Gina and a friend in NICU

 

Haiti Day 4-Tuesday

When you commit to going to Haiti, you do so imagining the worst, hoping for the best, expecting.....WHAT?  That it's going to be a vaction?  That, somehow, the attention and the disease and the hundreds of thousands of dead Haitians and millions of homeless Haitians are pretending.  This is not the Truman Show.

Part of our team tapped out today.  In the middle of their shift, 5 people walked away from patients and went home.  Just like that.  POOF!  Gone!  No documentation, no meds, no report, no care, no coverage.......nothing!  No integrity, no regard, no class.... STUNNING!  How do nurses do this?

The remaining team in the PICU/NICU is just amazing.  2 nurses returned from St. Marc's Cholera-palooza and joined in the fun here.  Jerome, who was sick and awakened to cover the mess, is a madman.  It's pretty cool to be a part of such a dedicated team.  And embarrassing to think that the 5 who left represented us in this way.  It's making the rest of us work harder to improve the perception that when things get tough we can just tap out.

Haiti- My sanctuary



Jerome having lunch at my sanctuary.

 There is very little about this place in Haiti that is peaceful.  There is chaos in the streets.  Cholera is not too far away.  Creature comforts from home are missing (some of them...).  Where and how to find some peace????  Believe it or not, I found it.....at a picnic table.


Yes, a picnic table.

Truthfully, it's not so much a picnic table so much as a hunk of plywood on some wooden scraps turned into benches.  However, its place at this hospital is as important as some of the units and the people that work in them. 

In between the administration building, the OR, lab, and the driveway to the hospital is this small area under a tree, built up by brick and hidden by some plants.  These plants are in bloom, some of them with tropical flowers.  Others are just snake plants.  Lizards run around back here and the chicken, affectionately named LUPPER ('cause he's gonna be one soon!) seems to hang out back here too.  Trash seems to migrate here, as well.  I found it when  while I was looking for a quiet place to eat.  Sacked out back there, with my water and notebook, it's not post-earthquake Haiti anymore.  It is my sanctuary.

Locals wander through here, laughing and singing, always talking cheerfully.  The team (those that have remained) also finds the place ripe for laughing and hanging out.  Gina and I eat lunch back here.  Jerome and Billy tell transport stories bqck here.  We've enjoyed the Haitian beer back here.  We eat our rice and beans here, drink our water here, try hard not to gag at the smells around us back here.  This place, the picnic table, is where I find peace down here.

There is no year-old dying from a simple surgery here.  No multiple unsuccessful IV attempts here.  No family member asking for food here (although I did give my meals away and drank water only here today).  No IVs run dry here.  No antibiotics are skipped here.  No language barriers here.  No cholera here.  No intermittent ANYTHING here.

And I flew all this way and found peace....at a picnic table.