The Haitian Experience

While driving in the back of a pickup under a metal cage going uphill along a cliff on a mud path in a thunderstorm:

Sherry: It's all part of the Haitian experience!

Me: What, dying?

Another long day in the clinic.  We saw about 500 patients today, I did blood sticks on about a quarter of them.  I have been so busy that I haven't even seen the rest of the clinic (a large room, divided by curtains, that is about the size of a very small gas station convenience store) and I didn't notice that the weather outside was turning bad.  Anyone that has been in the tropics knows that the weather can be very bipolar.  

This little guy didn't cry once

I am lucky as my station is right by the window with the breeze blowing in, but I was so busy that I couldn't spare a glance outside.   I had to do sticks on all pregnant women, kids between 6 months and 3 years, and people who have hypertension that are on meds.  A lot of people, but I would see more if it meant that I didn't have to see any babies.  These little guys are the worse because they are just too small to really give the amounts of blood that the machine needs to be able to do a proper reading.  They are also pretty dehydrated.  They also start screaming the second that the little needle pierces their skin, and that's the real problem.  I try to get the people that are standing around watching the spectacle to help out by holding them down, but they generally don't hold hard enough, and they also get bored and wander off or start to play with the baby.  Meanwhile, the baby will smear what little blood has come out all over the place with their screaming.  I have been trying to get the moms to breastfeed in order to keep them quiet, but that only helps a little.

Me and Judi drawing blood from a 87 year old

Anyway, while working on baby #5 the head of Mountaintop Ministries, Wilhem came running into the clinic and said that we had to get done and leave now.  I looked out the window as he was telling us that a thunderstorm was coming, and saw that he was right.  I finished up the draw that I was working on and started to clean up.  One of the nurse practitioners, Norma, stopped by and said that she absolutely needed am H&H and one last baby.  Wilhem was yelling that if we were going to leave, we had to leave now.  By this time, the clinic was empty except for me, my lab assistant Janet, the family and Norma.  I guess that the family had been waiting for several hours to be seen, and Norma needed an H&H to make a crucial decision in her treatment.  Fortunately, I was able to get blood on the kid (a one year old) pretty quickly and we threw it into the machine.  We cleaned up the lab, watching the storm blow in from the neighboring valley and threaten ours as the machine ran through it's agonizingly slow three minute cycle.  The test came back, negative, and we grabbed the iStat and ran out of the clinic to the waiting pickup.

My side job, treating scabies with Kim 2

We jumped in, watching as the clouds invaded our valley and everything turned to gray.  I asked Lynda, the trip leader, if maybe we shouldn't stay at the clinic and wait the storm out.  I told her that this would give us a chance to clean the place up, maybe come up with a few new protocols, but she wanted to head home.  Since her infant baby was riding in the front, I felt that she wouldn't have said that we should head out.

I had never seen anything like that fog coming in.  It was a black thunderstorm, and we were right in the middle of it.  It wasn't the rain that worried me, however.  It was the journey home.  You see, both the guesthouse where I am staying and the church are on the near tops of large hill-like mountains.  The roads go almost straight up the mountain, with few switchbacks that we are used to int he states.  As a result, it often feels like we are travelling at a 45 degree angle, and it's harder to say whether it is more terrifying to go uphill or downhill.  Plus, there is often a step drop on one side of the road.  So the reason that I was offering to sleep on the concrete floor of the clinic rather then brave the drive home was that the roads were of that really slick mud and rock that sends even the most sure-footed person on their ass.  Oh, and did I mention that the driver had to stick his head out the window just to see the outline of the road?

Obviously this story has a happy ending.  We got home okay and I was soaking wet from the rain.

Tomorrow I am going to switch stations and work with one of the NP.  This is going to be great as I will see patients and learn about their conditions and assist in their care.  I am sad to be giving up the lab, but I am also very excited to know that I am going to learn about their health problems and learn more about patient care in a developing country, as this is really what I want to learn long term.

Finally, a touching story.  When I was trying to get blood from a Haitian, I commented that "Haitians don't bleed."  My translator smiled at me and said "That's because they've bled enough."