Cholera

You never know what life will bring here. That’s the interesting part of living here, though not always easy to know what to do.

Monday we had a boy fall outside the clinic. We brought him in. Skinny as can be, probably about 12-13 yrs old. He was dehydrated, and said he hadn’t eaten in 3 days. We gave him IV and some food. He had come with another young girl and her 3 yr old sister.

We had some people visiting from a neighboring mission, and they found it in their heart to take the boy in temporarily. He said his dad had died in the earthquake and his mom had died of cholera. Bless these missionaries! They have great hearts. We warned them about getting it legal, about getting a family member to come sign; I encouraged them to wait till next week. They asked me if I believed him, and I told them the story is to set up. It’s not likely both parents die in tragedies like these.

(He was taken up to his home town today, and low and behold, both his parents were there. The mom had been really mad at him making up such a story. Apparently he’s having “bad habits” problems, which is why he’s so thin.

At 4 p.m., I took our doctor Jean Robert, Nick (a guy that’s here for a week) and a patient and we went to a hospital 3 miles down the road. We wanted to try doing an Ultrasound, though now I know that was just something God used to get us there.

While there, Nick (who had come with teams to volunteer at that hospital several times this year already) wondered over to the public patient area on the other side, which they had open to cholera patients. All the others left cause they don't want to be there with those patients. Judy and Susan, a couple of our visiting nurses were with us, (Judy has been helping both in St Marc with the cholera patients and in PP the week the team was there). They found two men dead from cholera, lying there, and 8 other patients, some with IVs, some not. They talked with the nurse and she showed them her supplies. She had no more LR left and only two 500 ml Sodium Cloride, very few gloves, the limited intracatheters of course, no alcohol, no bleach, and patients vomiting and having diarrhea all over and no buckets for them. It wasn't a pretty picture. We asked her if they really didn't have more stuff or just hadn't given her more. She didn't know, said "maybe" they have more, but that's all she had. By now it's past 5 and no doctors around. So we asked the nurse if it would be ok if we took some patients (the worst ones) to St Marc, and she said that would be no problem; in fact, she looked very relieved

So we took 3 kids, a 3 or 4 yr old boy who was vomiting a lot when we got there, and they weren't able to put an IV in again, but did seem a little more stable later but who's father was one of the two dead men lying there (they had come in together that morning), a teenage girl from that morning who lay barely conscious and very sunken eyes, and a 6-8 yr old girl from a local orphanage in Montrouis that looked like death, and went to St Marc. The sight there was INCREDIBLE! You can't imagine unless you're there. People everywhere. They've built these tarp over wood beams shelters on the lawn and everywhere. They're big. The "triage" where we ended up must have had 100 patients. They have narrow, 3 strips metal benches, maybe 6-8 rows and maybe 60-80 ft long and ALL head to toe with people on IVs. Strings across the room allow you to hang as many as you can. Total at the hospital they figured they had about 400 cholera patients, but I'm sure they didn't have all counted. The 3 we brought in were attended without registering. The leading doctor, from Spain, was very nice, and attentive, right there with the patients, and grateful we had brought them in and said they would turn no cholera patients away. He took one look at our little girl and there were about 4 people trying to get an IV in on each limb, and one putting in an NG tube because it seemed almost impossible. That girl was almost gone. They had to check the heart several times. I was impressed by all they were doing. We could see everyone was busy. They told us where to lay them (squeeze everyone closer!!) and soon Dr Carlos checked the little girl. She looked so bad, I can’t believe she made it, but she did, thanks to the many doctors that worked urgently on getting a vein to take fluids. Meanwhile, other patients’ family members would call us to check their family member’s IV. Because they want to get so much fluid into them, they have the IVs going fast, and so often run dry, and sometimes stop working. So for a long time, I went around, hanging new ones and a few times, starting new IVs. They were so grateful. I can still see both the patients and family members faces relax a little with each new IV bag that was hung. To them, this is life (and for many of them it literally is). (good place to practice IV starts, especially since they’re dehydrated!). Just truly an amazing sight!!! I’ve never seen so many critical patients in one area. At the same time, it can be cured and treated, and quite fast. You would see them bring a patient in that seemed lifeless and an hour later and a few IV solutions, their eyes have stopped the glassy looked and they look more relaxed and less scared.

We told the doctor about the hospital that didn’t have supplies and they ended up giving us 3 boxes of RL and other supplies to take to the hospital for the patients there (which was good because I felt bad leaving anyone behind; but it didn't help to find the nurse sleeping while IVs were dry)

We got home a little before 10 p.m.

Today was another busy day. The eventful thing was a 2 ¼ kg baby that came in (I can’t believe how many preemies have come lately!) This one was brought in by the aunt. Said her dad had died after being shot several months ago. The mom died 3 days ago; she had had a bad vision about the father coming to her as a zombie (real here in Haiti) and attacking and beating her. In the morning she got a fever and died that day. How do you deal with that? This is something they believe in. Anyway, I helped the aunt with some things, and hopefully she’ll come back in a week to see how the baby is.

Whew! These 2 days feel longer than two days!