A Lot of Bagay

Looking through our pictures of the last few months...wow!  Lots of "things" (bagay in Creole...I love that word...it's so useful and fun to say :) ) have been going on.  Some big, some small....here's a sampling.....

Eric is a Paramedic in Med School who has been our friend for a long time.  He flew a week with Haiti Air Ambulance and wanted to come see us and the Hospital.  It was really fun to spend time with him, although we would have liked to have the rest of his family come with him!  It was really refreshing to have a friend come to visit...and Orrin still talks about him, probably because he played blocks with him!  

Roselene is a young lady who we met at Lifeline on our first ever Haiti trip.  We've seen her again when we go to Dumay in the winters and we asked her if she would like to come up for two weeks and stay with us.  She was a great help with the kids, and it was like a reverse-immersion :) trying to speak Creole as much as we could.  She can speak English some too, so we got along pretty well in our communication :)  We had some fun times of going to a restaurant, going to the beach, making and playing a life-size Dutch Blitz game.  While I was giving her a tour of the hospital, she saw our pharmacist, Sadrack, and they knew each other!  They are from the same church near Port!  That was really neat, especially since Sadrack and his wife and baby girl are our neighbors!  So she went over to visit them sometimes, and we had them for supper one evening and had a really nice time.  She also sang in church on Sunday with Sadrack's wife.

Cassia is a big 6 month old now!  She is crawling like a pro, and loves to pull herself up and stand.  I can't leave her alone...not that she'd want me to anyway lol :-P  This is how we found her one morning in her pack n play.  It was time for the mattress to be put down!!

Here are some of her 6 month pictures.

Pudgie Pie Night!  This is a pretty normal evening when work teams come.  We bring some goodies to Lee and Desma's house and eat and cook campfire (pudgie) pies, all sort of creatively....cream cheese, chocolate chips, nutella, cheese, pepperoni, pie filling, hot sauce...and yes, some people do put that all together :)

Beth and Bekah moved home this summer.  Beth is going to be working at a school and Bekah's getting married this weekend!  Before they left, us ladies went into Cayes together and ate at the Nami, a Chinese restaurant.  We're going to miss these girls!!

We got a cat!  Chase is Creole for Hunter, and so we hope he will live up to his name :)  David had asked a guy at work if he had any cats, but wasn't really asking for one right away.  We hadn't exactly thoroughly discussed it, so when a cat in a sack showed up at my door that afternoon, I was slightly surprised and, umm, not super thrilled....  But once it finally came out of its hiding place the next day and used the "litter box" David set up, things got a little better.  Now it's pretty sure it owns the place, and the kids like it a lot (unless it finishes Orrin's plate when he leaves the table.....)

We have been advertising for a few positions here at the Hospital for a while now, and are still needing them filled.  The current Patient Care Manager is finishing up his term and their family plans to be moving home in a little over a month.  This means his duties will be shifted to others, in addition to their own current duties.  Please pray for us here so we can have wisdom on how to fill these responsibilities in the interim.  Please pass this on to others you know who fit the description, and/or prayerfully consider if you would be a fit for the position.  Please pray that the Lord will call those to His work, and that those called will have grace to answer, Yes, Lord!

Occasionally we go up to the hospital to sing in the evening.  This night some of us brought instruments and we played and sang.  In our book was a song that we had just learned with our singing group in English and Creole.  Some of the ladies in our singing group were up at the hospital visiting a patient that night.  When they heard us start the song, their eyes lit up and they hurried over to sing with us.  It was one of my high points of living here.  It was such a special moment to sing together that night in a language that could be understood by the patients!

Father, I adore You,

And I lay my life before You,

How I love You!

Jezi m adore Ou,

Mwen ba Ou tout lavi mwen,

Mwen renmen Ou!

We went to Dan's Creek to relax and swim one day.  Orrin tried the sneak attack with the water gun :)

Orrin loves ambulances...wonder where he got that :)  He was pretty sure he needed a picture with the "ambulance" (Red Cross vehicle).  He also wanted to come to work with me one day.  I told him he couldn't now, but maybe someday when he's older, we can work on an ambulance together.  So now he keeps talking about going to work on an ambulance, and wearing his ambulance shirt :)

Orrin and Cassia playing at home

While I was giving Roselene a tour of the hospital, Orrin was busy taking 13,000 pictures with my phone.  Here's a sample of Orrin's tour of the hospital :)

Cassia got her shots at Community Health one day.  She was roaring mad for a day and a half, and had a fever and big knot on her leg.  Dumb ol' tetanus shot, anyway.

Cassia started big kid food at 6 months.  This is what she thinks of carrots :)  Avocados are way higher on her list :)

Speaking of avocados....Orrin likes them too!  The other day at lunch, he ate lettuce salad, mango and plain chunks of avocado before his french fries.  What other 2 year old kid does this??? 

The other morning in surgery, I was walking towards the door when it opened and in came this handsome guy.  I did a double-take for a minute.  What white doc did we have coming back into surgery?  We didn't have a team here.  Oh, it's David!  He had to check on some water pipes to figure out a hookup for a solar hot water heater (pictured below) for the surgery scrub sinks.  He had made the solar heater on furlough this spring, and it just came on the container a few weeks ago.  When he and the guys were working on hooking it up, they were pretty impressed with how hot it got the water on the trial run.  They're pretty excited to learn how to make them!

While Roselene was here, Orrin slept on the floor in our room.  It seemed to help his night wakings, and when she left, he seemed fine to go back to his bed.  He's going to sleep by himself and sleeps (most) of the night :)  He's even taken to reading himself to sleep for a nap.  After all that work and fighting...all we had to do was give up and he improved.  We'll see how it lasts....

Orrin and Cassia usually go to Hartzlers when I go to surgery.  Orrin has wild times with the kids, and needs to learn how to share better :-P  Here they are playing sled dogs.  We're gonna miss these guys when they move home in a month! :(

Orrin being a stud one morning before church.  So funny!

David's latest and greatest project around the hospital is the next phase of the clinic/ER project.  One weekend there was a lot of demolition going on, and now the nurses station is moved and construction has started on the new walls!  We'll keep you updated on progress as it continues!

Opening the Pediatric Ward

Our census ebbs and flows as does any hospital, but it seems like lately it's finally been getting filled up!  One weekend, all our maternity beds were full and we had more patients come in.  So suddenly we needed to open the Pediatric Ward.  It was so exciting!  We held a small ceremony with a song, prayer, Bible reading, a few small speeches, and a ribbon cutting.  Beds and patients moved in and now things are in full swing!!

Cassia and Dr Guito, the Pediatrician

Cutting the "Ribbon" (duct tape :) )

Moving Beds and Patients

All Settled In!

Surgery!

A surgical team from PA came to do some work at the Hospital for a week this winter.  I asked if I could come in and watch a surgery.  In Paramedic school, I never got to do a surgery rotation, so I wasn’t sure if I would be totally grossed out or not.  Jami watched the kids for two hours while I went into surgery.  The patient was a younger woman who was going to have her thyroid removed.  The anesthesiologist heard I was a Paramedic and asked me if I wanted to intubate.  Of course!  As they got equipment around, gave her oxygen and medications, I tried to tell her what was going on (my Creole doesn’t really include surgical terms yet L) and tell her that the surgeon was a really good doctor and would do a good job.  The last thing she said before she went to sleep was that she is a singer, so she didn’t want anything to happen to her voice.  Great confidence booster right before I was going to slide a tube between her vocal cords….

The anesthesiologist walked me through his technique of intubation, teaching me things I wish I would have learned a long time ago.  “Have you ever intubated before?” he asked.  “Not on a live person,” I said….  And it was really different.  I was used to people in cardiac arrest or close to it, and who have no muscle tone.  The first time I tried, she was fighting me a little since she wasn’t paralyzed with medications.  I stopped, and they increased her sedation, then we tried again.  This time I saw a great view of her cords.  After checking that it was in the right place (lungs, not stomach) and getting it secured, the surgeons came in to start surgery.  After having a prayer over the patient, they started surgery.

The docs were cool, explaining about what they were doing.  After a while, they asked me if I wanted to scrub in.  I was totally clueless about the proper way to wash my hands, and kept holding my hands the wrong direction, or drying them the wrong way. J  After getting into the sterile gown and gloves, I was able to get right up next to the patient, and see what was going on. 

The next day, I was up at the hospital again for something.  Sitting on a bench outside was a young woman.  I think I recognized her a few seconds after she recognized me.  It was the lady in surgery yesterday!  I couldn’t believe she had recognized me since the day before she had only seen me when my face was mostly covered in a mask, and my hair was in a net.  I went over, and she talked to me.  (Yay, I didn’t mess up her vocal cords J!)  She was talking to her family members beside her, and as best I could make out through words and gestures, she was telling them I had been in surgery, and tried to reassure her when she didn’t know what was being said by the people speaking English.  I told her I was happy she was doing good.  She said she was going home that afternoon!  That was totally cool.

Then the other day, we saw each other again up at the hospital.  She said she was doing good.  And when I glanced at her neck, there was only the thinnest little line of a scar there.  Wow, how awesome!  I don’t know what kind of health problems her thyroid had been causing, but I’m glad she could get this surgery done.  It makes me glad to know the hospital is here so that people can hopefully find relief from their suffering or problems, and also hopefully hear about the gospel of Jesus Christ while they are here!

Over the past few months, we’ve had some trouble having enough anesthesia providers to cover all the surgeries, especially when there is a work team here doing surgery.  If you know anyone who does anesthesia, send `em down to us J 

After being in surgery that day and knowing of our need, an idea started in my mind.   David and I talked about it, but I wasn’t really going to pursue it.  Then one day a message was sent out about our need for anesthesia and to pray for how that could be filled.  I talked to the medical director and we thought this may just work out….  With my background of Paramedic training, if I spend time training in surgery and reading anesthesia textbooks, I may be able to eventually provide anesthesia for surgeries on an on-call basis.  I was so completely excited…and scared! 

I bought some textbooks and have been reading through, and it’s been fun to learn.  The thought was to wait so Dr Lordy (the current anesthesiologist on staff) wouldn’t be the only anesthesia provider…so she wouldn’t be overwhelmed with working all the cases and trying to teach me too.  And we waited for someone who would speak English.  We had thought we had the answer…a CRNA with a doctorate in teaching who would stay and work for 3 months.  But her first week here, she fell and broke her wrist.  A few days later, she went home.  So finally it was decided I could start when an Ortho team from the States came, only to find out there was no CRNA coming on the team.  It didn’t matter, because Dr Tracy (a resident) would be coming and she knows English.  Well, she can’t come, so Dr Buela would be training me that first week.  She’s a resident in the same program as Dr Tracy, and she has pretty good English. 

I walked into the surgery area at 830 Monday morning to find out that Dr Buela just got on a bus from Port au Prince.  So, after all that waiting, I would be working with Dr Lordy after all.  Dr Lee introduced us and we walked into the first surgery room, waiting for an ortho case.   About a minute later, Dr Mario came in and said there was an emergent case of a preeclamptic patient, and he needed to do an emergency c-section.  We switched rooms and Dr Lordy started introducing me to that room’s equipment and medication, anesthesia machine and monitor.  She started another IV on the patient, then they had the patient sit up so she could do a spinal.  For a moment, we stopped work, and before starting surgery, a prayer was said. 

Through the week last week I went down each morning for a few hours to work with Dr Lordy and Dr Buela.  It has been a great experience.  I had no idea what to expect…and it has gone so much better than I thought it would.  It seems like all those hours of Creole lessons really did make a difference…word after word…eventually made it so I could understand what was being said to me in that surgery room!  The anesthesiologists were really patient and talked slowly in Creole so I could understand, and when I didn’t they tried explaining it differently.  I’m so happy to get back to the medical world and look forward to what’s ahead.  I ask for your prayers as we continue on this journey!

A Visit to the Hospital

I don't know if I've never given a whole lot of information about what  Hospital Lumiere is and what it offers. Sometimes I miss the obvious :-P . So here goes our tour...

Main Entrance of the Hospital

When you enter the hospital through the main entrance, you come in to the Welcome Center. This waiting area is designed for the clinic area which is open Monday through Friday. This is where people pay for their doctors appointments, labs, medications, x-rays,etc. They wait here to be seen by a doctor in the clinic. 

The Newly Renovated Welcome Center

The clinic and emergency department are across the hallway from the Welcome Center. As you walk out of this area, you follow a beautiful covered walkway that takes you past a building that includes laboratory, x-ray, pharmacy, laundry, sterilization, and surgery.  

As you turn a corner, you go past David's office.  He says he can make it sound really good....he has his own office building with vaulted ceilings!  In actuality, his office is in an approximately 10 foot by 10 foot electrical building so he can keep his eye on things...but it does have about 15 foot tall walls :)  As you pass his office, you get to the actual hospital inpatient area. It is divided into four wings, with a total capacity of 120 beds. Each wing has four large patient rooms, and some have one private room. The units are Surgery, Medicine, OB/GYN, and Peds. At this time ob/gyn and peds are all in the same ward. The pediatric ward is not yet opened. All of the wards except for medicine have been renovated recently. 

Unrenovated Ward

The empty peds ward is sometimes used when medical teams come for eye, dental, or women's clinics for example. Our OB unit is usually very busy with lots of women and babies. There is usually a room full of kids in the peds room, and a few babies in our small NICU room. Medicine Ward has patients with chronic illnesses like diabetes, TB, urological problems, etc. In the surgery ward we see a lot of patients who have had trauma. A lot of accidents happen on motorcycles, so there are a lot of young men with broken bones.

The last section of buildings on the actual grounds is the administration building with offices for the Directors, Translators, Pastors, Human Resources, and Finance.

Left - David's office.  Middle - Entrance to Surgery Ward.  Right - Admin Building

As you walk out of the hospital, you are still on the hospital grounds. There are lots more buildings completely surrounding the actual hospital...toolshed, garage, medical supply depot, woodshop, housing for staff, housing for families of patients, guesthouse for teams. This is the area we live in.

Toolshed

Our Mountain View

Guesthouse

Love this huge tree on the Hospital Grounds!

Going out in a wider view, the community of Bonne Fin surrounds this Hospital Campus.  The road from the mountain road to the community goes straight in front of the hospital so there's a lot of traffic going through...mostly foot and motorcycle. 

View from the mountain road of the Front Gate leading to the Hospital Grounds 

The Mission Statement of the Hospital is pictured below, located in the middle area between all the 4 wards.  In English, the Mission Statement is:  Hospital Lumiere will provide excellent and effective medical care with compassion and Christian love.

So after I had this written, I got an email about a video that does a much better job giving the story of the Hospital and pictures of it, the surrounding area, and people who work here!  So please go check it out at https://vimeo.com/131136331.  It's about 3 minutes, so it won't take very long.  And at the end, my mom and baby Cassia (who's about ready to cry) got a few seconds of fame :)