great day

The thing that I have come to realize with disaster relief is that it's just that "relief"...usually preformed by groups that are not in for the long-term...and although very good and much needed the real trick appears to be in figuring out who does "the follow-up", the longer term stuff. Thus is where we are at (at least from what I have seen..) and the trick for the team (mainly Barbie) is finding people/groups willing to take on our clean-ups, follow-ups etc...and today Barbie was the holder of the magic horseshoe....!!!

Although most of our patients will need longer term physical and more importantly mental services we have a few patients for which time is more of the essence...my friend Emmaunual who is in need of intensive facial reconstruction; Wony, who is worrying us because his face seems to have become more "puffy" (please read about Wony on Beths blog on the Heartline website!) and we are wondering if he has had a recurrence of an infection or something else and Amanda, a poor young lady trapped under a building with extensive injuries, one of which has left her arm useless and very painful (anyone knowing a specialist in brachial plexus injuries please let me know!) Since many of the organizations we have partnered with are scaling down or don't have people coming to replace them we (Barbie and Jen) have been left to find people willing to take on these particular cases...and today as if almost sent from Heaven Barbie found surgeons willing to take on each of our urgent cases...and not just any surgeons but ones with specific expertise in the fields we needed (all except the Brachial plexus case, but she did find an anaesthesiologist specializing in pain management who put in an apparatus the will essentially allow us to "block" the pain for the time being!)
And to top it off they were all seen today (time is, I am finding a relative thing here in Haiti, kinda like Africa time!) AND...Emmanual and Wony are both going for surgery tomorrow!! I could have kissed Barbie when she told me..in fact I hugged her and was doing a little dance of joy in the "office"!!


Then to end the day Barbie and I (with the help of others..Hands On Brian,baby holder extraordinary!!) got our first under a week old IV...I just about got it and know what I did wrong for next time Jen!!) Not that we wanted to be starting an IV on a new baby but it had to be done...even took a picture! (need to get the card reader from Jessica) not sure if the baby needed that much tape but that puppy's not going anyplace!

Am off tomorrow, well sort of. Am going to take a trip out of the city towards the epi-center with the guys then will try and do more clean-up at the old surgical site at the women's center. Oh and guys the garden is starting to sprout...nice work!

Off to bed for an early start to my day off! 6am! ouch...What a great day!! Here's to follow-up following up on us!!

Love you all
Lise