Hi all. Sorry it's been a while. First of all, I am updating my blog subtitle because I've decided to shorten the length of my trip from 12 weeks to about 6 weeks. There are many reasons but mainly I think that a 3 month trip was just a little ambitious for me. My brain might be mush by the time I leave here. But I already know that I want to return to Haiti so hopefully that will happen in the future. Everything is still great here! Jeanne and I have changed our living arrangements and are now living up in Delmas with Michael, Nick, and Jonathan. We still plan on working with BP and MMRC whenever they need us, and we seem to have a pretty full schedule up until I leave on August 24th.
Last Saturday we went to a party at one of the IMC (International Medical Corps) houses in a neighborhood called Belvil. It was really nice, a little Miami-esque. It was nice to meet all the people there and a good time was had overall. We went to the UN beach on Sunday with some people from GRU...we rented a tap-tap for the day and it took us a couple hours to get there but it was nice to have some down time and to see the local beach. Tuwanda left Monday (it was a sad morning- we miss you!) and Jeanne and I went to a tent city near Cite Soleil called Jean-Marie Vincent to check on a little girl who had an unknown neurological disorder (we think it is cerebral palsy but need a doctor to check her out) and we checked out some of the pregnant women in the camp. This camp is struggling- as many of the camps are- and we are going to try and help the pregnant women get to the PID clinic which is relatively close to them and free.
On Tuesday MMRC received 2000 cases of Pedialyte. The NC Baptist Men came to the house and we loaded up their big truck with a bunch of cases. These guys are so nice and hardworking and it was great to see some fellow NC-ers (they can seem few and far between!). We also loaded up PID's tap-tap with Pedialyte and stored the rest at the house. As far as I know there is even more Pedialyte coming and it will be very helpful to a lot of the dehydrated and sick people here. Yesterday Jeanne and I went to the TB tents and drew labs on about 30 of the patients which took up most of the day- but we are getting a lot more efficient! We have pretty much mastered sticking most Haitians, who are thin and dehydrated. There was a newer patient yesterday who was heavier than the rest, and we couldn't find her veins...people in the US aren't going to be as easy to stick as Haitians!
Back to the tents today- drawing more labs as Dr.Coffee thinks she has found someone who will run CD4 counts on all of her HIV positive patients. Not exactly sure what the plan is for the rest of the week and weekend, but internet is more accessible at the new house which means I should be able to update more frequently!
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