go to my home and email it to me, but there is more. Last night, I was looking through some old files on this laptop and came across the file where I had calculated out the dosages for the Chloroquine liquid for children. It is aggravating that I have spent a lot of time, and frustration, calculating each child’s dose when I could have posted the chart and supervised the dispensing. As Dr. Nelson said, ”I am still learning”. Sun’s up, EDH is on, and so is breakfast. Love from Haiti!!!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Thursday 5:30 PM

Just a short note as I am happy to sit down. Pharmacy is closed. I had extra help in reducing the line and we were done at 6 PM. However, for anyone who has been here, imagine 10 people in the pharmacy trying to fill orders at the same time. Or, for you h=who have not had the pleasure, picture a 15 x 15 foot room with shelving and then 10 people with trays. Cramped? Noisy? Confusing? I am, however. most grateful for the help. I was really getting tired.
Later this evening or in the morning I will discuss the visit by the Haitian police. I may make mention of Marna's squeeze, Becky's lip, and Sue's rash. Of course, I could hold that information and sell it to the highest bidder.
I did have to remind a provider that she was a medical provider and not a lawyer when it came to shingle. I've encountered some interesting dosing when one forgets a zero here or there or even a tiny, insignificant decimal point. Also today in the pharmacy, I was just about given a flying bird by a provider. I leave that to your imagination.
The news I do want to share concerns a baby that I just saw. She was born Sunday and dropped in a toilet (yes,a latrine). The baby was rescued by the actions of an alert 17 year old. He had seen the pregnant lady and just a little later noticed her leaving and trail a path of blood. The UN assisted, broke into the concrete and lowered a Sri Lankan soldier down to rescue the child. Luckily the toilet was almost brand new and not as gross as you might be imagining. She came last night and tonight for a shot of antibiotic. She was adopted by an American family that has an orphanage here. The baby's name is Kristala and I may not have spelled it correctly but it means, in Kreole, Christ was here!
With that said, it is time for a Prestige or something stronger. I have to stop crying!!!

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Wednesday afternoon

I am outside on the balcony, my favorite place here, enjoying the breeze and blogging. We would have been done today at 5 PM but I stayed to fill the prison order. More on that a little later. First and foremost a note to Donna: I miss you very much-especially today at lunch when Dan served potato soup. Almost made me cry! It’s harder this time for me than in the past trips by myself.
In other news, there was a problem with a certain female physician and her delicate garments. I was advised not to divulge many details as it might even embarrass me! Why is it that I always seem to be around when these incidents happen? Also today, one of my female pill packers was complaining about pain in her rather large breasts. I asked my interpreter for help in determine what she wanted me to do as I could not FULLY understand what she was telling me. After the translation, without further delay, I rushed her to Sara Baysinger’s bench so that I would retain my clean cut image! Ha!
At noon, when we tried to close the door and take a break, we had not one but two instances of people entering the pharmacy after they were told that we had closed and demanding service. The last one, I found out later, had pulled that act at every station in the clinic and we all fell for it. Oh well!
On the medical front, the Phenytoin issue has arisen and will be an issue at the next medical advisory committee. And then there is the prison issue. We were asked to visit the local jail this mission. Dr Bill, Sue, Dick, Eric and Dan H. made the trip. The word is, do not end up in Jacmel jail. It is retched. I filled the medication orders and almost all had worms and malaria. All were given vitamins and iron. There were some strange orders but this is not the vehicle to carry that knowledge. All of the inmates, male and female, are housed in the same area but there is restricted access that keeps the gang rapes in check.
I had addit onal help in the pharmacy today. I asked Sharon to come in and fill orders and she did very well. Dr Elsa also volunteered this afternoon and I had her calculating doses for chloroquine, Ivermectin and vermox. She also was a trooper and excelled in her work. At this moment, there are several people helping me package pills.
I seem to have drawn a crowd at my spot so I will run this through the spell checker and get it published.

Early Wednesday

It is another beautiful morning on the balcony. As I sit on the rocking chair, a nice cool breeze from the North floats over me and the sun will soon jump out of the ocean. I managed to rig up my fan so that it blew cool (?) air over me last night. I propped it on the headboard and aimed it on my body. The fan is tall and somewhat square in shape so it stayed out all night. I realized this morning that I am not hydrating enough as I have slept two nights in a row with out awakening to urinate. So it is more water for me today for sure. Carol and I remind each other to drink but not often enough for me, it seems. There has been nobody being sick so that means health is excellent. That is a good thing.
The fishermen are rowing their boat around the point now. Today there are only two men on board. The waves are crashing on the rocks and there is a constant sound, like a big jet plane passing overhead, coming from the nearby rocks.
Time for some more coffee. It is fluid, isn't it.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Tuesday evening

It is now almost 9PM on Tuesday. A quick note about the time, we are on Daylight Savings time this year and so we are on the same time as Illinois. Go figure that one out! So, soon it will be bedtime as 5 AM rolls around quickly.
We are just done with our team meeting and there are no major issues. Ha! No one counted patients today but I have told one and all that it had to be 250 or more based on the work. At one time, there were not 5, not 6 but SEVEN providers sending me patients. No wonder we could never get ahead. We did manage to finish by 5:30 PM and I am very proud of that fact. I am still searching for items and there are boxes stacked on boxes in the store room and the pharmacy so the search is interesting. I’ve managed to find what I’ve been looking for after a period of time on or subsequent searches for the same item. The alphabetical system in the store room has been compromised and that makes it most difficult. The out of place items seem to hide well where they do not belong. The system is very Haitian.
All of my helpers are the same as in the past. My pill packers are as slow as ever and cannot seem to grasp the concept of scooping pills into a measuring device and putting them into the bags. The preprinted labels allow us never to run short of packaged pills at any time and I recommend it highly.
The temperature was in the 80’s today and it was very humid. There was thunder and lightning on the nearby mountains but no rain. It was just muggy. The power went off several times today. It seems a hose on the generator broke. We have generator power from 6 AM till 2 PM and then EDH power from the pole the rest of the time. The only problem was that EDH went out twice in the hottest part of the afternoon which meant no lights on the cloudy day and no fans.
The providers had lots of questions and they are fun and easy to work with, Dr Nelson, the Haitian physician, even came out to help for quite awhile. A note to Mark Purcell- I know now just what you meant when you described working with him.
Lots of patients with scabies, lots of ear infections this time and I wonder why. The kids are not in school so we expected loads of them but just the normal amount so far.
One more note to my family: My jump drive will not open for some reason and the files that I need to transfer to the computer here are locked. Please read my email to you and respond when you can. Thanks.
I am sitting on the balcony where I wrote from this morning and there is a nice cool sea breeze. I am sleeping on the second floor on the other side of the building and there is no breeze in there and it is very warm. By the way, there are no mosquitoes so far. That is a far cry from our last February trip. I do not miss them at all. But I do miss home, a lot!
I think that is enough for tonight. I’m tired and even a warm muggy bed will fell good.
Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Thanks for the emails and comments.

Welcome to Haiti

It’s Tuesday morning at 5:15 AM. The sun will be up in about 30 minutes. I am on the third floor balcony looking out to the Southeast. There is a small boat out on the water with 3 men fishing. The skyline is gray with the morning haze. The small breeze is refreshing and nice. It is probably 15 degrees cooler outside than in side the clinic so it is fun to sit here and watch the sun come up as I type.
On Sunday night at 11PM, I left for the airport. About half way there, I realized that I’d not packed my passport so we turned around and returned home to retrieve it. No matter, our bus did not show up until midnight. It took just a short while to load the bus and we were off on this adventure. The bus ride was uneventful. The DVD of “The Simpson’s” was the movie. I dozed a bit after that as it was hard to doze with the noise. We arrived at O’Hare at 3 AM. There were, already, several people there and a couple of large groups ahead of us in line. When we stated to check in at 4:30 AM we encounter our first problem. American Airlines, with its announced embargo, would not take our tote containers that we had specially purchased in response to that embargo. They told us that totes are, boxes and no boxes are allowed due to the embargo. It took many calls and almost 1 hour before we were allowed to check in. Whew. We managed to get checked in, through TSA security, etc with minimal problems. I had failed to remove my quart sized bag of shave cream so my bags were checked by TSA and I did not loose the product. Fortified by Starbucks coffee, we got on a full flight to Miami and arrived on time at the D concourse. Our next flight, in 3 hours was from the “A” concourse and that meant a 20 minute walk between terminals for our exercise. We ate lunch at the Mexican restaurant and Jane Mai, a second year medical student from Tampa, met up with us. She is a lovely young oriental who, influenced by meeting Dr. Paul Farmer, was inspired to work in Haiti and found out about our team. She is friendly and personable and will be a great asset. On a side note, this team has come together quite well and it will be another fun adventure.
Our plane was late and full leaving Miami. What else is new? When we arrived in Haiti, we cleared immigration in record time and I complimented the agent on the swiftness of the process. That was a mistake as it took more than 1 hour for our plane to be unloaded and, to our joy and surprise, our containers were the last to be unloaded in typical Haitian fashion. Now the process begins of getting your bags and boxes and get through customs. Someone else had my container so I switched with her and faced the music. After I had to show the agent how to open the ties-much to his surprise, he merely pawed through the box, picked up the bag of very powerful injectables, much to my dismay, and promptly put them back neatly and I was on my way. About 8 of us seemed to be targeted for inspection but no seizures and no customs charges. Yeah!. We departed the terminal, into the mob of people and our Haitian helpers guided us to the truck that would take our luggage to Jacmel and also take us to the small airport. We loaded up, like sardines in a can, and raced to the other end of the airfield. It too Carbintair about 45 minutes of Haitian stalling for us to get on the two small planes for our 18 minute flight over the mountains to Jacmel. Dick, Barb, Bruce, Dan, and, of course, Digone met us at the Jacmel end. We loaded our carryon and ourselves into the two trucks for the short trip to the clinic. Jean Michel, Eric and I rode the back bumper and Jean Michele and I chose to walk from the min road back to the clinic as Son Son’s Tap-Tap was dragging bottom as we drove over the rough rocky ground. It was fun to spend that time with Jean Michel, one of our main men, here in Haiti.
The clinic was as clean as ever and the new team members marvel at our luxurious accommodations. I began to uncover the pharmacy and prepare it to open. We ate one of my favorite meals, Thanks to our Haitian cooks, of tomatoes, onions, lobster in a stew, with rice and beans and pickly, the hot Cole slaw. It was a nice welcome. Our main bags arrived at 10 PM and we had them broken down in about a half hour. There was some leakage of shampoos inside the bags and boxes but no real damage that I can see. A quick note to the pharmacy committee that the new light bulb did not solve the problem with the pill counting machine so I will have some one here look at it but I will not count on it for this mission. Soon it will be breakfast and off to work. We give thanks to God for our safe journey here and for the many blessings He bestows on us.

Monday, July 09, 2007

Here in Haiti

We arrived late into Port-Au-Prince but were able to catch the plane to Jacmel so you know we have arrived safely. I am very tired and have been up now almost 45 hours so this will be brief. I just wanted you to know that we got here. I'll write more about our adventures tomorrow when I am rested. Yes it is hot and sticky. I am sweating quite well, thank you. Please know you are in our prayers.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Soon to be off

Tomorrow we will begin the July mission to Haiti. I am excited that I can return to assist the people in the Jacmel area as best that I can. I am hoping to meet up with Brother Nego. He is a youth minister in Jacmel. We've corresponded via email so far.
Our packing party went smooth but my bags are very overweight so I've had to remove some soap. baby blankets, lotions, food, and other items in order to accommodate some last minute medications. I hope we do not have problems at customs!!! Our new tote boxes, in response to American Airlines cargo embargo, do not hold as much bulk and 50 lbs comes very easily. Our weather forecast is for hot and muggy conditions. Please keep us in your prayers as you are in mine.