A home visit

Once a month I have been doing a home visit with a lady that is paralyzed. She was in a kamyon accident several years ago and had a spinal cord injury and can no longer walk. This is a very poor family with eight children. Last time I went there was in the afternoon after the clinic was closed for the day. Several of the children were there in the yard so I asked if they were out of school for the day. Most schools around here let out at noon or very shortly after. One of the girls, I am guessing she is about 14 years old, said "Nou pa gen lajan pou lekol"- (we don't have money to go to school). It doesn't seem like it would cost a lot to go to school here but it costs more money than they have. I don't know how old the oldest child is but the youngest one is 4 years old so there would be numerous children to buy school uniforms for. This lady is always sitting on her bed in her dark, little 2 room house. It doesn't seem like she has any bed sores so she must be able to reposition herself fairly well but I have never seen her up out of bed. I don't know where all the children sleep because it is quite a small house. Amberly and I went to see her Tuesday afternoon after clinic. When we had finished our visit we decided to continue walking on down the trail past her house. About a quarter of a mile farther on we found an absolutely beautiful place to sit and enjoy the scenery. From our perch on a relatively new tomb, we could look out over numerous hills and we could actually see the waves of the ocean! It just happened to be a very clear day and we could see a long ways. I wish I knew approximately how far it was to the water but I really have no idea. It was the clearest view of the ocean I have seen from Oriani though. Sometimes on a clear day we can see the ocean from a hill behind our house but I had never been able to actually identify ripples on the water from waves.

Jay went to the border on Tuesday to get Keith's. They got back in time for supper. It was my day to cook. I made tacos, black beans and sopa then peanut butter no bake cookies for desert. 

Wednesday was a shorter day than usual but as I was attempting to lock up another patient showed up. A young lady, probably 18 years old, who had had her first child the day before and had been pretty much unresponsive since shortly before delivering the baby. She was carried in and placed on the exam table in my room. Apparently she had been totally normal until she went into labor. Then someone gave her "ginger tea" to drink. These people belive that ginger tea gives the mother "force". We have not identified any clear way that this tea helps - it just seems to cause intense pain, pain that does not speed up labor. But many people are firm believers in it. Someone also gave her "remed fèy" (herbs, leaves), we have no idea what kind of a combination that was. Then there was some "mistic" (magic) involved and someone "passed oils" over her body. Apparently she had been in this unresponsive state ever since being given all this treatment. The way she was acting, I have no idea how she even birthed a baby. Normally is a person is faking unresponsiveness they will not let their own hand fall onto their face if you lift their arm and drop it right over their face. Her hand dropped right on her face, three times. Her vital signs were stable, except for an elevated heart rate and her glucose was a little high. I'm not sure what that was from because apparently she hadn't eaten or drank anything since the day before sometime. She did not appreciate a sternal rub though! It was a very strange situation. We sent all of the family out of the room and tried to get her to talk but she would not. I truly do not know if she could not or would not. We did not think she would be able to swallow but when we gave her a drink she swallowed without difficulty.  Without knowing what she had taken there really wasn't any treatment we could give. We ended up sending her home with some tylenol and a multivitamin. I have no idea if she will come out of this whenever the things she was given have worn off or if this is her new normal. If it is, I'm afraid she won't live very long. 

Thursday morning they had a little farewell party for me at the clinic. Brianna made Haitian spagetti, boiled eggs, and coffee. It was delicious!

Friday night we packed up food and headed to the forest for a weiner roast. Amberly and I rode on top of the machin with the girls on the way there. We had hot dogs and macaroni salad, then roasted marshmallows and hot chocolate for dessert. It was an enjoyable time. When we got back home there was a patient and numerous of his friends and family waiting at the gate. He had been in a machete fight and had several large gashes to his right arm and a cut on his head. It took several hours to get him stitched up and bandaged. The biggest cut was on the inside of his right wrist. It looked like there were tendons severed but he was able to move his fingers so obviously his tendons were still intact. 

One Saturday Amberly and I walked to market in Forèt des Pins one last time. First though, we had a moto accident to treat. Two people were hurt but one only needed a couple of stitches on his head and bandages for his scrapes and the other needed his scrapes washed and some triple antibiotic ointment and a few band-aids. As usual, the walk to Forèt was beautiful. There is one ravine to climb but after that it is a very easy walk, just follow the path through the pines. It is about 3 1/2 miles. We wanted to do a little more Christmas shopping- and we were very successful! We had mayi kole and Toro for lunch then bought some fruit before taking moto home. 

Today I am going to pack up. We leave early tomorrow morning for the Dominican Republic. We will get to Santo Domingo in the afternoon and can hopefully get our COVID tests done before places close for the day. Keith, Candace and I all fly out on Tuesday afternoon.

As far as the clinic goes, Jay has the names and phone numbers of several Haitian nurses. He has already started contacting them and offering them a job at the clinic. So, no, we do not have a firm plan in place right at this moment as far as workers for the new year, but there are several options being explored.