Love the One You're With

I sit here at what I lovingly call the "Holgate Bed and Breakfast" aka my grandparents home in Cedaredge, Colorado. Don't worry, nobody else knows where that is either. Hence the magic. They live in the middle of nowhere. I often tell people they live outside of Grand Junction, when in fact their home is about an hour and half outside of Grand Junction. My grandfather is, for lack of a better, more loving term, a hermit. Which is one thing I so lovingly and willingly inherited from him. I'm a homebody. There is probably nothing I love more than curling up at home with a blanket and a good book, a movie, an athletic competition, or a great friend and some conversation.

So I find myself here, in the middle of nowhere, sitting on the porch, wrapped in my colts blanket, contemplating what it is I love about this place so much. It does not possess the majesty of the snow covered mountains I see outside my window every morning and, although am hard pressed to admit, absolutely love coming home to after a long trip. It does not contain the immense and beautiful architectural genius of the skyscrapers contained within those large cities I love so much to visit and imagine myself living in one day. Nowhere in sight is the breathtakingly gorgeous clear blue waters I have beheld on the beach in Haiti. So what is it? It's the stars you can see because we are miles and miles away from anything resembling a city. It is the sounds of my nephew laughing in the next room and who, despite my best efforts, continues to call me Carlee. It is the complete quietness I hear as I sit on this porch. It is the long hug I receive from my grandmother and my very reserved but loving grandfather. It's the fact that I have terrible cell service here. It is the solitude. However, despite this word, solitude, and the fact that I associate this place with it, I find the reason I love this place so very much is because of those I am here with.

Don't Cry For Me Haiti

It hasn't even been a week and already my heart aches toreturn to Haiti. I'm certain this is in large part due to several things, one being that I was quickly thrown back into my life and "reality" as we call it so often, and secondly because I think I've fallen in love with the people of Haiti. It caught me by great surprise, this longing that I'm feeling. I did not feel it with such force when I returned last year, but this year, it hit me with a ton of bricks. Maybe it's the feeling I get as I lose myself in serving them, maybe it's their spirit and their faith, maybe it was the sun! All I know is I can't wait to go back. So while it's fresh in my mind, here are a few of my favorite pictures and a list of those things I learned while I was in Haiti!.

THINGS I LEARNED IN HAITI

*Pamprin is just Naproxen

*You can get constipation as well as diarrhea while in a third world country

*Toothpaste has an expiration date

*People are strong: The body may break easy, the Spirit endures

*Roosters are a worthless animal

*Tricks to bartering effectively

*Fanny packs are in fact cool; in that "I'm camping, saving the world" sort of way

*Miracles Happen

*You can be pregnant for 2 years

*Work hard, play hard

*When you give, you do in fact, receive

Au Revoir.

It is my last night in Haiti. Part of me wishes I'd left this morning with a few of the other members of our group as I am a little homesick. But part of me is a bit sad that I won't wake up tomorrow (at 4 am no doubt thanks to the resident rooster) and throw on my green scrubs, put on a headband and pull my hair back, grab my pack and head out to another outreach clinic. This place touches you. It has a way of drawing you in. You fall in love with the people, the culture, it becomes a part of you. It's all so bittersweet. It's so difficult, yet so rewarding, as I imagine most difficult things are. I sit think about those things I have to do right away when I get back to snow-covered Utah. And how I'll be thrown right back into my normal life. Katie says that a lot times people have a difficult time talking about their experiences when they get home. I remember that from last year. It's hard because you recall those things in your mind but it's so very difficult to put them into words. I love coming and doing this. It's takes me a day or two to let my guard down and jump in head first, but I eventually do it, and then I don't want to stop. Once again it's been a fantastic experience. And once again I don't regret an ounce of the time I spent here.

Montrouis

I'm playing a little catch-up here. Friday afternoon we headed up to Montrouis, pronounced "Mon-We." There is an orphange there of approximately 25 children that we went and did "well checks" on and of course treated for anything we may have found, usually colds or stomach aches. These children live in a two bedroom house and paint. Their paintings are quite good, this coming from someone who can not even draw a stick figure. We also checked out the adults who worked at the orphanage and cared for the children. One man had TB. Horrible sounding lungs, coughing all over everyone. We referred him to Hospital Albert Sweitzer. We saw a few little babies that were sick with colds, some runny noses, and quite a few impacted ears. Nothing too extreme. We worked hard. Some of the community kiddos snuck in and in all we treated about 50 people on Friday. Friday afternoon we played. And we played hard. We spent the night at Indigo Beach Resort which is a club med of sorts. It's quite luxurious around here, most of us Americans would consider it probably a glorified Super 8. But it was nice. They have a pool, the ocean is beautiful and we had a great suppers with some local music and dancing. Soaked up a lot of sun! Thank you to my great-granfather for the Greek blood coarsing through my blood that makes it so I tan beautifully and do not burn. Fantastic. We did a lot of swimming, especially with our interpreters. Matt, Lesly, Big Mack, and Steevenson had never swam before. It isn't part of their culture. In fact many Haitians are scared of water. It took some coaxing to get them in the water, especially Big Mack. It was so funny. This boy is probably about 6'8" and standing in 5 feet of water he was clutching to us with dear life. Poor child. They acclamated well though and had a fantastic time. We sat and played on the beach and watched the sunset. It was gorgeous (pictures to come). It felt like two entirely different days, in two entirely different places. Saturday we returned to the orphanage but this time opened our "doors" to the community, we held a pediatric clinic. We had gotten them to spread the word that we'd only be treating children. So once again, lots of runny noses, dirty ears, UTI's and vaginal infections. We did see a little boy that had an abscess on his head. It was painful to touch. All we had was topical lidocaine and a scapal. Kirk (our MD) lanced it and drained it. This kid did not budge or shed one tear the entire time, although we could all tell that he was in pain. It was amazing. I played in the pharmacy this time. I actually really enjoyed it. Dosing and disensing meds. Looking up dosaging for amoxicillin based on weight and mixing. A little different for me and I loved it. It was a fantastic weekend. Probably my favorite part of the whole trip.

Captopril Anyone? Maybe a little Metoprolol?

Today I went to one last outreach clinic. It went really well. We were set up in a little school house with three rooms. I triaged in room one, the two doctors saw patients in the second room and then they would proceed to the third room, the pharmacy, to pick up any medications the doctor had prescribed for them. It went really well, we saw over 70 patients, which was because we had to close up shop early, we could have seen many more. Here are a few things you see in Haiti.....

• Arthritis
• Heartburn and Indigestion
• Colds
• Urinary Tract Infections
• Worms
• HYPERTENSION!

Haitians have the highest blood pressures I've ever seen. Today the highest I saw was 202/116. These people are walking around ready to stroke out right before my eyes. Because of their high blood pressures we subsequently get a great deal of complaints of difficulty with seeing and headaches. This year we did not have a great deal of prescription meds, we had a few, but very little.

As we were packing up, we had a little jam session with our interpreters Matt and Stevvenson. Someone had a Justin Bieber notebook and Matt had "Baby" on his phone. We were all singing and dancing. It was a great stress release :D Justin can make anyone move those hips.

To top off the day, a nice relaxing late afternoon soaking up some wonderful sun by the pool. My tan is getting pretty bombin'!

Just Keep Swimming....

So I missed yesterday, sorry. The power has been going on/off for the last couple of days. Hopefully it lasts long enough for me to get this up :D Things are going well. Today I spent the day at an orphanage teaching the nurses and caregivers some basic first aid skills, wound care, and care for burns. It was interesting to find out what types of things they'd been taught to do to stop bleeding or how to tell if a wound is infected. Most of them knew some of the basic principles. It was great to see how much they cared for the children and wanted to provide them with good care. This orphanage was amazing. It was beautiful. Most of the orphanages that we go to are run down, they're dirty, the children have wounds and sores, and their caregivers don't know how to care for them very well. This place was clean. They had wonderful staff who knew a great deal. The grounds were beautiful. They had good food and great buildings. It was so great to see an orphanage flourishing the way it was. I had a great time. Sometimes it's difficult for me because I am not able to see the fruits of my labors so to speak, I'm not able to see what kind of long term difference the things that I do make in these people's lives. But here it felt like we were teaching them things they would use and put into practice. It felt good.

Oh did I mention we didn't have water for 2 days? Not fun! And I finished my book and my nook doesn't work. I'm upset about that.

Tomorrow it's back to a community clinic for some very high blood pressures, indigestion, headaches and women who have been pregnant for 2 years. Will try to keep you updated!

And here we go...

So, I realize I'm not very detail oriented, so I'll try very hard to put more detail into these posts. However, you'll have to suffer through the ideas and contemplation that I also decide I must include :D

Yesterday (Sunday, March 27th) we went to church. It was a great experience just to relax and focus on the Savior and the gospel. Many wards meet in this particular building. There were three having meetings at the particular time we went. There is of course no air conditioning so it is quite warm. I realize all you lovely people in Utah/Wyoming are experiencing snow at this moment, haha sucks to be you! They also have no microphone or PA system, so it's very difficult to hear, and there are quite a lot of people. However, I was quite impressed at how quiet and reverent people were, focusing so much on hearing the speakers. After church we a couple of us relaxed by the pool, ah yes, the place we are staying does have a pool! Again, sorry all you people stuck with snow! Worked on my tan, got some reading done. Pretty fabulous. For dinner we went out to eat. We went to this restaurant called The View, quite fancy, quite pricey, not so much in American terms, but still on the higher side. Everything was in French/Creole, which of course I do not speak. Also, for those of you who know me, I have a tremendous amount of food allergies, of which can get me into serious problems. This kind of prevents me from trying new and exciting things. So I settled with pasta and a cheese sauce, it was good, but everyone else's looked much better. By now you're probably thinking, wait, I though she went there to do humanitarian work, sounds like she's playing! We're getting to that. This was sort of our "day off." It was very interesting though because this part of town that we went to was what you'd consider "upper scale." The streets were clear, people weren't living on the streets in tents, it didn't smell. Seeing such immense contrast is amazing. I suppose that you see this is the US too, but I suppose for me it was magnified.

Monday, March 28th

Getting down to business. Today I went with one of our groups to what we call an outreach clinic. This town that we went to was up in the mountains, about an hour from where our compound is. These people have limited access to any type of healthcare. We took two Haitian doctors with us, there were three nurses, a nutritionist, a social worker, and an aide, plus two wonderful interpreters. I had two primary jobs, the first was triaging, the second was reading the doctor's orders and "filling prescriptions". Basically a quick assessment of the patients chief complaint and associated symptoms and factors. It was difficult for me because I'm so used to being very thorough and being able to communicate with my patients. This is of course very difficult when you cannot speak the language, even with an interpreter. I wish very much that I could speak the language, that I could converse with these people much more. A majority of what we see is headaches, stomaches, generalized pain, sound familiar? We give out a great deal of OTC meds, tylenol, ibuprofen, antacids, vitamins. These people have outrageous blood pressures too. We were very limited this year with meds, especially prescription. There was one we were giving out that had been brought by a previous group, I don't even know what it was! I kind of feel like we're giving these people a temporary fix. A few days, maybe a couple of weeks worth of meds. Is it worth it? This is going to sound cheesy, but it gives much more meaning to Intermountain's "Healing For Life" mantra. Did I just use the word mantra Emily? Yikes. Anyhow, it was a long day filled with many emotions. I want to help these people. Sometimes it's difficult for me to see the good that it does. I hope that we helped them.