Tuesday, Coming in from the Heat, a day of beach medicine

We held clinic at Gressier/Valou Beach today, and it was a nice change to have the backdrop of the  caribbean blue ocean, and a little breeze even, while we worked under the palm trees.
Unfortunately, our Paramedic Extraordinaire, Matt, was cut down by a bad case of heat illness vs. Traveler's Diarrhea (or some combo of both) early in the day. He went from triaging patients to being a patient, poor guy. While we worked and enjoyed the company and food the locals brought to our clinic, he was splattered on a concrete bench under a tree, probably wishing he was elsewhere...
To the unfamiliar observer it may have looked like he was relaxing at the beach. But he was miserable. We felt so bad for him. But he would not let us get a car to send him back to camp. We drugged him up, mixed him some oral rehydration solution, and checked on him periodically until clinic was over.

Then when we got back to Leogane camp we hooked him up with an IV bolus while we waited for the new docs to arrive and our ride to take us back to PauP. He's doing better tonight, and I'm so glad. He flies home in the morning. It's going to be a much needed rest after his last 10 days.

Coming back in to town this eve, I was reminded of just how much of a wreck Port au Prince really is. I can't even go into it right now, but I said before that I saw progress, and that is still true. It's just so very bad here.The sheer density of buildings and people are what boggle the mind and are why the loss of life was so great.  I can't even imagine having been here on Day One of the earthquake. How to even decide which of all the collapsed buildings everywhere you look to go into first to try to rescue people?
You would have to have been pulled in every direction at once -- and whatever you chose, you would know that someone else who needed just as much help wasn't going to get it.

Tomorrow, clinic at the Port au Prince city site, which is now in a dark, humid church building somehwhere in BelAire. It will be a contrast in many ways to the sunny outdoor clinics in the more rural place we just left behind. Then Thursday, Tricia, Viv and Cyndy head home to CA.
I'm going to miss everyone, and especially my little country team of Tricia and Matt. Nothing makes a fast family like an experience such as this.

I love you guys!

I am really too tired to write more tonight, or to post pictures. So, time to catch up on some sleep (in a bed, indoors, with fans) and recharge the brain and heart for tomorrow.

Jen