* The roads and infrastructure in DR were amazing. I even saw a PARK....a park...with swings.
*Crossing the border was interesting. Anyone could get in. Saw the "neutral zone"...what a horrible place to be stuck in....neutral.
* Seeing the OB mission with patients.
* 1 Patient in there was a 4.9 Oz failure to thrive 7 week old who stole my heart.
* A lady s/p injury to her lower legs and arm from the earthquake.
* A man that Pastor Prophete insisted that he stay "Because he is a strong Christian and has no home". I love Pastor Prophete's heart.
* The first surgery ever done at the OB clinic. And later that pt. wanting to be, and accepting Christ as his savior, after talking with Betty Prophete.
* The next day watching Rose, Rod and Pablo treat an unresponsive child and drove to Jimani. Feeling limited.
*Watching Betty radiate joy as she provided almost nonstop food for people. She has the gift of hosting.
*Seeing the nurse midwives deliver a still born baby as I started an IV and the mother who couldn't look at the child. It was tiny and perfect....and dead. I was able to get the IV first stick, easing her pain. Praise God.
*Looking over a hillside in PaP saying "Wow -glad the Red Cross is here. And Rowlens pointing out how their tents were strategically placed along the route between the airport and palace....the only place the media was going. Meanwhile Sean Penn, an actor, has a massive hospital and tent camp established? I had never looked at the Red Cross in that light.
*Visiting the now collapsed palace and turning around and seeing a child bathe in the streets in front of the tent city. And right next to them a group from ?Korean Red Cross team spraying powerful insecticide into the same water the children were bathing in. I wondered where the President's tent was located.
Seeing the military outside the Genral Hosp. of Port Au Prince. Realizing this was real and this was a little scary. Feeling incredibly humbled at my inadequacy, yet honored that God thought I should be here to help. Thankful for the team he assembled that all had a heart for Haiti...ergo Project Haiti Heart.
* Seeing the school of nursing that collapsed nearby, killing 60 students and many instructors. Smelling the death, knowing their bodies had not been recovered.....and it was very close, way too close,(across the street) to the peds and nursery.It was scarier at night when rats were scurrying over it.
*Hearing Serge talk about a little girl in the peds ward with broken legs, surrounded by kids with amputated legs, fearing we would cut her legs off. She would lay there and yell "Please don't cut off my legs". Fearful of Serge, who was giving her morphine , that he would cut her legs off. No mental health support for the kids, no family present for the girl.
*Watching Serge take care of the tiniest babies and loving his passion for the Haitians. What a gift.
* Watching Alison feed babies, stumble over cords and love without complaint. She was a present for me from God.I was fuzzy on 2 hours of sleep. Serge had less than I did.
* A pick up pulls up w/ 4 policeman and a lady laying in the back. Her baby is born and not crying, wet. The nurse slowly picks up the lifeless baby and laid on the scale. Serge and I quickly warm it up w/ a disposable gown and stimulate it to breathe. I had just grabbed that pack of gowns out of my bag, and couldn't explain why......There were no towels to wipe the baby. I went and got some surgical gowns to dry more babies, as 4 moms were pushing, only to return to the staff wearing the gowns, not saving them for the babies....frustrated. The baby was fine and healthy.
*Mothers laying on the floor of the nursery, as the sewer/gutter drainage ran through, not knowing what Mom belonged to what baby....wishing for a universal breast or the ability to lactate myself.Trying hard not to step on moms. The OB tent was at the top of the incline and their body fluids flowed through the gutter of the nursery, then the peds tent and ended at the pediatric ortho tent. I don't understand why you would put the most body fluids at the top of the hill down to the open wounds of a child?
*A grandmother of newborn twins, whose mother was killed in the earthquake. Exhausted.
* Watching Rose and Traci work in the med-surg areas, never fatiguing, but totally exhausted.
* Rick shares his story of a marine watching his first death and his grief in the ER.
* A young man comes into the ER w/ a C6 fx from a food fight. His fate cannot be good.
* The ICU had no equipment and was almost like a weigh station into death. Watching a patient leaning against the wall gasping for breath and screaming to me....and having nothing to offer her. Unable to go comfort her.
*Entering the cracked hospital which had been evacuated for infant formula, which was under lock and key....and only 2 bottles left.
*Watching orderly lines form for food. Being totally amazed at how effective the churches were throughout. They knew their weak and needy and could slip food to them. If I am ever in a disaster- yet another reason to head to church!
*Driving by signs that said "We need food and water" with maps of how to get to them. What would you do?
* Bumping into the biggest marine with the biggest gun...I felt very safe , but unsure from what or who.
* Seeing my favorite people at the mission were safe and their families were spared as well. Praising God for their safety and saying "We lost everything, but it's only stuff."
* Pastor Prophete says that God is loving. Sometimes God uses the earth to speak to people.
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