Friday morning March 18 2011

I am not really good at taking the time to write my blog on this trip. We are seeing over 300 patients per day and working till near 6 PM so my time to write is limited. This is another great team with lots of dedicated workers who really care for the Haitians. We have had a few starving babies. One yesterday was 10 days old and even though Mom;s milk had come in, the baby was being fed some crushed spaghetti and sweet tea. This was her 4th child and you would have expected her to learn to fee babies by now. We also had a 47 year old lady with several children find out that she was pregnant. We did 3 separate tests as she refused to believe it. We are going through lots of formula and Dr. Nelson has been busy obtaining it for us. We will be sticking close to the clinic on the weekend due to the election and also because Aristides return to Haiti may cause some unrest. I hate it that the new people will not get to see Jacmel, the beach at Ti Moulage, the market at Cayes Jacmel, or some of the other scenery.



I hope you enjoy the pictures. Time to get some breakfast. Thanks for the prayers and good wishes

Wednesday March 16

First off, Happy St Patrick's day. We plan to celebrate at Son-Son's with green Okra and lots of rum and Prestige. I doubt that it will be green. It is now 10:00 PM and I have just a few moments to blog. We say some where over 300 patients again today and did not finish till after 6 PM. Martha and I are still doing great and this will be a great mission. We have has lots of help from Linda Bryan and Matthew Re. Kate McGinn, Barb Smith, and Greta Thibideau also helped us. Bill Cicala and Kristy Rashid asked if they could help and they bit off a bit more that they would have liked. Please look at the FOTCOH blog for some updates from Carol Miller and some pictures from Holly's camera. Reg, Bill and Gregg are headed for bed, as I should also be doing. Just out of the shower and thought I would say hello. This is another great team and I am enjoying the experience as always. We will NOT be going to the beach ion Sunday due to possible problems as we pass by several polling places. We will most likely just go to the beach beneath the Cyvadier Plage Hotel. The hotel will also host our Saturday evening dinner.
Keep those prayers coming.

Hello from Haiti 3-15-11

Hello from Haiti. For our first day here we saw 324 patients. I am sure that is a new record in lots of ways. It is the first time that I can recall that we were ready to open at 7 AM on day 1 of a clinic. We were not quite ready in the pharmacy but survived.
Another first was a prayer service at opening. Boyer wanted to lead a moment of silence in honor of our team mate, Gary Paulson. Gary made several trips to Haiti with FOTCOH and passed away over the winter. He was a dedicated worker and a great friend. Boyer, our main man in Haiti, asked the crowd to observe a moment of silence and pointed to his ears so they would understand who he was referring to. Gary had a hearing aid in both ears and they seemed to know him from that gesture. After the moment of silence, one lady in the crowd began to say the Rosary in Creole. The prayer, with responses from the crowd, lasted over 30 minutes and those team member who witnessed it were in awe.

Our flights here were uneventful except for the volunteer who had problems with American Airlines. It seems they did not record her credit card when she made her reservation. Long story-short: she ended up in Puerto Rica sleeping on the floor at the airport in PR, flyibg the next day to Santo Domingo and then on to Port-au-Prince. She arrived there 1 hour before us. We lost one bag, which is now in PAP to be picked up.

There are some problems with the January inventory but we will also survive that problem. Team is wonderful to work with. We have 4 rookies and they fit in very well. There is lots of laughter and merriment outside as I write this note.

I hope to add some pictures tomorrow but for now, I will head for bed.

Haiti Photos

Hello from Peoria
Thanks to Heather Smith, we have photos posted on a community website
www/photobucket.com Username: MarchTeam 2010 Password: fotcoh

Enjoy!

Thursday March 25, 2010

Hello from Cyvadier
Supper is finished, bags are packed, inventory mostly complete, showered, sipping some nice red wine, and finishing up a wonderful team experience. We managed to see over 220 patients in out=r last half day. Lots of little ones. I am still enjoying making the older men and women giggle when I snatch their dossiers out of their hands as I prepare to fill the medication orders.
I ant to especially thank Carl Mikota for being a spectacular pharmacist and putting up with the old man these two weeks. We made quite a team and I would love to work with him again soon. I also want to that the rest of the team for all their help and support. And, yes, I will still be sending out some more of those emails that you grew to love.
This will be short tonight. The luggage truck is on it's way. We will get to fly from Jacmel to Port-au-Prince via Tortug (19 passengers) and MAF (5 passengers) planes. This tome I am on the small plane and that will be exciting.
We are all excited to be headed for home. We arrive in Miami sometime around 3 PM EDT and should be home by 10:30 PM CDT.
Thank you all for your prayers, comments, and support.
I hope to post pictures when I get home and have a better internet connection.

Wednesday March 24,2010

After another great meal from Ann, the team is relaxing. We saw over 430 patients today and have now seen over 2525 patients with one half day remaining. Pharmacy finished at 4:35 PM so we must be getting the hang of it. We expect around 170 tomorrow. Heather is our “bean counter.”
Today was Dr Nelson’s birthday but it slipped by without fanfare. We will celebrate it tomorrow at lunch. He did show off pictures of his new baby today. The boy is quite precious.
Several interesting cases were presented but I will not take away from the FOTCH blog. Kevin, our physical therapist, paid a visit to St Michelle hospital today. There is a group from Canada by the name of Healing Hands who are working there under tents and with pretty primitive conditions. They had paid us a visit last night and invited Kevin to come for a tour. At the same time, we transported a very sick young man to the hospital with possible meningitis.
We were given instructions for our return to Jacmel airport for the flight to Port-au-Prince on Friday. We will likely have to be at the airport around 7 AM. Our flight to Miami is somewhere around Noon on Friday but the Port-au-Prince airport is probably the slowest place to check into an airline that I have ever experienced. We will likely stand in line fo almost two hours in front of the American Airlines ticket counter. I am also told that we will have to remove our shoes three times and will not be able to carry any gels, toothpastes, shampoos, or lotions in our carry-on luggage. We will need to transport all of the bags and boxes back to Illinois and Washington for future team use.
In spite of the large numbers of patients, pharmacy has only run out of iodized salt and amoxicillin capsules. That, to me, is quite amazing. Dr Nelson found a great infant formula in Jacmel at $ 3.00 USD per can compared to the $ 25.00 USD per can for a similar item in the USA. Plus there were no shipping charges. The formula was made in France. I had a fear it might have been from China.
Computer work continues. I have cleaned up Dick’s computer, Boyer’s computer, Geral Jean’s computer and now Dr Nelson’s computer.
I need to close this, post it, and help with the FOTCOH blog. I may try another post tomorrow. Thanks for all the great comments.

Hello to Donna

I tried to call you tonight on Skype. Checked all settings and my equipment seemed to be working okay. I do not know why you could not hear me. I just wanted to say hello. No big deal. I will see you on Friday.