Haiti Jan 26 a

Today was a long, hot and humid one in Leogane. So busy I did not have time to take but one photo. There was a meeting of sorts with the UN reps and many reps from NGOs who've set up here--- try to assess, share, communicate and collaborate efforts. We sent Tony, our logistics guy. Then later today, about a half mile from our clinic site the Marines set up a heli landing and opened a warehouse/depot of sorts where orgz can come and donate, exchange, procure vmeds, MREs, and equipment that they may need. They are acting as a liason between groups to identify where needs are and where excesses are so things can be better distributed. We hope to acquire some albuterol inhalers, saline and a few other things there tomorrow.
I saw a Spanish red cross truck filling to water storage tanks right ndxtdoor to us today. This is good-- for the 100's of people living there in the former stadium.
January 26 at 5:17pm via Facebook for iPhone

Haiti Post Jan 26 2010

Bedtime now. Hope for NO natural alarm clock tomorrow! We are treating lots of wounds as they heal( or not) , the secondary infections, the diarrhea, vomiting,asthma ( dust EVERYWHERE), fever and lots of babies today. Most not gravely ill now but always a few who need real help for sure. Part of our team went to 2 smaller remote villages this afternoon and found people with injuries from the earthquake who still had had no access to medical care even 13 days out now. Several finger and toe amputations had to be done, but went well. These people are so tough! You can imagine they must have been in a lot of pain for days and days. Without even Tylenol or ibu. We have that ( most of the time) plus some other stronger meds and good old lidocaine!

---just felt another tiny tremor---so strange .

We need scalpels, inhalers, splint materials, minor surgical instruments, and maybe some ronguers would be helpful.

Pediatric things very useful, too!

The city is a mess, but bustling again for sure. We still see people hunched inside collapsed bldgs sorting through rubble. Sad, and dangerous. You can tell which flattened bldgs still have bodies in them by the smell. But this means that there are also many areas that no longer smell like death.

The tent cities remind me of pics I've seen of India. Tarps, boards, anything utilized. Trash everywhere, although you do see trash cleanup ongoing. Only this is not how they have always lived. It's new, it's sudden, and it's likely going to be prolonged.

Compare to ground zero in NY: this is same devastation spread over many kilometers. People' s homes gone along with their families, business places and landmarks.

But, on a bright note, it feels good to be here doing whatever we can. The people are lovely.
If they can persevere, of course we will, too. We get to go home after.
January 26 at 7:28pm via Facebook for iPhone

Haiti Post Jan 27-- 2010

Spent a while this am doing a little networking around leogane, trying to find some meds and deliver others . Met Canadians, the marines, and the wonderful team over at FLIS, also known as world wide village. They have a very impressive operation going there at one hell of a major tent city. Some pics to follow.
Good and nonstop day at clinic site-- hot, hot, hot and humid! But we all smell pretty badly so no one cares. Today, the UN or someone was distributing boxes of food and water to the people, so there were armed guards(army or marines I think) blocking off the streets to control flow in and out. Razor wire barricades. Line of people waiting for these handouts was so long, but it all went off fairly uneventfully from what we saw. Sometimes guards had to escort people out with their boxes to prevent them from being mugged for them, but it worked.
Saw for the third day in a row a girl with awful infected foot wound, who had been sent twice to hospital stations around town but never seemed to get treated. Dont know if she was being turned away or just not going or just didnt really understand the gravity of wound/-- or just didnt understand her instructions. Logistics and communication is a challenge here for sure. Finally, a nurse from the WWV camp came by at the fortuitous moment that she was back again ( and getting worse) and I showed her to him. He actually took her himself back to their hospital right then and there to get the care she's needed. Hope they can save her foot. But after meeting those guys this morning and seeing their setup and dedication, I this time have full faith that she will be taken care of.
This eve Dr Morsch (HTH founder and operations commander here in Haiti ) brought film crew around and they interviewed some of us. They now call me ' Indiana jen'-- mostly cause I looked pretty rough at the end of the day and was wearing a funky hat. I'll take it, though! They are gathering some pretty powerful stories from the locals as well as the volunteers. Can't wait to see the end product.
We've been staying at a Mennonite compound that is actually girl's shelter primarily. They continue to blow us away with their hospitality, and one of the American girls, Abigail, is fast becoming the best wound nurse in town! She is only 18 but so sharp and on the ball. This young lady will undoubtedly be headed to nursing school someday. And will already have such fantastic experience.
Looks like this team will be heading back to our main camp base back in Port au Prince sometime tomorrow afternoon. Time to regroup, restock/ raid base supply hold, and send off the next team to Leogane on Friday.
We'll do work in P au P Friday and maybe wash some clothes!
I leave Saturday, and I wish I could stay on longer. But going hone will give me a chance to pack a few things differently next time, ho read up on sone tropical medicine and some wound care, and be even more useful next trip. I do feel I've been well-utilized here, and that is good. I go to bed tired and wired (which is why writing this is good for me) and wake up refreshed and ready. It's a nice way to live, actually.

Jen

January 27 at 7:44pm via Facebook for iPhone

Haiti Post Jan 28 2010

Tonight, my away team returned to P au P from Leogane. Clinic this morning off to a rough start with complete lack of translators for first hour or so, combined with trouble coordinating logistics in our little tent sauna.
We saw some pretty sick little kids, but not too many, thankfully.
Stopped in Carrefour on way back for some surveillance of reported needs. Huge tent city at a place called Grace Valley church/ hospital. Thousands of people living there.
MSF had already established there it seemed.
After a very dusty, noisy, bumpy and traffic-jammed ride into base camp, we met the latest volunteer arrivals and had our first hot shower in days. Of course I can't help but think how although for us having only cold showers at the leogane camp had been "roughing it" for us, the thousands of people we just left and passed on the road had no showers, were living in improvised walls of corrugated tin sheds, dirty blankets and cardboard, and certainly no privacy were the ones really roughing it. We all have absolutely no idea what real hard times ate like. Really.
After dinner and our meeting to catch up the teams on each other's activities, I listened to one of the nurse's stories about her week here in p au p. Some very sad cases. Babies near death because mother's milk dried up after stress of earthquake and resultant displacement and lack of basic nutrition or shelter. Young girl with obvious displaced and externally rotated femur fracture who'd been without any care for 2 weeks now.
Unbeleivable things.
Apparently, she was like a new person when she received just a little morphine and Tylenol for her pain and could finally rest for a moment in relative comfort.

The people here are so resilient. Just amazing.
January 28 at 9:03pm via Facebook for iPhone

Haiti Post Jan 27 2010

pent a while this am doing a little networking around leogane, trying to find some meds and deliver others . Met Canadians, the marines, and the wonderful team over at FLIS, also known as world wide village. They have a very impressive operation going there at one hell of a major tent city. Some pics to follow.
Good and nonstop day at clinic site-- hot, hot, hot and humid! But we all smell pretty badly so no one cares. Today, the UN or someone was distributing boxes of food and water to the people, so there were armed guards(army or marines I think) blocking off the streets to control flow in and out. Razor wire barricades. Line of people waiting for these handouts was so long, but it all went off fairly uneventfully from what we saw. Sometimes guards had to escort people out with their boxes to prevent them from being mugged for them, but it worked.
Saw for the third day in a row a girl with awful infected foot wound, who had been sent twice to hospital stations around town but never seemed to get treated. Dont know if she was being turned away or just not going or just didnt really understand the gravity of wound/-- or just didnt understand her instructions. Logistics and communication is a challenge here for sure. Finally, a nurse from the WWV camp came by at the fortuitous moment that she was back again ( and getting worse) and I showed her to him. He actually took her himself back to their hospital right then and there to get the care she's needed. Hope they can save her foot. But after meeting those guys this morning and seeing their setup and dedication, I this time have full faith that she will be taken care of.
This eve Dr Morsch (HTH founder and operations commander here in Haiti ) brought film crew around and they interviewed some of us. They now call me ' Indiana jen'-- mostly cause I looked pretty rough at the end of the day and was wearing a funky hat. I'll take it, though! They are gathering some pretty powerful stories from the locals as well as the volunteers. Can't wait to see the end product.
We've been staying at a Mennonite compound that is actually girl's shelter primarily. They continue to blow us away with their hospitality, and one of the American girls, Abigail, is fast becoming the best wound nurse in town! She is only 18 but so sharp and on the ball. This young lady will undoubtedly be headed to nursing school someday. And will already have such fantastic experience.
Looks like this team will be heading back to our main camp base back in Port au Prince sometime tomorrow afternoon. Time to regroup, restock/ raid base supply hold, and send off the next team to Leogane on Friday.
We'll do work in P au P Friday and maybe wash some clothes!
I leave Saturday, and I wish I could stay on longer. But going hone will give me a chance to pack a few things differently next time, ho read up on sone tropical medicine and some wound care, and be even more useful next trip. I do feel I've been well-utilized here, and that is good. I go to bed tired and wired (which is why writing this is good for me) and wake up refreshed and ready. It's a nice way to live, actually.

Jen

January 27 at 7:44pm via Facebook for iPhone

Power to the Pedals!

Returning from a recent trip to Portland, OR, I reflect on the differences in lifestyle there vs here. Apart from the enormous prevalence of coffee shops, I note that portlanders seem to embrace the concept of self-propelled transportation (indirectly fueled by the caffeine, I'm sure)-- specifically bicycling. I find this so inspiring and impressive not just because it is so obviously the way to go, but because the portland mantra: "It rains a lot here" at first encounter might make one think that doing the bike-to-work thing might be unusually UN-appealing. Not so! More people ride here than in Sunshiney Colorado where I live, and they do it rain (the rule) or shine (the exception). Testaments to the veracity of this truth are found everywhere: waterproof messenger bags, rain ponchos available in grocery checkout lines, BIKE LANES everywhere, bike chain-ups everywhere, and sadly, the occasional Ghost Bike conspicuously placed on tragic street corners and intersections about town, reminding us that cyclists [were] people, too.

Since I've been home again, I've tried to be more diligent about using my bike to commute around town, for whatever reason I go out. Coffee shop, grocery store, gym, dinner out. Of course...it's great! I am noticeably happier when I ride my bike. Seriously! Why? Who cares! But I am.
Another unexpected bonus despite the hot weather is not climbing into a mobile steaming oven after an errand. Just hop on the bike and start pedaling, and whoa-no stifling heat, no scorching steering wheel or seat, no need to ventilate the car for 5 minutes before driving off. Fabulous!

I wish I could ride to both my places of work instead of only one, but one is a good 64 miles away by highway--a highway I am frightened to drive on, let alone ride. But it's ok.
I feel good for doing a small part to protect the globe from warming, pollution and parking lots; to de-plaquify my arteries and to keep my mind clear and body less fat; and to set an example for my patients and fellow grand junct-ians, all of whom I will tell should be doing the same.


Time to hop on and head home. ciao!

I'd Like To Be...Under The Sea

Researching options for dive medicine training. So many great opportunities!
I recently got my PADI Open Water Certifcation; one of those things I have been
thinking of doing since college, but just never got around to. Wow! I am so glad I finally did it!
It's an amazing experience that gets better every time you do it.

Of course, I had a little hesitation early on with relaxing into the acceptance that
you are relying on mechanical equipment to basically SUPPORT YOUR LIFE under water. That
one can do such a thing at all is kind of counter to what your brain tells you (rightly so).
But after the first few dives, I got used to the idea, stopped feeling out of place and just started looking around and enjoying it. I think the part during training where you have to remove your regulator second stage from your mouth for a few seconds underwater, and then put it back after clearing it--and it works!-- is what finally convinced the unscientific side of my brain that it can be done (by me).

There is nothing like settling down just above the ocean floor and little by little, seeing all the activity is going on around you down there. I was in Belize off the Turneffe Atoll, where there are lively reefs and lots of stingrays and sea turtles bopping around in the water.
Not a bad beginning!

So, plans are in the making now to learn more about diving medicine and physiology. That's also part of how I get more comfortable at something completely foreign (in addition to just doing it)-learn how it works. Decompression stops, dive limits, on and off-gassing (in a socially acceptable way), etc. It's quite a lot you are doing to your body when you dive. I'll feel better when I know what I'm getting myself into, physiologicaly speaking. And it will make me a better doctor, hopefully.