Against all odds

I stayed up too late last night just talking to Rosite and Camille, as Rosite left this morning. They arrived on Thursday with a patient from Chicago. This patient received a severe spinal cord injury in the earthquake, and against odds of survival was flown to the US for treatment. Now 7 months after the quake, she had made it quite clear that despite continued low odds, she wanted to come home. Rosite, a Haitian nurse and Camille, a specialized nurse in spinal cord injury brought her back to Port au Prince. She will be in the hospital for just a few days longer-hopefully until her home can be prepared and family trained how to care for her. She has a lot more than rubble to manage for her survival. She has very little function and control from shoulders down. She will be dependent on family and friends for each and every need. Imagine that where you live. The resources that would be available to you. Most likely you would have a motorized wheelchair to get around. Ramps, no steps. Accessible buildings. You might even have a special bed.

Camille will be trying to locate a bed frame for this patient so the mattress the family set up can be taken off of the broken cinderblocks. It'd be scary to see a motorized w/chair try to get around the rubble, the sidewalk vendors, the traffic, the potholes, and dodging motorcycles and cars.

Rosite is a Haitian nurse that grew up in Haiti. She told us some of her stories- as a little girl she had a restivek for a play companion and they are friends to this day. She had 10 brothers and sisters and her father had 8 more children with his other 'wife'. Her father donated property for a hospital not far from Les Cayes that I hope to visit soon. She was here right after the earthquake for 2 weeks and returned again in June for a week. I look forward to her next trip to Haiti for sure. She is a delightful woman.

We had a fun weekend. Al, Deb, and I found a store that is like Target with a large variety of items and relatively inexpensive. I bought a few things for the guest house but mostly just looked. Later in the afternoon, I drove Deb and Al home to their apartment in Petion-ville and back home to the guest house. Jorel really enjoyed having a chauffeur instead of being the chauffeur and seemed so surprised that I could drive. I can manage to honk, pass and not hit anything as well as him. I will bow to him when it comes to knowing the city and the shortcuts! It felt good to be able to have this bit of freedom, a bit of control. Now I'll just have to work on getting a car!

Today was spent pretty much poolside, relaxing and listening to the thunder rumbling over the mountain. It looked like it we would have a raging storm but while there was the thunder and lightening, the rain was relatively light. We've had reports of 3 hurricanes but so far nothing is headed our direction.