BUSY BUSY BUSY. Post By Rhoda, Pictures by Jon

     I had just arrived at the clinic for my after noon on call Wednesday, when a something knocked on the door. Or someone. I went to check which.
  Two very tired ladies looked up at me as I exited the building. One of them was pregnant, and so I told them she could come inside. After Anita and I had both checked her, and I had spent a couple more hours in the clinic, we decided I could go home for the night. It definitely looked like a long time until a baby would be born. In fact, so much so, that it was not the first thing on my mind when I woke up the next morning.
     Steve came to the door and said that a baby had been born during the very bad rain storm last night. The reason the lady had not come and told us about it, was that she afraid of the rain or the dark, or something.
    I grabbed my coffee, and headed for the clinic. After finding the baby alive, although enrobed in a very bloody sheet, I went to work.
    "What is the baby?" I asked, "A little boy or a little girl?"   "I didn't yet check," the Grandma said.
    Before long, Mis Megan showed up with a camera. I was very glad for her presence and assistance with clean-up. The Grandma watched and  helped where she could. She told me she prayed during the night and acted very thankful to God for the safe arrival of her newest grandbaby.
    Before long, after clinic had officially started, Anita realized that the baby seemed premature. The mother was mentally challenged, so it was difficult to get accurate information from her, as to when the expected arrival time of the baby should have occured, etc.
    A long time was spent warming the baby and getting him to drink. By two o'clock or later, Anita felt he was gettting warm enough that I could take over with his care. I am now spending a lot of time, trying to get that cute mite of a thing to eat. It is hard. Hard on the patience, hard on the back, hard on the mom, and hard on the Grandma. It means we need to go down to the clinic at night time hours. It means we need to sit there for up to an hour, coaxing milk and medicine into a little mouth. It means we sometimes need to warm him back up on the heating pad a couple times a day But if we all survive this hardness, that cute, four pound mite of a thing might turn into a healthy, handsome little fellow who can help his mom a whole lot.
     In the meantime, we are trying to train the mom and the Grandma how to care for the baby well enough that they can take him home and continue life-giving care in their own house.
    While this mom and her baby sit in one corner of the hospital, another mom sits in another corner with twins. She came in with a very high fever. And then, in another corner is the boy who we blogged about the other week, with the huge abscess on his head...he is waiting for daily bandaging. And do you see another lady? She is not there now, because her extrememly bad adema is not improving fast enough. Maybe she has a heart problem. We are not sure. We sent her out to another hospital. Hopefully, she can get help there. Her baby seems to be doing fine at one month old.
    So, yes, it feels like we have been seeing enough of excitement around here for awhile....please continue to pray for the patients, and for our patience, too.  God is good, and we want to remember that He never sends us more than we can bear. I'm not sure that He promised that He wouldn't send more people than our hospital can hold, though...

Rhoda patiently urging the one baby to drink.

Jon holding all 4, I think I understand what a tired mom feels like after the
last few nights.

Even Alex helped hold the babies at times.

Mis Anita and Katie starting the third IV on the
one lady.

Believe me, the hospital room was "FULL"

This is always a high light for us, holding those bundles of love.

All Four of the babies, twins are in the center.

 

The chart for the baby that Rhoda was babysitting and at times, "exhorting" to drink.!!!!!

The twins sleeping, and the "head guy", as we call him. He is forming more
puss again it seems like, pray that it won't get worse again.

Loaded up and ready to go to Ti-Goave with the one
lady and her baby.

The burning sunset over the Fort Garry mountain, as we came back home
from taking the lady to Ti-Goave Saturday evening.

Surgery Team

   A team of surgeons and nurses flew in from the US this past week, to do around 40 hernia surgeries, at the Lacolline, hospital about an hour south west of Ti- Goave, we had 5 patients from Allegre that need the surgery to, so Steve and I took them out there on Wednesday, only 2 showed up before we left and we picked another one up on the trail after we left the mission.

   We dropped the boy of with the broken arm, at the hospital in Ti-Goave, then headed to Lacolline. After we got there and dropped the patients of, we were invited to watch Dr, Philip remove a large infected growth from a 17 year old ear, that comes from ear piercings, they were a little more then half the size of a gold ball.

   After that we went into a nice air conditioned room where Dr. Wade was performing a hernia surgery, but as we were watching the electric catter machine blew a resister, and because of the infection that could come from an open wound they sewed the person shut, and Michael went searching for another machine, a couple hours away in Cayes, on the south shore. That machine is used to cut and at the same time in singes the blood vessels and there is next to no blood loss whatsoever.

   In the mean time we headed back to Ti-Goave and waited there for Michael to find a machine and if he didn't we wouldn't have gone towards Port, to look for one we could borrow from a hospital, but after not finding one in 3 hospitals in Cayes, he finally found one in the fourth that they borrowed to Michael after some much explaining. We are thankful though that the surgery's could go on.

The entrance to the hospital where the surgeries were being done.

Dr. Philip working on removing the infection. 

Nicely stitched up and ready to go home now.

Dr. Wade and his staff working on the hernia patient.

Michael taking the machine apart.

Notice the small round resister just a bit right of the center of the picture?
You can see a small black line, that resister blew, shutting the surgery down.

Broken Arm/s

   This young boy came in early in the morning, one of the first patients, he was heading to school and somehow slipped and fell, who knows where and how far and we'll never figure out either, but anyway the result of the fall was a clean cut about 5 inches behind his wrist. Anita decided to put on a splint for now and tomorrow Steve will be taking him out to town for x-ray and a full hard cast.

Can you see where the break in the arm is? It's pretty bent right there.

Anita, Delwyn and Megan, hold the splint and the arm,
waiting for it to harden, it's a temporary splint
to keep it in place,

Steve asked Alex to come with us to see the little boy, and maybe tell him
it's all going to be alright, they both look no to impressed.
Alex your my little buddy!!!!!!!!!!

There is a team of surgeons here from Florida with AFH, (Aid For Haiti) Michael picked them up on Sunday and they are going to be doing around 40 hernia surgeries at a hospital 1 hour or so west of Ti- Goave, so we are taking 5 patients out there from Aleggre that have hernia's as well.
After that we head back to Ti-Goave and Pastor Levy is supposed to bring back the young man back from the hospital in Karfu, where he had his scalp removed and all the infection cleaned, I believe he had two surgeries to get everything fixed up, now we're bringing him back and we are thinking we will have him here in the hospital room at the clinic for quite awhile to continue giving him care and make sure everything stays clean until he is well enough to go home.

Anthrax

Yes, I know that's a scary word. . .  But as near as I can tell, that is what one of our patients has at the clinic right now.

Here is one of two spots on his skin

He first came in on Fri, and we started him on treatment.  Today he still wasn't doing well so I hospitalized him so I could give him some meds IV and keep closer tabs on him.  By this evening he is feeling better.  I'm hoping to send him home tomorrow if he still seems stable.

Resting in the hospital rom

As I say, "You just never know what you'll see in a day here."

*******************************************************************

Then on to our neighbor Moise. . . my heart is continually grieved as day after day Mis Katie faithfully bandages his rotting foot.  The infection continues to spread, and if and when they take him to the doctor again, they may need to amputate even more than before because they delayed so long.  If they procrastinate too long, there will no longer be a need for amputation.  Left untreated it will take his life. This would be a very miserable way to die--simply rotting to death.  We have made the bare facts very plain to them, and yet they won't take action.  They are always waiting for something--some child that doesn't want them to do it, etc.  Always it is going to be soon.

We wonder how much of it is that they are waiting and hoping that the devils will intervene.  It seems there has been a fair amount of praying and ceremony-type stuff going on over there lately.  It is so devastating to think that they are trusting in a god who will only do them harm but lead them on to think he's helping them.

Just as Moise's foot will only get worse and worse unless treated so his soul is very dark and seems would only be getting darker as he continually refuses Christ's call.  Pastor Levy asked him recently about his standing with God, and he said that he's not ready to become a Christian yet.  I think it was more of a polite way of saying, "No."

It grieves to see so many people every day whose lives are dark and hopeless, but this is our neighbor!  We so wish we could do something for him, but we do what we can--pray, bandage his foot, shine some light in the darkness as we go to their compound.

*******************************************************************

And I couldn't help but add our last birth at the clinic. . .

And last weeks picture of the twins. . . 

Aren't they dear?

Various Updates and Interesting Cases

Gentle and sweet Godly Man, such a pleasure
to have him around at the clinic. He smile
radiates the love of God.

  “Let me see, is that everything?” Anita picks up her water bottle and prepares to leave the clinic. I glance at the people sitting in the hospital room. Let me see, Batel shouldn’t be too hard to get along with. He is basically at  the maintenance stage of things right now. Changing his bandages and making sure he is getting his medication seems manageable. Even carrying a bit of food down for him wouldn’t bother me. But then, I’m not sure about the other man in the bed by the door.

     They call him Denis. Nobody mentioned that his other name is Menace. But he is confusing for sure. I sort of picture that after a person has been sick for a long time, that they would have these thoughts of how nice it would be to have a prescription for some medicine that could help them get better. Apparently Denis hadn’t been picturing things like that before he came to the clinic on Monday. I walked into the hospital room as Anita was trying to give him some medication and pedialyte through a syringe. His lips were tightly pursed and his cheeks were a bit bulging. But not for long.  Even with friends massaging his throat or pinching his nose to help the swallowing process, he didn’t choose to swallow. You guessed it. He spewed a long stream of those contents straight into Miss Anita’s scrub top. And I doubt that was exactly the good-bye she had been dreaming of from her patients in the hospital room right then.

Rhoda trying to squeeze some meds through
his clenched teeth, he would hold it in his
mouth for minutes and then suddenly
spit it all out.

    So Denis laid there all afternoon with an IV dripping into his arm. At about eight o’clock  we decided that it was time to make another attempt at giving Denis medications. We do not have the capabilities of giving all medication intravenously here. And since we were treating Denis for Typhoid Fever and Malaria, that included a few oral medications. With a prayer, I drew up the evening doses into a large syringe. In my other hand, I had a nice pile of white gauze waiting in case Denis decided that the meds were not to his liking.

     While Jon stood at the head of the bed praying, I continued trying to squeeze meds between the tightly closed lips, as I said, “Swallow it, swallow it.”

     After a very long time, some meds were swallowed. I asked Denis, “Do you want some rice?” Since Denis is not likely to feel compelled to talk, I took his nodding of the head as a very exciting event. He actually communicated with me. A lot of the time he lays on the bed, staring unseeingly into the distance.

     I asked Jon to please go home for some rice for him. Because, well, if he could swallow rice, that would be great. I wasn’t sure that he had eaten anything all day. Meanwhile I tried to finish giving him the remaining liquid in the syringe.

     It was great when Jon came with the steaming plate of food for him. What wasn’t really great was when he immediately spit all the food on the shirt he was wearing or refused to open his mouth for it, after we had gone to all the work of getting some for him.

     We shook our heads, gave the plate of food to his friends and decided to call our night at the clinic finished. Was this man in his right mind? Had he gotten so sick at one point in his life that his brain was not able to connect things? Or, Was there a spiritual battle going on?

    We started the next day with some of the same questions stuffed in our minds. I asked Fre. Noaz to help me hold the man while we squirted the crushed pills slowly into his mouth again. Fatigued after minutes of coaxing and reasoning, we left the room, with wet gauze's in the trash can to finish the story of how it went this round.

    As I walked into the room later in the day, to give Batel a new bandage, I was shocked to see Denis sitting there with bread and coconut candy, munching away happily. “Is it good?” I asked. I didn’t ask a million other questions that my mind wanted to throw at him….

Here is our friend Denis sitting outside
getting some fresh air!!!!!!

    So the days are passing. Each one surprises us with him. Sometimes our curtain gets a shower of juice or medicine during an episode, or sometimes he will actually swallow a pill just fine. Last night he decided that an IV was not what he wanted at all. He wasn’t begging for his medicine to all be put in the IV. Not now. Now the IV was NOT all right. Doctor Michael decided that it wasn’t worth the fight. Now this morning he is just fine with an IV. We are thinking, that maybe tomorrow he will be able to go home.That is, if we don't think about the fact that tonight, again, he stiffly refused to swallow his meds. He sat up. He said, "I won't take medicine, I won't eat food. I want to go home, now." I did not say, " I would love to send you home, too, when you are naughty like this." But like the human that I am, I did entertain some unsaintly thoughts.

    His temperature is fine, he seems mostly stabilized, and we planned to discontinue the IV permanently, along with stressing the fact that he needs to drink by mouth now. Of course, he needs to eat, too. So, since he doesn't want to do that, when he was SO close to being good, I guess we will need to decide if he is allowed to go home or not. Possibly it would be just as good for his family to take up the battle, I don't know at all... I hope you are happy to meet Denis from a distance. I think it is cleaner that way. Grin.

I just got a picture of the pregnant lady with the pre-
eclampsia in the back of the ambulance when Steve
left to take her to Laogone. Notice the IV hanging
from the ceiling?

     Then we had another lady joining Denis and Batel in the clinic one night. I will give you a brief run-down on her. She is pregnant, and pre-eclamptic, with approximately two months left until her due date. She was having pain, and didn’t take her Methyldopa one day. She ended up in the hospital bed here overnight, with a very endangered baby included. The baby lived through the night, thanks to God. Doctor Michael helped me transcribe the transfer paper for the hospital in town, where she could be closely monitored in the dangerous situation she finds herself in. I don’t know what we would have done if he hadn’t jumped in and handled the stress with these cases that showed up in Anita’s absence.

     Another Grandma came one day and spent the night in our hospital room, on IV.  
     

   Another young lady is currently sleeping in our 
hospital room, too. She seems to be fighting shigellosis. So, yes, our cleaning ladies are busy washing sheets, we are busy watching IV’s and the people who they are connected to. We are so glad you are busy doing the praying, which we feel gets so interrupted so often in our little compound here. God bless you!

The "grandma" right after she came in on a stretcher.

    

Scalp Abscess, Post By Megan, Edited By Jon

   Sunday afternoons are supposed to be relaxing and stress free…? This was not to be the case, though, on this particular Sunday afternoon. We had just finished lunch and the dishes when there was a knock at the door. Our gate guard came to tell us that there was a boy at the clinic that was in trouble, describing that his head was swollen and soft like intestines. His family was so sure that he was going to die that they had already started mourning his death! So beneath clouded skies and a drizzle that had begun a few minutes before, Anita, Katy and I headed down to the clinic in our scrubs. When we got there, Anita donned gloves and came out to examine the teenage boy. At first glance his swollen head looked like something resulting from a bad allergic reaction but as soon as Anita examined it closely, she knew it was something far more serious! Sure enough, if prodded or pushed, his head literally went in an inch at certain places! Underneath the skin, there was one large pocket encircling his head that was filled with air and pus. With that, Anita called Michael over the radio and asked him to come down to take a look.

   

   A few minutes later Michael walked in and, after a quick look, he decided to try something. Michael took a 3cc syringe and he poked the pocket, and drew out a thick brown liquid. It was a horrible infection that hadn’t been taken care of and had grown to present a serious emergency case! Taking the boy into the hospital room, we laid him on the bed and Michael prepared to make an incision to drain the pus pocket. I could only imagine the horrible pressure and ache this guy had to be enduring at the moment, but strong as he was he just lay there with his eyes tightly closed.

   

   We got the supplies ready then Michael first numbed the area with lidocaine, then, making a skillful cut through his skin, Michael quickly applied pressure to stop the bleeding. After this was done, he placed an IV catheter into the cut and, applying pressure to the boy’s skull, began draining this horrible looking pus and infection into a dish made to catch this type of stuff. Immediately, the room was filled with a horrible smell, bad enough to turn the strongest person’s stomach. After draining it for about a half hour, there was still a large bubble that we had not drained so Michael came up with a brilliant idea to use suction. So, we set the suction up, stuck one end of the tubing into the young boy’s head where Michael had made the incision, and started up the suction. After draining it for about ½ hour Michael could drain little else out and the side of his head still looked like a balloon at certain places. Then we discovered that the abscess was filling up again! We had been going to keep him in the clinic overnight but this is when Michael decided to do some pretty quick action. Taking the 18 year-old boy with him, Michael headed out on grandpa Harold's Bobcat on the 1 ½ hour drive to the Ti-Goave Hospital where a surgery could be done.

   

   The only hope for him is for the doctors to scalp him, fix and clean it all up and put his scalp back on, which if it is successful will need a huge amount of care after words for months. This morning we heard that nothing has been done for him in Ti-Goave and the family wanted to bring him back up to die, this is where it hurts, help is possible but they don’t have money, we are stuck with that thought, but don’t have funds to help people like that and for the continued care afterwards.

   Steve took a pregnant lady with significant issues to Laogone for further treatment today and pick up Anita and Katie in Laogone as well. We found out that the American doctor in Karfu, where Steve had taken Alex would look at the case, and I just heard Steve just dropped the young man of there, we don’t know how it will all go, and what will become of it, we are asking for lots of prayer support for this case especially, I can only testify of the amazing, amazing miracles that we have experienced in a lot of areas the last week, AND WE KNOW FOR A FACT IT IS ALL THE PRAYERS, FROM THE ALLEGRE CHURCH HERE AND ALSO ALL OF YOU AT HOME. LET US CONTINUE IN PRAYER, THE LORD IS HEARING AND ANSWERING.  
                                                                                                                           Megan

    

   

Michael making incision.

Puss is just flowing out of the abscess.

Notice how much is in the collecting unit?

Suction hose attached to his head.

"My Life in Haiti"- by Megan Stoltzfus

 

    When I first came here to Haiti, I had no clue about what to expect! I knew nothing about life in a third world country, nothing about the work in a clinic, and nothing about the Haitian people and their culture. All I knew was that I was coming to lend whatever help I could in the clinic. The only training I had was EMT Basic and I only had the head knowledge. I had never been at an accident, had never watched someone receive an intravenous injection and I did not know how I would react to the sight of blood. I knew when I got my EMT license, however, that I wanted, someday in the far off future, to use my medical training in the mission field. Little did I know that I would get my chance so soon.

   On March 1, three months after my training, I was asked if I wanted to come down here to help short-term because it was a desperate time of little sleep and tons of stress for the two nurses here. I was shocked yet delighted that I was getting a chance like this! And sure enough, a week later, I was on my way in my first plane flight, first out of the country jaunt, and my first time of being away from home for more than 2 weeks. I was so excited! When I got here, it was 11:00 on a Friday night so I had the weekend to settle down and get to know the family I am staying with.

   Clinic started at 8:30 on Monday morning. My first responsibility was to take the vitals of the people that came in to the clinic. So, armed with a blood pressure cuff, a thermometer, and a pen, I started with the first person. As each person was “controlled” the nurses called them in and had a consultation with them to figure out what “maladi” they had. Then the nurses prescribed medications for them. These medications were written on the dossier that each person received as they came into the clinic; then the people were sent to the pharmacy window to hand in their dossiers and receive their medication.

    As I finished taking the vitals of the people lined up on the benches against two walls of the main room of the clinic, I went in and watched the pharmacists as they bagged and gave out the prescribed meds to each person lined up outside the pharmacy. Over the next couple of days and weeks as I watched these ladies faithfully do their job, I got the gist of what they were doing and how they did it. I learned to decipher the nurses’ handwriting's, how to count out 20 pills of hydrochlorothiazide and bag them, and what “swa” and one dot means on the pill bag. I love to see Zita, one of the pharmacists, laugh and twist up her face as we try out the new calcium chewables that are in stock. The more I work in the clinic, the more I love the comfortable corner of the pharmacy and the ladies that work there. So in between taking vitals and giving out medications, I am usually kept pretty busy.

   Since I am not a main nurse though, I won’t get to do a stitch job by myself or put an IV in someone. I still get to see all the emergency situations that come in, though, and the accidents that people have. The grossness of bad wounds is still gross but it doesn’t gross me out near as much anymore. Now I know that I can stand the sight of blood… I won’t go cold turkey on someone who needs a bandage job. My time here has made me realize that I do love medical things and maybe eventually will pursue the idea of more training.

    After nearly two months of being here, I am almost totally familiar with the normal run of things. This is feeling more and more like home. I love the people… the hug of faithful Maricome, our clinic cleaning lady, the warm handshake of Noez and his grin each morning, the friendly morning greeting of Fre. Dolph as we walk into the clinic each day and the smile of Miss Joselaine and Miss Leida when we tell them,“Mwen kontan we ou.” (I am happy to see you.) I love the mountains; the hot summer sun; the cool, crisp mornings with the sounds of roosters, donkeys, goats, and the occasional voice of a child breaking the stillness; the walk down to the clinic in the mornings with the sun shining full on your face; the cheerful greeting of the witch doctor as she walks past the compound; and the smiles and giggles of the little children that you meet on the trail every day.

   All in all, this experience has made me want to throw myself more into the medical world and use it for the glory of God. Being here in Haiti and working among and with these people have made me realize that life is so much more fulfilling and satisfying when you are pouring yourself out for others. Giving yourself for others lends hope and purpose to life. Being a servant, even only in very small ways, gives a peace and satisfaction that nothing else can give. Isn’t that what Christ did here on this earth? Why not live life like He did…and give your all?

 

Megan take vital signs.

Working in pharmacy counting and packaging pills with Madanm Lege and
Madanm. Jean Marc.

This Post Written By Megan Stoltzfus