Sunday, March 4, 2012

Homecoming


Although I am glad to be coming home to see my family, I definitely left something behind in Haiti.  There is so much to be done and so many people to help that it overwhelms you.  I am thankful that I can continue in the same efforts for my patients in Greenwood, some of which need a lot of help as well!  It is a blessing to be in the medical field where we can touch people’s lives every day.  It will be hard to adjust back into the American culture.  We ate lunch at TGI Fridays at the Miami International Airport.  There is not even a restaurant in Grand Guave where we stayed!  One of the guys with us has a child he sponsors who lives close to the mission house.  We visited yesterday and Nana was cooking dinner for the neighborhood.  People pay her a little money to eat if they can.  If not, then they will just pay her when they get the money!  The Haitian people take care of each other.  I think of the disciples when they started the church and sold all that they had and pooled their money to support those who needed it.  If we were only that giving in America today!  We choose to give only our extras and after we get everything WE want.  These people have nothing and still give whatever they can scavenge to others.  One of the nurses on the trip sponsors a little girl who was buried for 3 days  along with her mother and 6 week old sister after the earthquake.  Her father was fishing when the quake hit, and ran back to the house to find his family.  He dug for those three days until he found his wife, dehydrated, broken arm, shoulder, leg, and ankle hovered over her newborn baby protecting her.  The first words out of her mouth were to find the other child who was buried too.  Dr. Bill and Dr. Doug took care of them  then and continue to help out now.  A church in Indy sponsored a new house for the family, and all are healthy now!  There are 100 great stories just like that from Haiti.  I would love to share them all with you.  I will be back, that is for sure!  We would love to take you with us!  Let me know if you have any interest.  If you can’t go, then you can continue to live through our HEALTH team.  We did a devotion on the body of Christ- one person is a hand, one a head, one and eye, one a leg.  We can all do different things to help those in need-more to come on how you can help out with prayer and donations!  God bless you and thank you for taking this journey with me!

For Him,
Jeremy

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Haitian medicine

Today we took care of a 7 month old baby who was born at 28 weeks in a Haitian hospital.  She had a colostomy and urostomy at birth done by Haitian doctors due to complications and her anatomy.  She was seen at the Lifeline clinic in september on the brink of death and given fluids and antibiotics after the Haiti hospital discharged her.  Patients can't stay at the clinic overnight because it isn't a licensed hospital, so she had to go home every night. After a week of daily love and IV fluids, the team left not knowing if she would live or not.  The mom is only 16 years old, but deeply loved her baby.  After 5 months and much prayer, the baby came in to see us today.  The nurse who took care of her was back on this trip and extremely happy to see her.  She was born at 2 pounds and SEVEN months later is only 4.5 pounds.  She had a fever and has not been eating very well.  After questioning the mom further, we found out she has been hospitalized at the local hospital since November 17!  The hospital can't do much for her, or they don't know how!  The baby can barely eat from a bottle, so the mom has been spoon feeding her every 3 hours the last five months.  Her temperature was 103 and she was screaming nonstop.  She still has her ostomy open to air and not covered.  They don't have any supplies for that in Haiti.  She has a cataract over one eye and is most likely blind.  We gave her some ibuprofen and tylenol which made her feel a lot better.  We taught the mom how to feed through an NG tube and gave her some preemie formula to take back to the hospital for tonight.  Who knows what kind of treatment she is getting.  We will see her again tomorrow, but then we have to leave Haiti!  There is nobody else to help care for this poor tiny baby.  I can't help but think of the care we get in the US and cry about the future of this mom and baby.  To have to tell a 16 year old mother that her baby will never see and probably never walk and be a normal child is one of the hardest things a doctor has to do.  Especially when, in my mind, I was thinking this wouldn't have happened if she lived in the US.  We are truly a blessed people!  God chose us to be born and live in the USA-not because we are more important or more worth it or sin less or anything else you can think of-just because.  Let us never forget that and CHOOSE to give back to those less fortunate than us!

For Him,
Jeremy