Lollipops and Life

     It is Saturday. It has been a lovely week, with a lot of sunshine. But there have been tears, too. Little Samuel's mother returned from town and stopped in to say hi to us. We won't need to worry about his club feet any more. He is safe in Jesus' arms. And, Jid, the baby who seemed to have a cranial injury is in some happy spot near him up in Heaven. His grandmother sat down with us and told the story in her simple way, while she munched on cupcakes. She just got back from town, too. She was crying. Although, we wondered if she even cared about Jid, it seems like since he is gone, she realizes that she did. She says she will come to church now.

     Our blood pressure patients are still trying to learn how to eat right and take their meds consistently. One of our patients laid down on the floor to see if she could get her blood pressure to come down before I saw her card and dosed her up with more meds. It made for some laughter in the waiting room, and she loved the attention she got!

     Watch out for mules.They can be mean. This man, they say, got bitten by one. We gave him a tetanus shot, and dosed him up with some pretty strong antibiotics. After keeping him for two days, we left him go home, but he will be returning for a check-up early next week.

     Dear old Azhenol. Now he has a big eye infection. (But there is not a lot that lollipops can't make feel a little better). Katie was able to open an abscess below his eye and release a lot of pressure and drainage on Thursday, so we hope he is on the right track to recovery now.
   
   
   
   
   
   

Ti Moun Yo

...that's Little People!   I love having them around!
Yesterday we had a young mother come to the clinic in labor with her first child.   She said she was from Port-au-Prince and came to have her baby here!  Well, we were surprised she came all the way here for that, but very happy to have her.  She did well for her first time, and had a 7lb 5oz, chubby faced little girl!

 Great job, Rho!  And Mis Katie, why aren't you in this picture?  She was there too, but behind the camara trying to show a dear old lady how to take a picture for all of us, but we only got this one...    We were happy to have Mrs. Hostetler here to help with this delivery!  She got quite an arm work-out, faithfully massaging the mother's back to help ease the back labor pain she was having, which she really appreciated.  The lady on the right had said she was the girls' mother, but later said she was her Aunt.  Either way, she did a good job helping hold the mother's hand all through labor and was very excited about the baby! :)

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

 This beautiful baby girl, named Annadine, is a 3lb. 12oz preemie that's been coming for check-ups here.  It's amazing to see how tiny, yet so perfectly formed she is!   It's hard to see how small she really is in her big onesy, but we didn't have any clothes small enough to fit her.  :)

Double the joy!  The twins, Stina and Shadina, looking just like porcelain dolls.  We usually get to see them at least once a week at church, and they get bigger all the time!   And then...

 

 

this little guy!  What would we do without cheery little faces like this around?  This is another picture taken today of the little boy we had sent out with Samuel awhile back.  He was sure hamming it up, smiling and cooing at me! Just happy to be alive...
Hope this brightens your day too.  :)

My First Haitian Rainbow

     "Katie or Rhoda do you have a copy?" It was the radio, blaring into our Thursday morning appointments and check-ups.
     "I have a copy," Katie called.
     It was Nate. "We have a baby who came for the milk program that we would like you to check out," he said.
    That little baby boy. He came after a few minutes to our examination room. He was moaning and groaning, while we tried to figure out what was wrong. The grandma incoherently answered a few questions and then went on a rambling row of what-nots. We could not sensibly learn much from her, except that the baby  became ill last night.
   Because he seemed to have pain in his head, it was important that we made a right diagnoses, and treated him correctly, in spite of our lack of equipment. We toyed around with possibilities: a fracture, meningitis, cerebral malaria, and such. The grandma told us he did NOT fall, so we began to suspicion it was the cerebral malaria. And then she added the fact that he had a fever in the night.

     We made the decision to transport him to Laogane, about three hours away. The little boy made the trip fine, under Nathan's watchful eye, and was admitted to the hospital facility.
    At this point the big lie was revealed. The grandma admitted that he HAD fallen. That did change the perspective quite a bit! We were still glad that we had sent him out to a place where there was the option of using x-ray equipment, and such. The grandma kept wondering if she could leave the child. It was suspicious looking. And it hurts. How could you have so little interest, so little love, so little guilt when a child in your own family is in pain?

    Then there was the rainbow. One beautiful thing to remind us that God is still there, still keeping His promises. Still loving us and all human kind in spite of their total depravity. I needed this reminder...on this day.

    Today our "mouth man" came back. He wasn't even helped. Here he is again. It is up to the Americans now, to give him money for his operation. He was given a paper with a hospital name written on it, but that is all the nurses did for him in Ti Goave. It appears that his wife has never been away from the mountains, as she is very uncertain about how to proceed with the next step in pursuing help for him. She more or less wrings her hands and paces around, not knowing how to help or what to do. We hope that there is the possibility that we can step them through the doors of a few dentist offices in the future, with the help of some funds, and some patience.
   
   
   
 

A Nosy Bean

That's what this chubby little guy had!   His distraught mother came rushing into clinic with him first thing yesterday morning, quite upset because her poor child had a bean stuck in his nose!  It took a few people to hold him down as Rho carefully went after the misplaced bean with her tweezers.  And it wasn't just a little one.  I'm still not sure how he managed to stuff such a big bean up so far into his little nose!   As you can see from his expression, he was not a bit impressed with the whole procedure! 
Candy to console...

He couldn't even stand the sight of the bean- or maybe it was the tweezers, afterwards!

 

Moral of the story:  Children, don't put beans in your nose.  :) 

 

Happiness

 It was a happy Monday. My first patient was little Retia, who was here for her last appointment in the Malnutrition program. Her edematous extremities are now replaced by healthy tissue and fat. When I gave her the last Plumpy'Nut her face broke into a beautiful smile.

 And then this dear 81 year old granny came hobbling in the door. Her face was wreathed in smiles as she told me how much she loves Jesus. Then she started a long story telling me how she fell when she was young and hit her head. Since then she blames all her maladies on that fall...Acid problems, pain, ect, ALL come from that tumble onto the rocks. =) She laughed and asked for a lollie pop before going out the door.

 Right before Clinic closed this sweet little fellow was born. It was so fun to have Ellamae there for the first time!

                                                     Ellamae

                                               

                                               Happy Nurses
                                        - Mis Katie

A beautiful little Miracle...

  I bent over a massive bundle of blankets to see little Andeline's itsy bitsy face. She was perfect. Mama's first baby. Her parents proudly told me how she was born at their house, 2 months early. I unwrapped her and just stared at her tiny preemie form. Everything was perfect. Her heart was strong, her lungs were clear, and she nursed beautifully. Thank you God! What a beautiful little miracle.

 Madam Leger peered over my shoulder and gasped...then smiled. " This is God's gift to you because little Samuel died." I smiled at little Andeline. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Thank you God.

                                                   

                                                            Happy Parents

 This poor women came in with a terribly rotten foot. She sat in her house for months before she came in on a stretcher this week in terrible pain. She moaned and groaned as Ro cleaned away dead tissue. One of her toes was dead-black. We sent her to town for an amputation. She had such a cheerful attitude, smiling and laughing through all the pain.

                                                         -Mis Katie

Bitter and Sweet Changes

A lot can change in a few weeks' time!    Some things for better, some for worse.  We see a lot of both here at the clinic.   It's always a special encouragment to get to see good changes-   like babies gaining weight, wounds healing up, and pain going away...
And then- there's the disappointing changes.  Like a tiny baby that you helped, hoping and praying that he'd live, and he didn't. 
A couple weeks ago we sent out two very sick little boys to the hospital in Laogonne.   We hoped they would make the trip there.  Today one of them came back.
"Whit! You have to come see this baby! The one we sent out with Samuel..."    Kate was very happy to show me the now healthy, happy baby boy.    We were all amazed seeing how much better he was! 
A couple weeks ago...   Notice the flaky skin on his hands, and the sores all around his mouth.

 

Today, looking much more like a baby should!

But what about the other baby?  Our cute little club-footed Samuel...we learned today that he died last Saturday.  It brought a bittersweet mix of emotions to see the one baby thriving, and hearing that Samuel didn't make it.  But we know that we did the best we could and God had other plans for him.  It's a comfort to know that he's safe in the arms of Jesus! 

On another note, last Thursday I had a very shocking and exciting suprise show up here.  My brother Aaron! :)

He came down for a week and worked as a handy man- helping with a painting job, fixing some wires, and getting in on some various clinic work. 
On Wednesday it was pouring rain and we had quite a few patients come anyway and not as many staff, so he helped fill in by weighing patients, taking blood pressures, and then mopping up all the muddy floors after the day was done. 

We really enjoyed having him here! ;)