I'm Alive...

So for those of you that have been wondering if I were still living, the answer is YES!

Wow have the past 3 weeks been crazy! I have basically left my room at 6:30am every morning and returned around 10pm every evening. Needless to say I'm absolutely exhausted right now and even took a 3 hour nap today! We have one more week of clinics but a small group this week than the past three weeks. I'm just going to say a few highlights as I don't remember a lot of specifics about what happened over the past weeks!

I did take some notes the first week so I'll write a little about those days. Cara Fox, from PA, who is a PA came down with her team along with a doctor from California and several students. We had about 80 people that first week. We worked with Dr. Garcia and did medical clinics out in the bateys. The team from PA also brought a Rehab team with them and they worked at the Rehab Center and had a great week. The patients loved them. They would heal the pain these patients have had for years with just simple techniques that are taught in the US but not here in the DR!

The first week I handed out Fruit by the Foot for movie night to the kids. Ariel was trying to figure out how to open it and I had to sit down and help him figure it out. Guess they've never seen those before.

We went out to the bateyes where I worked this fall with Dr. Garcia so I saw several familiar faces all week. On Tuesday we were in Maguaca handing out toothbrushes at the end of the day! It was insane. We had about 100 people swarm the table wanting toothbrushes and we marked them with a Sharpie but they started rubbing the Sharpie off and coming back in line. I quickly starting realizing familiar faces and made lines down their entire arm so that they wouldn't be able to erase it as easy!

Wednesday we headed to La Recta which has a large Haitian population. There was a lady with twin 10 month old boys and one was so lethargic and dehydrated! We decided he needed to go to the hospital for IV fluids but the mom couldn't afford to get him there (about 20-30 minutes away) and she was Haitian, probably illegal, so she was likely to be turned away at the hospital anyway. We told her we'd pay for her transportation and she went home to get her daughter so she wouldn't be home alone. Well about 20 minutes later she still hadn't arrived so I went walking to find her and saw her down the street. I walked to her house with her where the little sick boy was actually eating Yuka but still needed some fluids. She did not want to go because she had not even one dollar to her name and couldn't buy food or water for herself or the other kids. Finally, a Dominican guy that was standing there with us trying to convince her to go, gave her 100 pesos and she left with me to get in the truck.

It was difficult to see this all transpire because she was so poor that basically she was going to risk her child dying of dehydration even with free transportation! I can't imagine living life like that! That afternoon word got out that we were there and we had 100s of people show up to be seen. Unfortunately with the added language barrier of Creole instead of Spanish, the providers were unable to see as many patients and it resulted in me standing on a table screaming at people to stop pushing in line because we weren't going to be able to hand out more tickets. It is hard to turn away such desperate people but we can only offer so much! That day we sent 3 people to the hospital, another baby that was lethargic, and a man they thought had either appendicitis or a bowel obstruction!

That evening was culto and we were sitting in the kids eating area when the power went out. When the lights came back on a few seconds later, Arianni had sprinted across the room in the dark I guess trying to leave, but only to the dark outside! She was talking with me later about how her aunt was coming to get her and she was going to go home. I tried to tell her how nice it was here and that if she went home she wouldn't have a Cristina, a Elizabeth, a Pastor Ramon, nor a Heather. But she was clever and said that yes she had a neighbor named Cristina and her mom was Elizabeth, etc. It was too cute!

On Friday we were in Batey Juliana at the banana washing station and I got to see some of my friends from Jaramillo. One little girl with a huge umbilical hernia that I recognized was there and I played a game with her. Heather taught the kids here a little thing that goes like this "Pound it, lock it, put it in your pocket, break the pickle, TICKLE, TICKLE". So you pound fists, twist them, put your hand in your pocket, and then you put your two pointer fingers together and the other person breaks them apart and you tickle them. I taught this to her and she loved it. The anticipation on her face for the tickling was priceless! I also got to see the kid that was my Facebook picture for a long time, the one sitting in my lap. He, his mom and his sister were there being seen, actually sitting in the exact location as last year and after looking at him for a short while I recognized who he was and told his Mom I had a picture of them from the previous year!

The next week was busy! We had 8 physicians/NPs here and traveled to Manzanillo and Carbonera (both about 45 minutes) away to do clinics. One highlight there was a tall, like 6'0 Haitian lady came in on a motorcycle with a swollen leg and unable to walk. She hopped on one leg half way and then Sara (a leader that came in for a week to help out), me and another volunteer fireman carried her, so I had her arms resting on me and her friend had the other arm, while Sara and the other volunteer carried her legs. It was awesome just being able to serve her with no words exchanged and just truly being there for a complete and total stranger. She had an xray with her and she had a tibia/fibula fracture. Dr. Imran explained to her that she needed to go to the hospital and we then carried her back to the moto. She had to go to immigration to make it back the military check points since she was from Haiti. On our way home that day we are driving down the road and see this huge white plaster cast hanging out sideways from a moto. As we drive by it, it was that patient with a full leg cast and the biggest smile in the world. It was so awesome!

Last week I was in Jaibon at our other orphanage and we went to 4 new locations. Day 1 we were in a school where they were so grateful and the principal was great. He brought us 2 liters of soda and just loved our services. Day 2 was my favorite. We were in a church in a town called Damajagua. Behind the church was an area that really looked like a stable and here was where we set up our pharmacy. The people there were awesome and I just really enjoyed that day. We took a break on Wednesday for our beach day which was a nice change of pace. The last two days we worked again. One day in Laguna Salada at a busy school and the second day in La Boca de Mao (the mouth of Mao) where there were tons of patients, mainly Haitian.

So in Mao we had a crazy experience. In the morning and afternoon we had tons of patients but were unable to see everyone. The day before I had given out 170 tickets in the morning and over 200 in the afternoon and just about did the providers in, I wore them out. So we limited it the next day because of the Creole and they were tired. In the morning we had patients inside the school because it was raining so we had them out of the rain but in the afternoon we decided to put them outside the gate to help with crowd control. Well it was crazy outside with over 300 people I'd guess waiting to get in, knowing we'd only have 120 tickets to give out. People were beating on the gate wanting to get in and we'd have to open the door just enough to let a person pass by and bring them in 10 at a time.

Well the brillant director of the school insisted on driving his vehicle into the school coming in the same door where we had 300+ people barging the door to get in. So that meant we had to slide the entire gate open for him to come in. I told him to get out and walk in and that we couldn't not open the gate because the crowd would come rushing in but he insisted on driving in and they started to open the gate. Immediately following his car entering was absolute chaos. About 300 people came running at us barging thru the gate to be seen! It is undescriable but my worst nightmare. I was tempted to say we were done see patients, as we had already given out about 60 tickets but instead I told everyone that we would not start again until everyone was back outside the gate. This meant me standing on the table screaming at people to go back outside, several of the teachers from the school helping me escort people back outside, and about a 20 minute ordeal trying to get people back outside. I was already exhausted and I hate having to be "mean" to these people that are so desperate but it is the only option to avoid total chaos!

Finally we got them all outside and started taking 5 in at a time which meant 2 people pushing the door closed as about 10 people pushed from outside trying to get in. WOW, was I glad when we got the 120th person inside and were able to leave the gate. I did feel bad that we couldn't see everyone and that we couldn't triage and take the sickest but it is impossible to really know who is the sickest and we'd be there until today if we saw everyone!

As the cooridnator of the clinics, I don't actually see patients I just help around as needed, take care of any problems that arise and make sure everyone is doing well. A lot of this time consists of me going around and stealing people's babies and holding them! I got to rock several asleep over the past 3 weeks and look forward to doing the same this week, especially with a smaller group so that means less management for me! :)

Today I moved back to Monte Cristi and got to spend some time with the kids who I haven't seen much over the past 3 weeks because I've been so busy!