4 days until I leave for Haiti.
I will see this little one while I am there. He was in the earthquake in Port Au Prince. A bed caught on fire and burned his arm and leg pretty badly. His leg has not been healing very well. He had no treatment until my friend was there and that was 1 month after the earthquake. The burn goes into his little muscle.
We don't know what happened to his parents. He is with his elderly grandmother.
I will be going into this community. We are buying PVC pipe for irrigation, planting a garden and buying goats and chickens. This is a community in the middle of no where. No running water, no electricity, very little food and NO AID. There are many families in this community displaced by the earthquake. They have a goal of sustainability. I guess we have fallen into that goal with them. Send good vibes.
Plus I will be working in a hospital for a week that has not running water. More babies die there than it seems live. This is so beyond my comprehension. Haiti has the worst maternal and infant mortalilty in the Western Hemisphere yet they are so very close to the US. Amazing perspective.
There is a lot of crazy shit going on there. It's amazing how lucky we are and how easy it is to pretend that nothing is happening anywhere else in the world.
Last week I got a call from my friend in Haiti needed help for a mama that was pregnant and dying. She couldn't calll anywhere in Haiti so she called me in Oregon and asked me to help her. I proceeded to try to get a helicopter landed in the middle of the night in the small town that she was in. The town that I will be in. I called a hospital in Milot and got them to say they would take the woman. I then called the USNS comfort (the Navy ship of the coast of Haiti) but they could not come that night, they could come in the morning. I had to tell my friend to do her best to keep the mama and baby alive all night, which she did. The doc said the woman would only live 15 minutes. She lived all night as my friend begged the doc to do a cesarean. He went home to sleep said he was too tired. He returned in the morning, the woman still alive and did the surgery. Both mom and baby survived. The mama had a BP of 220/120 with pulmonary edema. It was basically like she was drowning all night. Ultimately a helicopter was not landed there and they were able to keep them alive. As the cesarean was happening in Haiti I was catching a baby in the US. I had my phone on speed dial ready to call the helicopter the entire time. It was alll a very strange reality.
This is what I am going into.
xo
I will see this little one while I am there. He was in the earthquake in Port Au Prince. A bed caught on fire and burned his arm and leg pretty badly. His leg has not been healing very well. He had no treatment until my friend was there and that was 1 month after the earthquake. The burn goes into his little muscle.
We don't know what happened to his parents. He is with his elderly grandmother.
I will be going into this community. We are buying PVC pipe for irrigation, planting a garden and buying goats and chickens. This is a community in the middle of no where. No running water, no electricity, very little food and NO AID. There are many families in this community displaced by the earthquake. They have a goal of sustainability. I guess we have fallen into that goal with them. Send good vibes.
Plus I will be working in a hospital for a week that has not running water. More babies die there than it seems live. This is so beyond my comprehension. Haiti has the worst maternal and infant mortalilty in the Western Hemisphere yet they are so very close to the US. Amazing perspective.
There is a lot of crazy shit going on there. It's amazing how lucky we are and how easy it is to pretend that nothing is happening anywhere else in the world.
Last week I got a call from my friend in Haiti needed help for a mama that was pregnant and dying. She couldn't calll anywhere in Haiti so she called me in Oregon and asked me to help her. I proceeded to try to get a helicopter landed in the middle of the night in the small town that she was in. The town that I will be in. I called a hospital in Milot and got them to say they would take the woman. I then called the USNS comfort (the Navy ship of the coast of Haiti) but they could not come that night, they could come in the morning. I had to tell my friend to do her best to keep the mama and baby alive all night, which she did. The doc said the woman would only live 15 minutes. She lived all night as my friend begged the doc to do a cesarean. He went home to sleep said he was too tired. He returned in the morning, the woman still alive and did the surgery. Both mom and baby survived. The mama had a BP of 220/120 with pulmonary edema. It was basically like she was drowning all night. Ultimately a helicopter was not landed there and they were able to keep them alive. As the cesarean was happening in Haiti I was catching a baby in the US. I had my phone on speed dial ready to call the helicopter the entire time. It was alll a very strange reality.
This is what I am going into.
xo
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
No doubt, your presence there will make a difference and save lives.
You are one amazing person.
Following the roadblocks that an Aid ship is having to
go through to get there.
1- a private pleasure boat with volunteer crew is held up
until they can get a licensed captain, a retired fellow from Maine
volunteeres.
2- Customs wants an invetory & declared value and TAXES on the donated goods.
The boats owner hasn't the money to pay this.
The Big looks good on the News stuff gets there, but the Dunquirk level
of action gets thwarted.
Be strong, because alot of what you will see and be unable to affect
will break your heart. All of my best to you and your crew.