Working in the CTC...

Greetings in Jesus' name to each one!

It's been a while since I contributed to the blog here, since leaving last October! Coming back for a bit has been such a good experience- seeing old friends, hearing familiar songs, living in the old quarters and being back in the Haitian culture... it's been very good!

Originally my cousin Ben and I were supposed to be here for a week, tagging along on a medical equipment delivery team headed up by Brian Eveleth from Wellman, IA. He was teaching afternoon classes at the clinic, so we were learning a few things about clinic work and just enjoying the short visit. But our nice, short, week-long visit suddenly became much more than just that...

One day at clinic we were beginning the afternoon classes, when a woman came through the clinic gate; her husband supporting her as she half walked, half staggered into the sitting area. She was severely dehydrated.

Anita got an IV going immediately and realized very quickly that we were dealing with cholera. A decision was made to utilize the depot building (affectionately referred to as the "CTC" during the cholera epidemics) again in order to contain the disease. The guys quickly cleared out the porch and we placed her there for treatment.

A couple days later Steve and I went to northern Haiti with Pastor Levi for a family visit, but while gone we got reports about few more cholera patients coming in. Unfortunately the mission was already under staffed, so starting another fully operational CTC would be difficult for everyone. So it was decided that Ben and I would stay longer and help out, if the need would arise. When we got back they had a tent set up in the depot courtyard and several people languishing on beds inside. The need had arisen: we were starting up a CTC again...

In the following week and a half, Ben helped out where needed in the day time, while I took the night shift. The clinic nurses worked hard, taking turns each day, rotating their time between the normal clinic and the CTC. It was definitely a stretching experience, but a very good and rewarding one. The time spent there was rewarding, not only because we were saving people's physical lives, but we were able to show them the light of Christ while they were there. I had to think about this as an opportunity to "wash people's feet"(as it were): changing bed pads, clothes and blankets when soiled, dumping buckets full of cholera waste, refilling people's ORS drinks and trying to make things as comfortable for them as possible while they were recovering. Several of us had opportunities to pray with the patients.

Now, today, the short epidemic is stayed and the CTC is empty; we haven't had anyone come in with cholera for several days, praise God! The government and various organizations have done a good job going into the infected area, treating water sources and educating people on the prevention of the disease. If they continue to have cases, they will put up their own CTC, thus freeing us up from ours here.

Many thanks to everyone who prayed for us during this time. As I said, it's been a good few weeks. The amazing thing to me was seeing everyone at the mission pitch in and give their all- above and beyond their normal service and pressing themselves to do more for the good of these dear people...

Continue to pray for the missionaries here, that they'd quickly recover from the exhaustion of running extra hours and dealing with the hardships of CTC maintenance during the last 2 weeks! God is good.

Thanks again for your support! Blessings to each one of you!

-Nathan Grice

As Steve and I traveled back from the north, we picked up CTC supplies at CAM.  

Thankfully they had many of the needed supplies on hand.

We loaded up Pastor Levi's truck and headed for the hills.

Beautiful morning sunrise...

Laundry drying on top of the depot.

We did wash each day, so this was a regular sight up there :)

The front of the CTC:

Waste buckets on the left, trash in the tall red bins, wash water in the large, black drum.

The tent is barely visible behind the building.

Some of our first patients, recovering on the now-enclosed porch.

This is the supply room-

All the IV fluids, ORS, bed pads, bleach, HTH and lots of gloves.

A nice place to take a snooze...

More patients inside the depot building.

We had about 3 people on average, per day.

We also had a few people come that didn't have cholera.

These people mostly had some sort of flu, so they were treated and sent home the same day, usually.

The other day we had one of the final people come in:

A little old man, practically deaf, 95 years old, complaining about stomach cramps.

We were able to treat him and send him home, though, because he ended up not having cholera.

We were thankful for that, and so was he :)

CTC Update

Well I am pleased to tell you all this beautiful morning that the CTC is empty, we haven't had anyone coming in now for the last 2 days for sure, there have been a few people that come in but they don't have cholera so we release them.
We are really praying hard that the scare has ended and we can relax and get back into a more normal routine now.
Just to let give an update on the publicity we got through this all, the doctor for the clinic went on TV last week and talked about the cholera clinic etc here, we heard it through the grape vine somehow, on Saturday the Red Cross shows up to check things out and dropped of some meds for cholera treatment, Marcel the Police Chief we heard was on the radio after that, and then on Monday a motto stops here at the gate and this well dressed lady jumps of, she was sent out by the Minister of Health, to see if everything was true that they heard and she talked to all the patients that were here at the time, before she left she said that she will get to work and open a treatment centre in the area where the cholera patients are coming from. I am not sure if they have already, we haven't heard yet.
Oops, I just heard Nathan telling Katie he will call her if he needs an IV put in, so that means a patient did arrive, but now Nate is telling me he believes its not cholera, just a flue bug.
Anyway continue to pray with us that this epidemic is over and won't start again.

Empty cots, clean room.

God Grant Us Wisdom

We have been blessed with a slower pace at the CTC, we only have one patient on IV and one on observation, we've only had one come in since yesterday morning.
We did get word that they have been out yesterday and today to treat the water sources, and we are still expecting more people but hoping none will come.

This 12 year old boy came to the clinic yesterday and after checking him out Katie noticed his head is full of abcesses, incredibly itchy and very painful. Dr. Benish was here and he said all his hair needs to be cut to drain all the puss.
You can only imagine how painful the cries and anguish was from him, at times begging to stop, thrashing around, and ending up on the floor a few times, lolipops didn't help to much in this case.
Standing there watching and walking through the clinic and observing different people faces, happy, sad, joyful, hurting, in pain, question filled eyes, and then walking back to the mission, and seeing a person carried in on a stretcher, another coming on a horse, I got this overwhelming feeling of thankfulness that I could be here, and see God's love being poured out in a literal way, seeing the deacon lead out in song as the people waited, someone else handing out tracks and booklets, and talking to people about the gospel, then I got this picture of Jesus and how His life was filled with healing people, and how they started believing in Him. Keep praying for the work here. Thank you all for you prayer and support

Miss Leda, is cutting all his hair of.

Here you can see some of the abcesses all over his head.



Katie putting in her first IV, this gentlemen came in with Shigellosis.
It's intestinal infection and also causes diareaha. He was brought to the CTC
gate on a stretcher so we thought it was cholera but it wasn't, so Anita is
is letting Kaiti put the IV in, worked first try. Then his family carried him
down to the clinic for an over night stay.
I found it interesting that they would walk from 5 hours away and bring 17
family members along.

Cholera Up date

   A short update on the cholera epidemic. We heard this morning the doctor was out in the area from where the cholera patients come from and he says that their water way and source of water has been contaminated, he is sending a group of people out to treat the water today, we ask for prayer that it would stop the epidemic from getting worse and spreading further into other areas. What could have happened is that someone buried a person who passed away from cholera and it made its way into the water source.
   It didn't sound hopeful that they would start up the cholera clinic out there anytime soon, it could take a few weeks for that to happen. So we cleared more area in the depot and Steve got a load of meds from CAM yesterday, so we are prepared to treat a huge amount if needed. We are hoping it will not get worse then it is.
   We released two patients and had around 4 or 5 come in. Couple of them are quite sick and a few of them are Fish Bowl Patients, (Patients not on bed or intravenous) just drinking oral re hydration stuff (OR) and being observed for a few hours and released. We are seeing more patients that come in with the slightest stomach ache or they felt something not quite right with them, yesterday, we call it fear, so we check them out and make sure they're fine and send them on down the trail again.
  

Picture of some patients in the tent.



Katie Lapp, she is the main day shift CTC nurse.

 

Ben Gavin. He is also on day shift does the heavy lifting, etc.

Cholera/Clinic Updates.

   A quick update on our neighbor, Moise went out to Ti-Goave to have his 3rd toe amputated on Sunday afternoon with Pastor Levy, this morning we heard that the hospital in town won't amputate it under $2500.00 Haitian Dollars, ($312 USD) They can't afford that, so we are looking for a hospital that will do it for less.

  
   I don't believer any of us were very surprised this morning when we got up and heard that we had another cholera patient on the way, our third one, we barely had her settled in when the fourth one came. And shortly after that two more showed up, thankfully the last two were not that bad and we could release them a few hours after watching them.
   So we are now down to 3, but that can change quite quickly. Anita and Katie have been the main nurses for the CTC, and it has been a blessing having Brian here also, he did the night shift so the girls could get some much needed rest, and this morning Brian went to the clinic and helped do consultations with Dilo, a young man that knows English well, he translated for Brian.
   As you can see below, Delwyn, Ben and myself spent most of the morning leveling the ground beside the depot and setting up the cholera tent for more room. Breakfast at 11:45 AM was much needed!!!
   We heard this morning that the chief medical doctor from Ti-Goave is supposed to go back to the area where these cholera patients are from and see how wide spread it is.

 

They come on all kinds of interesting looking stretchers.

 

 

This gentlemen came in on a chair stretcher.

 

Just finished setting up the tent.

    This little girl came to the clinic this morning with her daddy, she is 18 months old, we are not sure exactly what the problem is, either she has worms or an impacted Colan. They decided to send her out to town, Rhoda filled out transfer papers and got her ready to go.

This is the little girl with the constipated stomach.

"Cholera"

It has been a very interesting weekend and Monday morning to say the least.

Friday a 70 year old man came to the clinic, with congestive heart failure, Brian told me that the heart beat sounds like water just swishing around, someone else described it as an old washing machine swishing around, nevertheless, this gentleman has a really bad heart, and we can't do much for him at all, only possible help their is, would be outside the country, and that's a maybe, usually they don't operate on old folks like that. He was released to go home on Saturday. Pray for him, he doesn't know the Lord.

Then shortly afternoon as Brian was doing some more training a 27 year old lady was brought in who had cholera, the rush was on to quarantine her and get an IV started. She improved right away quite a bit, while they were working with her, some of us guys cleaned out the entrance to the depot and hung some tarps, all the while praying this was an isolated case. After we had everything set up Anita moved the lady over to the depot. Katie, our new nurse, is the CTC nurse, (for now at least).

This morning or maybe I should say around 3- 3:30AM, another cholera patient showed up, from the same area as the first lady.

We are asking that you all pray that this won't turn into another full fledged epidemic and that all of us will stay healthy.

Steve is trying to get an organization to go check the area out where they come from, it's dangerous to have them walk over here because it is so contagious.

 

 

 

Brian letting Nathan and Megan listen to the guys heart beat.



Started up IV and she came right back to. Anita spraying bleach spray.




All settled in, in the depot.

Neighbor!!!Opportunity!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sure most of you have heard of Mde. Moise. She is the witch doctor that lives right beside the mission. Her husband came to us last December sometimes, and Anita sent him out to get further treatment in Ti-Goave, at the time it was only his little toe that was infected.
   After that no one really knew how he was doing, but he came back last Friday and this is what we are working with now. Anita told me she is quite disappointed in the care he got out in town, and that most of what you see in the picture below was preventable.
When he came back he only had his little toe amputated, and the next two small ones are basically dead to, so Anita amputated the second toe. And has basically kept everything clean daily and is keeping it from spreading. We are now waiting for a ride to town, and will send him along to have the third toe amputated and then have him come right back and the nurses will just keep it clean and the infection from spreading further. We are really hoping that we can save the 4th and 5th toe so that eventually he will be able to walk again.
We are also praying and are asking you to join us, in constant and continual prayer for him and his wife. We are hoping that through all this they would sense that God is real and that with the medical care at his home on a daily bases God would open their hearts to the gospel. O that they would be saved, also for those of us that go their everyday, that we would be sensitive to the Spirit and boldly speak out, and lift Christ up as the healer of body, soul and mind.
I was there with Anita and Rhoda the first afternoon that they were treating it, and it struck me that this is the yard where it all happens, (the devil's barking) I praise God he can't bite God's followers. I stood there basically right next to the tree trunk, (see middle picture below) and praying for Moise, with a number of people around, a demon altar further up the walk and gifts hanging on a tree limb for the devil, (see last picture below). And this morning as I walked over there again I looked up into the tree, I seen more bags hanging in it.
I am thankful to serve a God that gives peace, and He's not a harsh master that demands us to sacrifice our earthly belongings to Him.

That needle looks scary! Anita is numbing everything before she
starts the cleaning process.

Notice the cut of tree trunk to the far right? It's used in their demon worship.

Anita has been keeping intravenous going on a regular bases this week.
Did anyone notice our friend Nathan Grice is back!!!!! (For a week)

Notice the red fabric tied around the tree and the white and blue bags
hanging on the tree? Those are gifts for the devil.