To start with I will say I am doing well.  I have the greatest admiration for everyone I have met down here.  The staff at the medishare hospital are some of the best people I have come across.  The staff at ever hospital I have ran into also inspire me. Every were I go I run into people selflessly working at helping. The local people are also very amazing, resilient strong and kind.  I have come across individuals with new ideas. Water trucks that make water from the air, filtration devises being passed out, food being distributed, medical needs being met under the most strenuous situations. can-do, life flight, pure filters all little organizations having big impacts. .

 

The other day I woke up crawled out of my tent and sat on a rock over looking the rice fields and hills in Abraham Haiti.  I was there for one day, dropped off by a helicophter with one other nurse a box of dressing supplies and a tent. As the helicopter landed the people came running. Nick and I immediately set up a little wound care clinic on the ground in front of our little tent.  The locals so interested in everything we do and say. A crowed stays around us long after we are done caring for everyone.  Eventually it disperses and we eat MREs under the stars. I try to sleep on hard ground. In the distance drumming and singing energizes the air. The locals celebrate into the early morning. The next morning the crowd is back and nick and I sit in the middle. Dressing wounds as they come in and practicing Creole. The locals hear the helicopter before I can and their excitement grow. I wave good by and give hugs.  I have time for reflection as I sit in the helicopter watching the destruction below on our flight back towards medishare. Something so profound about flying close over the palace and the comfort wile listening to cold play. We land Nick goes back to working immediately. He is an inspiration, organized and compassionate driven and Knowledgeable
. I go to one of the only hotels in port-o prince and relax. I run into my driver who just the other day really helped me out. I hade a box of meds that needed to reach an individual. I cared the box and 20 dollars around the air field. I left the meds with a US army man, and kept my fingers crossed that it would make it to the right place. Fritz my driver came threw. Locating the army man with using limited english, picking it up and finding the money stuffed in the box he came threw and handing it off to the right place. Today I go to community hospital to work.  i have had a lot of requests to come home soon. i have been here now about 20 days and every day it gets harder and harder to leave, but i know i need to so i will be back in

 
 
I'm riding in the back of the make shift ambulance, a bread truck with a tape cross on it and a sign scribbled on paper  “ambulance”. I cling to the newborn baby as we drive through the destroyed streets of Haiti.  Little hands little lips and closed eyes. I hold one of the triplets and try to block the dust from the baby's face.  One of the most motivated compassionate Doctors hold the second and the mother who just a couple days ago gave birth to this angels in a make shift tent on the street holds the third. I sit there and think about everything. I am in a state of shock not only because of the sights and sounds but because just hours ago Liz called me into the communications room. I was in the middle of helping pic a patient off the floor who was covered in their own excrement and flies. I was in the middle off trying to figure out how to get an electric cord for a wound vac. I was in the middle of working with triage for bed placement, I was in the middle of hanging dry IV bags and giving out pain meds, while simultaneously making sure the local help felt appreciated and the volunteer nurses weren’t to burned out. I stop all this and go into the communication tent.  Were Liz from University of Miami tells me I have to leave. Someone has posted a utube video of me. I have still never seen the video but I don’t remember being filmed and in it I am only showing someone who is volunteering were the morgue on the UN base is. I show many people many things. I have oriented new staff and showed them were things are, sometimes I need to show them were non-pleasant things are. Well most of the time I do. The story is this person (I forget there name) after volunteering went back to Florida and went to a found raiser for UM were he freaked out and expressed anger about the waste of monetary resources when on the field it is a war zone. Fund raising is important though and this cause and suffering we see is not caused by the UM but by the fact that we are in a developing country with limited resources after such a terrible earthquake.  He made the wrong people mad and I got caught in the cross fire because he had posted this video of me that I didn’t even know existed.

 

I have seen a lot of misery here but this news was very hard for me to swallow. I know it might sound selfish but when you have no control over the suffering you see and you work as hard as you can to relieve it there is at least a sense that you are trying. This situation has taken me by surprise. I have been one of the nurse coordinators for a while now, and I have often worked around the clock with little sleep because of our nursing shortage (sometimes 1 nurse to 40 patients) I have been complimented by al the doctors and staff I have worked with.  I have become close with my patients and try in the mist of such trauma to be a patient advocate. With code after code it can be heard to remember and hard to find the time to treat each as an individual. Often its hour 25 or 26 of work were I finely get a second to go over to the patients and hand them a water, give them a hug and hear how their day was.

 
It is hard to understand how someone at the University of Miami who has never met me would make such a decision. Every day we are bombarded by the media followed by reports interrupted by cameras in our face I don’t have time to regulate and conform the flow of all those that come in.  But this one video that shows nothing from what I hear only shows the morgue not even the bodies has really ruffled someone’s feathers. It’s even more hurtful that the ones on the ground with me didn’t fight to have me stay. The only reason I am here is to help people. I never complained about the lack of bathrooms or the disorganized food situation or the critical shortage of nurses that have left us working constantly. A moral dilemma, either I sleep and my patient don’t get care, or I force myself to stay awake and just keep moving.

 

After hearing that I had to leave I rest I went into my tent in a daze. I remember there that I haven’t been drinking and all the sudden I cant even keep my eyes open and im to tired to try to drink, one of the nurses hooks an IV bag up to me and I lie there in a state of shock and desperation. I Have other options and after a little rest I try to pull myself together and I pack up my stuff. I walk over to the air field and find a pilot I know, I will be flying out with him to Leogane tomorrow, landing on the beach we will distribute supplies, some that I have helped him get from our supplies. The other day I sent him out with bags of animal crackers. Tomorrow I will start working at the General as well. But my heart breaks about how I have been treated by the University of Miami. I felt like a family and now I feel like an outcast, I cant dwell to much on this though, for no matter were I am I can help. But it makes me sad to realize something that I have been a part of since the begginging can just dismiss me with out even talking to me.  well my battier is almost dead and I don’t have a charger 
 
3:30 01/31/2010
 
its 3:30 and i listen to the conversations of people trying to orginize,i listen to the sounds of the planes landing over my head. ive never worked this hard and i feel like i will age to fast if i continue, my plane of staying in the hotel or going to the un base to relax interupted by the refusal of my night nurses to work nights. 3 of us have taken the lead as nurse coordinators but we are all needed all the time. tomorrow i will relax, i know that now matter what the need will be great and i will be more effective if i rest. its a hard call to tell shut down the triage and turn people away and it breaks my heart. in the laat two hours we had to more sad codes, and today at least 2 deaths. i sit with the son of the decease and i listen to his stories. at least the us army has given us 40 body bags now and 5 of their traned emts. we are doing amazing things here we are a 200 bed hospital and every second exspanding, now we just needed nurses.i am learning about connections and politics but also about world community. i have met some of the best people in the world here from canada argintina peru... we work as a team and i help the mexican rescue team to food and shelter. i know i ramble know it is late and i am tired. i cried today a raraty. i help take an ekg of my favorite patient. just 3 hours ago a news team interviewed him and i. 2 weeks ago i assisted in his amputation. the death, the pain, the hopelessness can be over welmlming and everyone stops you to ask if you can help them. at the same time the strangth and the spirit  are stronge. the other night the whole tent broke out in song. i will try to write more and i will fix my tired spelling errors later... now i sleep for a couple hours and then the ground hogs day starts again...
 
haiti 01/27/2010
 
will write more when i can, just wanted to let everyone know i am doing we
 
 
 

1/20 today was a long day, I was the OR nurse and tech again. My main concern getting everything as sterile as possible. I learned that you cant soak instrumentation in bleach for to long, it will rust, we had one bottle of instrumentation cleaner set up for part of the day, we only had one bottle of solution, and I learned that you can not leave instrumentations in that or it will eat them.  We have lots of supplies but not the time or manpower to go threw them and I franticly run around trying to find things we will need like sterile drapes and gauze and gloves. The anesthesiologist do amazing work and lookily someone brought down  a portable pulse ox that we have no other option but to split between the two patients getting surgery, we are still waiting for O2 to arrive as well. The doctors help me out and our team seems to be starting to make sense of this craziness.  We work hard and well the Doctors mop the floor as I scrub the instruments. I’m sure when this is done people will say “why didn’t you do it this way, or that way?” And my reply to them is why didn’t you come down and make it that way. I did 19 surgeries today. 2 going on at a time and the doctor at both tables try to teach me the names of the instruments. The surgeries  on top of wooden tables in a sectioned off portion of our tent. We had a belt for a tourniquet but it broke, I hold the leg as they saw away with the little hand held saw. Amputations are common here. We had surgeons and an OR nurse who knew the instruments names only in French, at one point , but its hard to coordinate things here when people stay for short times and the flights out of here are so unreliable that you might need to walk out of surgery to catch a plan. I have seen a lot in the OR and that is were I have spent must of my time, I cant even describe the wounds I see. Today the orphans seemed to start to break down, all smiles and patients yesterday the reality that their family is gone hits them. I drive threw town in the back of a pick up truck and take in the scenes, buildings toppled, hundreds of people sleeping in the street.

 

 Since I got here it has been go go go. My first job was helping caring bodies to the morgue, after, talking the morgue into taking body parts. 30 hours later I collapsed for some sleep. I haven’t had a chance to think about what was really going on around me. I stay strong though and so does everyone here, we joke around we laugh because we need to and we care and comfort. I almost broke down twice, once when we were getting ready to remove a little girls hand and she just kept screaming for her mom, and then again when the team of nurses from the Haitian nurses union arrived to relieve us from what could have been another 24 hour shift, the energy and friendly smiles brought tears to my eyes.  Everyone here is very compassionate, and I love the openness of them, we are all connected even though we don’t speak the same languages. I run into Ecuadorian Rescue workers and we talk and laugh and I recall that recently ended adventure, fondly and I elieve everything happens for a reason and right now I am were I am supposed to be. 

 

My thoughts are not very well organized and my words might be a little random at this point. I will say I’ve learned you can do what you want to do within reason; only a couple days ago my goal was to help Haiti. It started in Boston were Northeastern helped me gather supplies and raise money rapidly, in Miami I worked on large supply drives and meet compassionate people from all walks of life, I talked my self on to a private jet to here and now I work with some of the hardest working  people I have ever met from all over with the same goal, to try to save these people, and to show love. 

 
 
1/15 continuing my Ecuador blog but now in the United States. I have a renewed sense of energy, belonging and of community for my country, and my world.  I have realized that for things to happen people need to come together and make them work.  I have seen the lack of organization and action do to poverty, lack of education, lack of personal, and even at times do to rigidity of structure. I have also seen the organization skills of some great leaders such as my mentor Catherine O’Conner and I have bin in awe of them.  But now I realize we need more people like her, and it could even be me, and I push a side my insecurities and shyness, “I’m going for the gusto.” We need to communicate we need to find comfort in closeness. Within 24 hours of these thoughts I am on a plane headed to Miami. 5 bags full of medical supplies and 1000 dollars to my name, thanks to donations. All the details aren’t laid out. But I have learned they can be ironed out in transit.  For now I have connections to the national nursing association who is tirelessly trying to organize and figure their own plans out. A priest in Fort Lauderdale who is trying to get together a mission trip to go to were his churches and orphanages used to be, a FEMA worker and a hostel that said I could crash there for cheep, a hand full of people looking to help but who don’t know how, and a computer.  Technology! Lets get together lets collaborate let’s take action! I will work diligently tonight making more connections finding out what is going on and were and helping to expedite the process.  I will do what ever it takes, now and always. I will continue to work to get care to those who need it.  Thank you all for supporting me. 

 
 
3 months flew by and I’m sitting in the airport right now reflecting on all my experiences.

Melancholic, tired and in transition- I have learned a lot; about me, about patients, about health and cultures. i will write more but for now my head spins and the lack of sleep and the thin air here is starting to wear on my thought processes. 


 
mi gusta ecuador 11/21/2009
 
11/19  This is as good as it gets.  I woke this morning to the sound of roasters, and dogs in my bamboo room under my pink mosquito net and rushed to eat my breakfast of rice, eggs and instant coffee. I ran out the door to the bus stop but jump into the next pickup truck that comes along with 7 others. I feel the wind on my face and for once it is not raining. I am running late, for work but that is ok here, and i´ll still probably be one of the first to arrive.  

 

I arrive at the salud central in Salango. The waiting area filled with patients and children and one dog that I shoe out. I say hello to the other nurse who is there, and make my way back to the ´med room¨ were the computer I got for the hospital is now located.  I start entering hand written information into excel files and I think to my self how ironic that of all people I should be helping  put technology into use at a hospital. I hate documentation. I am bad with computers, but I know the importance of both. My idea to get the files backed up in a computer, printed, and to get internet access for the hospital, ( that might be a little bit more tricky, as of now the town does not have internet but I heard it could. Even obtaining this computer was a difficult task) A set back to my plan, the electricity goes out, it will be out now for a couple hours.

 

 I grab my bag and head out to the town with the doctor to take a senses of the residence. I take a black marker and write numbers on the houses. Address don’t exists here,  and its fascinating to see that they are staring to now for health promotion.  We interview all the residents and I do a basic assessment.  The doctor and I walk back and I point out things in English to him and he points them out in Spanish.

 

I leave work early and eat fast a lunch of rice and some undetermined type of meat.  Heading to the beach I meet my friend Diane and 20 children for a planned beach cleanup. I buy them soda,  2 3 liter bottles for 3 dollars. Diane brings cookies all of this a very special treat. The children collect sacks of garbage off the beach. Their reward Diane and I have negotiated with the local vacation resort that if we clean the beach the children can swim in the pool, swimming and snacks can make lots of smiles.

 

I head back to my house and grab a surf board that a friend left for me to use before leaving to go work on a shrimp farm, in a town without electricity 2 hours north of paradise. Jobs are hard to come by here.  I run down the road with multiple dogs at heel, and jump on a bus going past. (Buses are the arteries of Ecuador )

 

The waves are big the water is warm. I surf only for a short time, I need to get back to my village so I can take peoples blood pressures and blood sugars. Yesterday I spent 6 hours on a bus threw deserts and rainforest, along twisty steep roads on crowded hot buses to reach a town were I could obtain a glucometer for an unreasonable price, but to me it’s a necessity.  I am using it to check the sugar of known diabetics in my town.  Next week after I finish a presentation about diabetes and how to use the glucometer for the nurses and doctor I work with I am donating it to the hospital I volunteer at. I do all this with out speaking the language and every advance feels like a mile stone for me. Hours are spent on simple translations so I can educate and also so I can learn.

 

I can’t rightfully describe my experience here or try to explain what living in a shanty town is like. Sometimes I feel like I am in the twilight zone, I try to make sense of what I see. The fridge plugged in but door ajar rotten food surrounded by flies. The patients house I enter has nothing but a hammock and TV blaring the same cheesy soap operas in Spanish that everyone seems to watch. chickens on kitchen counters , high heeled shoes in mud.   I do not judge and I try not to enter my own values. I can only be here to help as help is wanted for now.  Maybe the two tasks of diabetes education and computerized technology doesn’t seem like enough or the right type of help but for now its what I have to offer. I am learning the culture I am befriending the people.  I have to wake up early to take fasting blood sugars around town, so I will start to end this…

 

I can only say this is an amazing experience, the beginning of the week I did pap smears, the end of the week house visits.  My plans of traveling to the Amazon and rafting, seeing Galapagos, or traveling the U.S on my return are rapidly changing. Its hard to rationalize spending money on simple pleasures when a little here can go a long way. I do miss my family a lot.  And a part of my misses hot showers and security.  But I have found my place, this is what I love this is where I belong right now.  
 
Post Title. 10/26/2009
 
This is your new blog Hola! First off i just want to let everyone know im doing well. Second, my apologies for not keeping everyone updated in a timely manor. I’ve been pretty busy in Ecuador and internet is not always easy to come by J

 

I’ve been taking it all in this beautiful, dilapidated, wonderful, country. The culture so different from what I’m used to or have ever seen and I am taking it all in with openness. I’m staying with a nice host family in Puerto Rico, a very small shanty town about 20 minutes outside or Puerto Lopez. The part of the house I live in is a small bamboo room complete with mosquito net wich is much needed. Although I stick out like a pink elephant here I am for the most part welcomed into the village.

 

There are two sides to this place, one the poor towns filled with children, mud and dogs. The other, upscale resorts along the crystal clear beaches catering to tourists. Two very different worlds intertwined. It is off tourist season now and the beaches are empty these nice resorts resembling ghost towns. Next to the shanty towns. Its rainy season and a light mist has continuously descended on the town since my arrival. All though this does make drying cloths or anything for that matter hard, it is a refreshing mist, and one that has allowed me more time to study Spanish in my room. If the sun was to shine I think I would be very tempted to play on the beach all day.  

 

I am working at a small health clinic in Salongo a sleepy little fishing village close to mine. Everyday I walk into work and the entrance is filled with people lining up to see the one doctor that works at the clinic.  Unfortunately while my limited Spanish has decreased the amount I am able to assist with, I am able to take vital signs, and give vaccinations. There is also a small “pharmacy” in the clinic and I frequently sort medications, and dispense them.  The clinic can boast an impressive healthy newborn program that includes education for new mothers and regular check ups and follow ups for newborns and infants. However the hospital is lacking running water, sharps containers, windows, and unlike what im used there is not an endless supply of gloves available. I am very thankful I brought a lot of supplies. I hope to continuine improving my Spanish so I can assist more effectively and I am also working on having an inservice for the staff about the dangers of recapping sharps and the importance of proper handeling.

 

 

This experience so far has been an amazing one, and already 3 months seems like it is going to be too short (although I do really miss hot showers) Well I will try to keep everybody posted as much as possible. Until then hope all is well

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First Post! 06/27/2009
 
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