.....well I obviously made it home

For anyone who was interested and read through the stories from my trip to Haiti, I could not find the email that ever said that I actually made it back to America.  Sooooo I figured I would recap just slightly on how things worked out in the end.

I did finally get a flight, which cost about $2500 because the only option was first class.  So the next day I went back to the airport, and was supposed to check in with delta airlines to get my flight for air-france.  When I went up to the counter they told me that "the flight didn't exist."  By this point I almost wanted to just start laughing because it was so ridiculous, but I remembered what I was told about how Haitians don't like to wait in line and if I wanted answers I should march right up to the counter.  So that's what I did, I skipped the lines and went right to the counter.....and they found my flight.  Mislabeled it or something, couldn't totally understand.  I was luckily able to land that flight back to Miami, and from there spent a night in the airport waiting for my next flight to Atlanta, and then from there finally back to Chicago.  It was a long flight, especially having not showered in quite some time, but being first class for part of it, and convincing them to give me business class for the rest, it made it endurable for sure.

When I finally made it back to Chicago, I was lucky to find out that the surgeons I was scheduled to work with for my rotation actually canceled surgeries that day, so I was safe.

I commenced a long discussion with JetBlue, trying to get them to refund the costs of me getting home.  At first they claimed they weren't responsible for "acts of God," however, when I explained to them that they told us at the airport it was a scheduling error.....well I got the same response lol.  Ultimately I started tweeting them (first use of twitter ever btw) and they responded pretty quick.  Guess they don't like people posting horror stories in the twitterverse that they cannot control.....so they ended up refunding the original flight, giving me some compensation to pay for the other flights, and a flight credit to use in the future.  So, pretty much all worked out in the end.

It was a great trip and I learned a lot.  Writing this so far away from it (8 months) it seems like forever ago.  But, if any of you are reading this now, just know that things are going well and I hope to go back to Haiti in the not so distant future.  Thanks for all your support.

-Aaron Tabor

Stuck in Haiti, January 4, 2014

Hello again everyone,

Well, sadly I did not make it out. Had a pretty terrible day here in Haiti. My flight was initially delayed due to weather in New York, but my connecting flight was 6 hours later so Jet Blue assured us that even with the delay we would be ok. Thus I didn't pursue any other flights out of Haiti. The plane landed from New York in Haiti at 2:30 pm.......at 3:30 one of the flight attendants walked by and asked if we were taking the plane to JFK, and when we said yes, he was like oh it's about to leave you better hurry ---- mass panic. Literally everyone rushed the gate. After an hour of standing now surrounded by angry screaming Haitians, Jet blue informs us that they cancelled the flight. Why?  Not because of the weather but because the flight crew worked too many hours and they could no longer continue -- they couldn't have told us that like 6 hours before?  Or when the flight left New York?  Clearly they knew how long the flight crew had been working. So, asked for a flight to Miami -- all flights are actually cancelled. Jet blue shut down. No other flight until.....wait for it........Thursday!  Where should I sleep you ask?  They said the airport. For 5 days. No food vouchers, no hotel, nothing. Their area is awful too cause you go through a separate extra security so once you're in, there's no bathroom no food nothing. You have to leave and redo all the security. So we were already a little cranky. Now you're telling me to sleep in the airport until Thursday????  And at this point the other airlines had nothing available either. Completely booked with no options. Jet blue remained adamant and said that if we wanted a flight, it was Thursday - take it or leave it. 

Now Bob and Rae had apparently put an alert on their phone for my flight, and when they found out it cancelled they emailed me.  At this point, out of the jet blue area I was able to pick up so,e free wifi and saw their email. They were incredibly gracious and came back to the airport and waited a couple hours as I tried to get a new flight. Eventually we just left and went back to their place. My parents were working back home to try to find anything sooner than Thursday (especially cause I start surgery on Monday, and they wouldn't take kindly to being late), and as soon as I got back to Bobs I started searching too.  After a couple hours we were able to get a crazy expensive flight to Miami and a couple hours after that found another crazy expensive flight to Chicago on Monday morning, arriving at midway at 9:30am (hopefully anyway). I just emailed my rotation coordinators and pleaded my case, and am really hoping that they realize I, doing the best I can -- even just paid $2,000 to get home. Ugh and so far Jet blue has said they won't do anything about it.  So far def the worst customer service I've ever dealt with. They told us at the airport that it had nothing to do with weather, just that they didn't schedule properly. But then later said they're not responsible for acts of God and that's why no vouchers or anything.  I'll be discussing with their customer service department for a while to come I'm sure. 

I was hoping to have a day to rest, unpack, shower (water is still out so been about 5 days), and prep for my new rotation.....which won't happen haha. I'll get back and immediately drive to Skokie to start surgery.  Hopefully they still let me start the rotation and don't kill my evaluations too bad for being "unprofessional" based on their standards.  Anyway, hopefully I actually make it back lol. Gonna be a long couple days here.  I'd ask for prayer that I make it back on time.....but that's already passed lol, so we'll just see what happens.  Thanks for reading. I'll let you know if I'm ever back in America. 

-Aaron

Haiti Day 6, January 1, 2014

Happy New Year!  

Today started off pretty slow.  It's Tuesday, and I guess that means it's their big free market day, so most people were there.  Also, tomorrow (New Years Day) also happens to be Haitian Independence Day, which is a big deal.  There is lots of pumpkin soup in store for me tomorrow from what I hear.  Apparently that's a big thing here in Haiti for Independence Day....so we shall see.  They aren't the big orange pumpkins we are used to, but these small greenish ones -- I've never had pumpkin soup....but I like pumpkin pie.....I'm excited to try it.  Anywho, between the big free market and the preparations for tomorrow (today at this point), people don't come to the hospital.  Sure, we have the ones who have been here receiving treatment, but the nurses pretty much had everything under control and everyone was stable.  So, I just kinda chilled out for a while....which was nice given the busy last few days I've had.  I decided to go for a run, as I haven't had a chance to really explore yet, and I'm feeling out of shape given that I don't exactly get to go to a gym every day here.  I guess Haiti means "the land of many mountains," and it's definitely the case.  You can tell you aren't in Illinois flat lands anymore haha, everywhere you look there's a mountain.  So I took off outside the complex down the rocky road, passing the concrete structures that are their homes and the truck trailer storage container things that they have converted into small shops.  Pretty much every building here is made of concrete....one cause it's stable but also cause it keeps everything at least a little bit cooler.  By a little bit, I mean it's still hot and muggy and you pretty much are just in a constant state of sweating.....considering all of you are reading this from Chicago that probably sounds good right about now compared to the probably like 0 degrees and snowing.....but after a few days, cooling off would be nice....after their whole lives they probably don't notice.  Anyway, I'm running down the road, with buses, trucks, pick-ups with 20 people in the back, and those crazy motor bikes with like 3 people on the back are flying down the road and zig-zagging around each other.  They say in America we drive on the right, in England they drive on the left, and in Haiti they drive wherever is the quickest -- literally, they just don't have any concept of a traffic laws....it's a sight to see.  So, I'm braving the dangers of getting run over and running down the street listening to the new Daughtry album (great to listen to English words haha), and it's definitely just absolutely beautiful.  I got to one point where there was a path going up the mountain, almost like a goat trail or something (and yes there are goats everywhere, along with dogs, donkeys, roosters, and chickens) and started to trek up that.  Got some pretty sweet pics that I'll send you when I'm back.  Just beautiful.  I wanted to keep going higher but at this point I realized that I was sweating a lot, had no water, and was starting to get tired....it had been about a 35 minute run at this point, and I still gotta run that distance back lol.  Tomorrow if I have time I'll try to run down the other way towards where they have the market set up.....I think it's still going on tomorrow or something.  

At dinner time (7ish) I was pretty much planning on just eating and then going to the 9:00 to midnight church service to ring in the new year.  I ran down to the hospital just to make sure all was quiet, and of course it wasn't.  There had just been a huge motor cycle accident and several pretty badly injured people.  The medical director saw me and was like "oh thank God, you're just in time."  He was planning on going home at this point as he had been there all day, so he was grateful to pass the baton to me.  He wrote the prescriptions for the patient's families to go and get the supplies I needed, and the nurses started prepping for me.  He was pretty much like, "you got this," and he left.  It's funny how at this point they pretty much trust me with whatever.  The nurses all were getting ready to stitch up this lady's leg and I walked over, looked at it, and told them that no, suturing wasn't necessary, we could just bandage it up as it wasn't deep enough for stitches (it was more like just chunks of the skin were out).  They were all like, oh ok, you're the doctor.  When the other doctor came in later and saw, she was relieved that I didn't stitch it.....so I guess I'm getting the hang of some of this.  That same lady had a nice laceration along side the inside of her bottom lip.  Now, I've worked with an oral surgeon before.....but I just suctioned blood as he did all the hard work.....but I realized as I started to clean this lady's lip that working inside of mouths is tough work....for one she kept yanking her head away every time I touched it.  Then the other doc recommended soaking the gauze I was cleaning with in Lidocaine first to get some topical numbing going on....that helped quite a bit.  I'll remember to do that next time.  The doc kept saying, "Aaron, you are a criminal, you're so mean!"  As she laughed cause all the patients in the room were in so much pain and there I was making everything momentarily worse by squirting betadine into their wounds.  I offered to let her take over, but she said she preferred that the patient's kept liking her for the moment.  Anyway, stitching up her lip proved to be just as difficult, and not until I was done, doing individual stitches as we do on most wounds, did the doc say that for mouth wounds a running stitch is just fine.  No biggie, just woulda made it about 5 minutes quicker for me.  Good to know as well for the future.  Another guy had a broken left arm with lots of surface wounds, so we pretty much just cleaned it, wrapped it with a ton of gauze, then some ace bandages, and put it in a splint.....pumped him with some fluids.  I'm still not sure what we are gonna do for him beyond that.  Can't exactly x-ray it to see how bad it is.....but it's clearly broken.....I think they may send him to the bigger hospital once he's more stabilized.  Right as we were finishing up all this, two more guys came in that had some sort of head on collision on their motor bikes.  The one guy was wearing a helmet and only had some cuts and abrasions on his hands and back.  The other guy had this huge spidering slice in the back of his head, along with multiple other wounds.  I looked at them both, pointed to the helmet, and gave the guy who had it a thumbs up.  He smiled, and the other guy just shook his head.  Sounded it like it was the helmet dudes fault that the accident happened, and he felt pretty bad....I think he paid for the other guy's supplies too.  I helped as Dr. Josef stitched up his head as it took quite a bit to hold him down and keep the wound closed as she was stitching.  He was howling and screaming the whole time.....and I felt bad for him cause he did have like a 4 inch slice in the back of his head.  I laughed then when I started cleaning his ankle and back (minor abrasions) and he screamed just as much.  I was like, "dude, I just fixed a hole in your head, seriously this can't be that bad!"  All the nurses were laughing at this point cause it def seemed out of proportion to his prior injury.  By the time we finished fixing up all the injured people from the accidents, I looked at my watch and it was 12:03 -- gotta say, what a great way to bring in the New Year though....fixing up people, arms deep into the blood and guts (slight exaggeration haha)....I was sad that I missed the service, but this was obviously more important.  

Dr. Josef asked if I had decided to just stay in Haiti, and I told her that no I have to leave on Friday back to Port-au-Prince -- to which she said she was very sad....I have become their friend and they like having me there to help.  She wanted to know if I would ever return, and I told her yes, I hope and plan to, potentially with others as well.  She was very happy about that.  It is pretty cool to see how everyone reacts to me now when I'm down in the hospital.  A few times some patients have needed stuff and she told me to just write the prescriptions....when the nurses looked at them they were like, who is this?  She told them, oh it's Dr. Aaron....and they all smile and go fill the prescription.  Now when there's emergencies and I'm there, like tonight, they almost defer to having me fix things up and they start prepping to assist me.  They are usually pretty quick to start the IVs, so I haven't gotten a lot of practice with that....but that's okay, I can't do it all.  Today, one of the guys that mans the front door (almost like a security guard) asked what my cell phone number was so he could call me if there was an emergency.  I told him that my phone only worked in America, so it wouldn't work.....just come upstairs and find me if he needed me.  I'm definitely still learning a ton, and each time I've fixed someone up I realize a way that I could have done it better, made that stitch a little straighter, a way to do it quicker, make it less painful, etc.  But then I think about how I've watched some of the nurses stitch people up, and they don't think too much about scars haha, they just want to get em stitched up and on their way quick so they can help the next bleeding person.  Today, when I was stitching the lady's lip, she kept pulling away and screaming how much it hurt.  I pointed to my lip, where there resides a scar from when I split it open.  I was only 2 years old at the time, and I ran into the corner of a dresser.....tore that thing to as many shredded pieces as you could imagine.  They say you remember the most traumatic things in life....and I definitely can account for everything that happened that evening as the ER people said they couldn't help me, and then called in a plastic surgeon who strapped me to a table and started his work.  Now, luckily this cut was on the inside of her mouth, and it wasn't as ugly to where a plastic surgeon was needed as far as rebuilding the muscles as well.....but it got the point across to her that I understood that it hurt, and that I would do my best to fix her up quick and as painless as possible.  After I showed her, it def calmed her down a bit.  

We'll see what tomorrow holds.  In general, should be another quiet day in the hospital as most people will be celebrating the new year and Haitian independence....eating all of their pumpkin soup -- I hear people sometimes get sick from eating too much, so maybe I'll be treating some stomach aches haha.  But, I'm sure there will be some motor bike accidents and the need to fix some more people up.  Usually they come in towards the end of the night, cause as I've said they drive absolutely crazy here....and in the dark, with no helmets, it's just a disaster for their heads.  I did a quick neuro check on the one guy and it didn't seem like he had any crazy symptoms, but who knows if he had a concussion....I can't imagine how he wouldn't given how hard he must have flown off that bike.  Maybe I'll get a chance to check out the market, we'll see.  I probably will sleep a bit after breakfast (they seriously don't eat without me, so I have to make sure I'm on time for meals....I felt bad when I didn't show up for dinner the other day and they waited the 2 hours until I got there to eat with me....sure I was fixing people in the ER, but I was like, oh please just eat without me...) and try to rest up for the likely long night ahead of me again.  Not sure how long I'll be at the children's home on Thursday, but I'm guessing if there are accidents in the ER I'll be there again Thursday night.  Oh, btw, the pregnant woman from yesterday....not entirely sure what happened with her....when I got down there this morning she was gone.....I think that they transferred her to the bigger hospital because they thought it was going to be a complicated birth, so still no Haitian babies at this point.  We'll see if one comes in the next two days, otherwise I'll have to wait to get my experience with that part of medicine in the third world until another time (which I'm okay with, I think I could def use some more experience first).  

In thinking about the potential to come back here and help out again in the hospital, I'm trying to think of ways that I could serve needs specifically, so that leads into my prayer requests.

Prayer:

- That God would lead me to more specific ways that I could be of service to the people in this area in regards to medical needs that are not currently being met.  I think I mentioned but like a doctor is coming in next few months to run an ear clinic for them.....so something that they don't get everyday that would be of use.  I'm definitely a big help in their ER, mostly at nights, so maybe something a little more specific that I could do for them during the day so that I'm not just running around trying to see if I can help, sometimes having nothing to do for a few hours.  Maybe part of it is that I'm used to never sitting still, so when I have even 2 hours of down time, I'm like itching to go do something -- they are all like, oh good you get to relax for a bit -- I'm like AHHHHHH!!!!!! So, yeah, anyway, I think it would be good for future trips to have more of a set schedule anyway.....maybe something along the lines of traveling out to the areas where people may not be able to come down and get help at the hospital.  I tried to ask Minel a bit about it this morning....about villages maybe that don't have their medical needs reached, I'm not sure he entirely got my question, but I know that Bob and Rae had mentioned some villages that are only visited every once in a while, so that may be something to look into. 

- Today, just about as soon as I got down to help in the ER, I had the nastiest migraine strike me.  I took some Excedrin, but that has done next to nothing and I'm still in a decent amount of pain and pretty nauseous....but hey, God is good and he helped me push through, so thanks for your prayers -- they're helping me have the strength to keep going through it.   

- Pray for all of the people that I'm treating.  I'm doing the best that I can with the situations presented to me, and we are so very limited with what we can do for them.  I trust that we are doing the best possible and without our help, they would have no one, so that is at least a little comforting.  Either way, pray for their recovery. Everyone here is pretty dirty with the conditions they live in, so I can only imagine the infections they are likely to get, even with how aggressively I clean their wounds.

Thanks again for reading and for your continued prayers and support.  I hope you had a great time celebrating into the New Year!  Can't wait to see what God does in 2014 with my medical mission work.....but kick starting it still working in Haiti is a great way to do it!

-Aaron Tabor

Haiti Day 9, January 3, 2014

Hey everyone,

I just sent you yesterday's email......semi incomplete, but the internet ran out of money at the Hospital so I couldnt finish it.  The update portion was mostly done though. 

Anyway here I am in Port-au-Prince now staying with Bob and Rae until my flight departs tomorrow at 11. They have wifi too.....man that's nice haha.  No sooner had I finished that email yesterday and lost internet then someone dropped off a cards the kids made me that they all signed. It was pretty awesome, so I guess they answered the question of whether or not I affected them :)

After finishing up at the children's home, I pretty much packed, relaxed, and slept to be on the early road to the Capitol.  If I thought the road was crazy going there.....try driving in an "ambulance" driven by a crazy, very brave (stupid? Insane?) Haitian guy. I know I said they drive wherever.....but throw an ambulance siren on a car and you just hope for the best. Few times we were just cruising right at oncoming traffic in their lane, and waited till they swerved last second -- the ultimate, ongoing game of chicken. Thankfully we did win and I'm alive lol.  We were also crammed, the three of us, in the front seat (basically like a small pick up). 

Bob and Rae gave me a tour of the Salvation Army base in the Capitol and then a tour of the area in Port-au-Prince. We then drove up the mountain to get a great view of the area, and I'll send you a bunch of photos later -- actually might just start like a blog or something like that to post pics on....we shall see. I hate blogging, but it's basically what I'm doing with y'all lol. Anyway, just amazing views and really cool to see the whole city from above. Bout 3 million people crammed into the city and "suburbs," and Port-au-Prince was built for 40,000 with 1 million residing -- so it's crammed, very dirty, and pretty much like Chicago lol. Really is as far as any city goes (minus the sky scrapers I guess).....it's hard to describe, but go to lower wacker and you'll get an idea maybe slightly. We went to a couple other places in the area, including their "zoo" -- basically a goat, rabbits, snakes, cages where the monkeys were (they died), the dead alligators cage too, and a mangy looking peacock. This was all on the mountain btw.  Also a little museum with Haitian history that was cool to see. We grabbed a bite at a restaurant, stopped at the market (looks like a super walmart), and headed back where I'm chilling out at their home. Really nice place. Salvation Army pays for their house and car, and then gives them like a $140 food allowance per week. Not bad for missionaries I guess. It's nice and big so they can house guests (like me).  

Anyway, shorter update today -- just sight seeing and relaxing before I head back....and I'm typing on iPad, which is much slower and limiting lol. Don't all applaud at once. Thanks so much for reading my updates and supporting me during this trip. Without you all, none of this happened.  I can't wait to come back and continue to gain the experiences in other cultures I need to serve the people around the world. I head back to Chicago to start my 8 week surgery rotation, which will be busy. My last few prayer requests:

- that God will continue to bless my efforts in growing support for medical missions. Including financial, supplies, partners, etc
- that God would bless all those in Haiti that I touched and that he would continue to heal them
- that I stay healthy!
- that I muster up the strength and determination to keep pushing through medical school so I can even more effectively help others. Med school is tough and I don't like it, but trips like these remind me of why I have to keep going and learning. 
- especially on surgery, pray for me and my 3 partners on rotation (Mike, Christina, and Kainat) as we push through the next brutal 8 weeks. Surgery is one of the tougher ones with long hours (at hospital by 4:30am and out late, sometimes 7-8pm) and the docs aren't as forgiving. Pray that we learn fast, function as a team, and perform well. 
- PRAY I RETURN ON TIME TOMORROW EVENING!!!!!!

Sorry if there are typos, autocorrect is crazy sometimes.  Thanks again.  May The Lord bless and keep you all, restoring unto each of you many fold the blessings and support you have give to me.  I will let you know the progress of tomorrow's return. 

Humbled and blessed,
Aaron

Haiti Day 8, January 2, 2014

Greetings again!  

This may be the last chance I have to write you as tomorrow morning I head back to the capitol at 6am and will be staying with the Americans, Bob and Rae, for the day until Saturday when they take me to the airport for my flight at 11am.  I fly from Port-au-Prince into JFK airport in New York, and from there to O'hare in Chicago.  Hopefully all the snow has already come and between flying to New York and Chicago I make it on time!  I may have access to internet at Bob's house, and if so I'll update on what happens tomorrow, but just in case, wanted to let you know the flight info.  I return back in Chicago (all things going as planned of course) at 11pm Chicago time.  

Today I went to the Salvation Army Bethany Children's home to do wellness checks for the kids.  There are 36 kids that reside there with the Major who takes care of them, ranging in age from 6 years to I think 17-18 if I remember the birth days correctly.  Before I saw each kid I was given the folder that contained all of the information that the Salvation Army has on them.  Talk about heart breaking.....some of the kids did have a packet full, with their birth certificates, information about parents and family, where they're from, IDs, etc.  Others.....nothing, other than a note that said "found after earthquake, parents assumed dead."  No clue what their date of birth is, where they are from, who their parents are....nothing.  Just their name.  So for each child I read through the extent that anyone really knows about their lives....most of them orphaned, a few of them having parents but the families being too poor to care for them brought them here.  I wanted to take pictures of all of them to show you, but I was extremely pressed for time with 36 exams to do in one day, so I was only able to snap a photo of one 6 yr old girl.....I thought about putting her in my suit case and bringing her home....but I feel that would not be allowed.  Her name escapes me as it was a spelling and name I didn't recognize, but her middle name I believe was Rose, and her first name started with a C if I remember right (with 36 new names to learn they got jumbled...) -- so we will call her Rose for now.  Anyway, I did not sneak her back, but if I was allowed to adopt one (or gotten one for my sis) she would have been the one.  She was very shy and simply smiled the whole time.  Most of the wellness checks were very simple....I took their blood pressures (providing they weren't too small....I only had an adult cuff....good to know I need a child one now), listened to heart/lungs/stomach, checked their ears, nose, throat, examined their skin for cuts/abrasions/bug bites/etc (and if they had any, I cleaned and bandaged them, put cortisone on the bites)....basically a typical physical exam.  And of course....reflexes.  Not because checking their reflexes really would mean anything as I couldn't follow up if it was something serious neurologically, but because I remember laughing when I was a kid every time the doc hit me with that hammer thing....and sure enough, they all just laughed and looked entirely surprised when I hit their knees/ankles/elbows and their limb went flying.  The Major asked why I was doing it....I said "oh, it helps me check that they are neurologically intact...."  Kind of true, but more just cause it was fun lol.  Most of the kids are remarkably healthy, but that's probably because the Salvation Army orphanage does take remarkable care of them.  Many of the files noted how underweight and malnutritioned they were when they were found, but now they were up to a good weight (from what I could eye out) and they all looked rather healthy.  The Major asked if I would please document everything I found, so I wrote just a basic little note with whatever their complaint was, my basic findings (listed their BPs, that the ear/nose/throat was non-erythematous, tympanic membranes clear, if the ears were compacted with wax and weather or not I could clean it depending on how small the canals were, if I cleaned and bandaged any wounds, etc -- just the basics).  For some of them, it was the only other thing in their file other than the admission note to the home.  I guess that felt good, giving them some documentation that someone in the world spent time to write down something about them.  Really, I didn't contribute a whole lot to their health.....one girl was tested and found anemic back in 2007, and she still has pretty severe fatigue....she didn't look anemic necessarily at the moment, but I recommended if it worsened to take her to the hospital.  Another boy had BP of 140s/90s, so I recommended that they keep an eye on it.  Many of the kids complained of having headaches, so I advised that they drink lots of water and if they have access to Tylenol to take that (I should have brought some down to leave with them....).  But I think it was worth it just from the angle of giving these kids the 10-15 minutes that I spent with each of them, letting them know that someone thought they were worth the time.  I know they were initially very scared cause when they heard the "American Doctor" was coming they all thought I was coming to give them shots haha.  They were quite relieved to find out differently.  So, I dunno, I know the Major was very thankful, and she expressed it, I'm not sure if it made much of a difference in the kids' lives at this point, but who knows.....I guess it impacted me, and that's something.  Pray for them for sure.

I spent about 8 hours there, with most of it pretty much seeing the kids.  They did make me lunch, and brought out some chicken legs, cooked carrots, and french fries -- and kept bringing me sprite and water all during the day.  I almost felt bad eating it cause I was like, um do the kids need food?  But I know they are well taken care of there, and they will definitely not starve in the Salvation Army's hands.  The Major was able to translate for me btw, in case you're wondering how I talked to them.  A couple of the kids spoke a few words of English, and they were happy to say "hello," "I am fine," "Thank you," and so one.  Otherwise I pretty much just asked if they had any pain, any cuts/rashes/bites, any thing they wanted help with -- aside from headaches, some cuts, some bites, and a few other minor things, they all reported they felt fine.....so I just did the basic check-up, wrote a note on them, and sent them on their way.  I was able to leave a couple hundred band-aids with a thing of neosporin and cortisone, along with some applicators and some cleansing wipes to clean wounds.  I instructed the major to clean any cuts, use the neosporin and place a band-aid, and use the cortisone for any bug bites that aren't healing.  She was grateful, though I wish I had more.  

I am glad I brought the supplies down that I did.  Thanks to those of you who donated, everything was very much needed....especially all the gauze/wound care stuff I had -- gloves especially cause theirs didn't fit me lol.  I am going to leave the remaining gauze (lots of it), gloves, sterile gloves, tape, stethoscopes, band-aids, masks, alcohol swabs, ace bandages, IV tubing, etc down here for the hospital staff to use as they need it.  But really glad I had it all here with me cause there were many times in the ER that as we were waiting for people to go buy their supplies I was able to at least stop some bleeding and clean wounds with the gauze and supplies that I had.  

There were only a couple of patients here with Cholera....seems like they have a much better handle on that now.  The government has some programs to help them with clean water from wells, and most people are pretty good about buying bottled or 5 gallon Culligan filtered water.  Some people still get Cholera though, so they have a separate part of the hospital where they keep them.  Basically, it's a cot where the patient lies, with a small hole cut around their butt with a bucket underneath to collect the pretty much constant flow out of them.  So they lie there, draining fluids and we pump them full of fluids via IV and force them to drink water/gatorade type drinks constantly.  Aaaaaaand they wait it out.  We wash our hands with bleach -- only thing that really kills it I guess, hand sanitizer does nothing) -- and yeah, that's about it.  But I only saw two people with it.  As far as TB, I didn't really see anyone in the TB ward this time around....they have a couple nurses who administer the drugs to the TB ward patients, who live there for about 6 months -- but most of them were already there and receiving their treatment.  We did have the one patient with peritoneal TB that we drained, but that was in the main hospital and she didn't have any respiratory problems.  

Haiti Day 7, January 1, 2014

Hello again from Haiti!

Today makes 7 days that I've been here now and I'm looking forward to a little bit of cold weather to cool me down when I return.  I hear we got lots of snow....so, I'm glad that it's all pouring in now and hopefully Saturday I will have easy travels.

Today, being the first day of the year and Haitian Independence Day = a very slow day in the hospital.  This morning Dr. Josef called me down to see two patients, one who had fluid overloading her lungs and another guy who had a heart attack.  The woman's lungs sounded awful and we started treatment with some diuretics and heart medications for her as we assumed she had some level of heart failure (not like we could do an echo to confirm, so we make the best guest and treat).  The guy I guess came in grabbing the left side of his chest screaming in pain, sweating, and his extremities were cool to the touch.  They were able to initiate treatment pretty much the same way we do in the US, and they did get an ECG that was back by the time I got down there....which confirmed an MI.  The Salvation Army Hospital does have some pretty high tech stuff all things considered, like being able to do an ECG, run some basic blood labs (CBC and all....think I mentioned this in the past maybe), they can do a CD4 count check for the HIV patients.....no X-ray machine that I'm aware of, but that would be handy.  Either way, we can only do what people can pay for, so that's always limiting.  But, we got the ECG, confirmed an MI, and started treatment for him.  Other than that, the hospital was pretty empty throughout the day. 

We did eat pumpkin soup for breakfast.....and maybe I would have enjoyed it more if it wasn't eaten in the morning.  It was ok, not my new favorite dish or anything.  Partially because there was lots of stuff in it that I couldn't tell what it was......some sort of skin and lots of fat -- they pretty much eat everything, half the time I'm afraid they are going to break their teeth as they crunch through the ends of the chicken bones trying to get the last bit off it.  Anyway, I ate it and tried my best to seem like I really enjoyed it....but again, I think it probably was partially cause it was like 9am lol.  That's one thing I haven't gotten used to is that they eat some meals for breakfast I wouldn't expect.  One day, Deniese asked if I liked spaghetti, to which I said of course.....I wasn't entirely prepared for spaghetti the next morning for breakfast haha.  Once you start chowing down you kinda forget how early it is.  They eat a lot of porridge for dinner too.....so, flipped a bit for me lol.  We've had spaghetti a few times for breakfast now, and though I probably won't make it for my breakfast when I'm home, I am no longer surprised when I see it :)

In the afternoon, since we had a good amount of time, Minel asked if I'd like a tour of Fond-des-Negres beyond what I see off the main road.  The place is lot bigger than I thought it was, but given that he told me the town has about 30,000 people I guess I should have expected lots of hidden homes.  Once we started trekking through the trees it was pretty cool to see where everyone lives.  Some of the homes more luxurious than others, and the really nice ones are typically owned by people who travel back and forth -- lots of people from France have homes here I guess, or people have family members who live in America and build nicer homes for the family still in Haiti.  Deniese's family all lives within walking distance, as she grew up here.  So Minel took me over there and I met Deniese's mother.  His father is 102 years old, but lives a couple hours away.  Minel also was telling me how he bought a bunch of land back in the day and now it's 9x the price as back then, but from what he was telling me it's still not very expensive in our terms (like thousands only in American dollars for some plots).  Anyway, he bought a bunch of land back in the day and built a really really nice home with a private well and indoor plumbing.  The whole house is solid cement with tile flooring, nice wood doors.  There's a Filipino nurse who is living there now who is doing a 3 year mission term with the hospital (since Minel and his family live at the Hospital in the apartment where I'm staying).  There was another large home that was in the process of being built, some French doctor who started to build it when he came down to help after the earthquake, but I guess he moved back to France and just the massive foundation is left.  But nice to know that if we ever wanted to establish like a base in Haiti, it wouldn't be terribly expensive to build something down there -- could be a way to help support the area too, you know build like a complex and staff locals to take care of it, grow food and all.  Who knows, just thinking aloud here. 

So, not a lot of clinical awesomeness today.....I checked in the ER a little while back and there were no accidents, but that's a good thing I reminded myself.  They have been asking if I plan to come back, which I told them that it is my long term goal to regularly do trips to Haiti and around the world, and I would love to come back and work and learn in their hospital again.  I said there are others that want to come to, and they said I am always welcome, and they'd love to have friends.  Minel said, "if you came here every two months, that would be okay with us."  Nice to know I always have a place in Haiti if I need it now.  I think that for future trips this would be a great place to come back and work, especially with the ER situations and helping with all of the accidents.  For the day-time stuff I would need to think of a service that we could offer them that is beyond what they already have.  It's been nice to help the docs and learn, but with a group of people that wouldn't work so well.  I know there is an ENT doc who is coming to set up a clinic to do ear checks and such, as that's not a normal service for them, so if we could think of something along those lines, that might be a great way to help them in a better way.  I need to think on it more, and if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.  I think if I learned some Creole I could operate a little more within their structure, but at this moment in time I just don't know enough to converse with people and discuss their medical needs.  Either way, I'd like to help them in a way that is not currently being offered......and the ER experiences are always great for us and very helpful for them as they get easily overwhelmed sometimes with the number of accidents.  

Well, there you go, I've managed to turn this into a long e-mail again :)

Prayer: 

- I'm feeling better today, less of a migraine, so thanks for the prayers on that.

- Heading to the children's home tomorrow to do some basic well checks on the kids.  I don't know exactly what they're hoping I'll do for the kids, but check em, make sure everything is as good as it can be, maybe bandage some minor wounds, clean some ears, stuff like that.  Walk em to the hospital need be, though I bet they'd be here already if it was anything serious.  But, pray I'm some sort of a blessing to those kids and the staff that runs the home

- Pray that God gives me some ideas to how I can better serve the people of Haiti in the future.  For now I'm content knowing that I am getting experience working in a foreign country, as that's most important.  Minel was telling me how he's been to many different countries and that getting the experience of traveling and working in different places is crucial.  He said even just basic things like getting used to the food and the customs, it's important to know how to quickly adapt.  He thanked me for being so great about everything and eating things that he knows I probably didn't enjoy, which made me chuckle a bit.  He said they've had some people come in that complain a lot about things and don't eat the food, so he said he appreciated it....which I'm like sheesh thanks for feeding me free food and giving me a free place to stay lol.  

- So, continue to pray a special blessing on Minel and his family here, and the hospital staff -- they're all truly amazing people who have been very accepting of me and wonderful teachers

Thanks again for reading and as always, thanks for all your prayers and support.  Tomorrow is last day of doing medicine here in Haiti, so hoping that I can be effective and make some sort of change in their lives.  Until tomorrow....

-Aaron Tabor

Haiti Day 5, December 30, 2013

Hello again everyone, 

Made it to day 5!  Time is moving right along down here....and it's still hot if you're wondering.  I'm probably going to freeze entirely when I return to Chicago as it's going to be like a 90 degree drop....though it might feel nice too, never really a chance to cool down here (though the showers are ice cold.....).  The beginning of the day was pretty slow for me.  I went down to the hospital and as they said, it was jam-packed.  All the people who didn't come over the weekend for various reasons all showed up Monday morning.  It was literally overflowing with people.  In this case I wasn't able to do much as the doctor who I normally work with was off visiting her family for the day and the remainder of the doctors don't speak much English.  In general, when the patients come in for their well checks, follow up visits, etc. the system is very tightly run and I can't exactly just go all cowboy on them (in the ER a little....).  They document everything and really only provide the level of care that the patients can afford to pay, so it's limiting and doesn't allow me to do much in these cases.  Considering I was feeling pretty sick anyway, I returned to my room and slept for a good portion of the morning.  I would periodically go down to check if there was anything going on in the ER, and if there wasn't, I would return back upstairs and rest a bit more.  My cough has turned into this lingering nagging cough that just is always there and is super annoying, but not really doing anything....other than annoying me and everyone else.  I really miss those cough drops about now haha.  But this morning as well I was a little light headed and just felt like crap overall, so the nap did me some good.  When I checked in downstairs around 4ish I saw a couple of patients with the medical director.  One 27 yr old woman post-partum day 5 who had some pretty severe swelling in her legs....her bp was elevated and we gave her a prescription to get an ECG done and decided we would go from there tomorrow.  We discussed all the possible things that could be going wrong, but are limited again to providing the tests that she can pay for.  I guess it's not like in America where if someone can't pay you just do it and the costs get eaten up by something else (really expensive orange juice for instance).....here, there's no one and nothing to eat up those costs, so if they can't pay for it they simply don't get it done.  So, we'll see what the ECG shows tomorrow and if she can afford more lab tests we can order them.  If not, I guess we send her on her way and hope for the best.  Couple other patients had come into the ER....a small child with burn wounds over the lower back, buttocks, and upper thighs -- they said something about the weather burning him, but it looked more like hot liquid was spilled....so not sure.  I let the nurses take care of him as I attended to a guy with a nice 3-4 inch laceration on the bottom of his foot.  After yesterday I'm confident in repairing these wounds and the medical director was thrilled that he could leave me to it.  The nurse prepped the "sterile" field for me and I started to try and numb this guy up.  Now sure, I'm jabbing a nice inch long needle into your open wound, but after yesterday and fixing up all those motor bike accidents, I guess I got used to the tough guy patients.  Maybe cause yesterday they were all in the room together and no one wanted to show any pain to their friends, but they all just sat there quietly as I jabbed them with lidocaine and then stitched them up.  This guy was howling and screaming like crazy and I could barely numb him up.  I guess the bottom of the foot is sensitive.....either way, it made it rather difficult.  At one point I injected into the wound to give him some more lidocaine and he jerked his foot away right as I started to push -- resulting in a nice face-full of lidocaine and whatever else squirting out of his wound.  Luckily I closed my eyes pretty quick and didn't get any into them, but needless to say as soon as I was finished stitching the guy up I went upstairs, wiped my face down with anti-bacterial wipes, and flushed my eyes out with saline.  Now, stitching the bottom of a foot is a lot tougher than a knee, arm, face, or even head.  Especially around here where everyone is barefoot most of the time, the bottoms of their feet are like leather.  I had a nice big needle but the thing was nearly bending in half as I was trying to push it through each side of the laceration.  I'm sure this contributed to his pain, as I was extremely forceful.....and after the first stitch he was yelling at me so loudly the medical director came back into the room.  He smiled and told the guy "it's okay to cry," smiled at me and walked out.  I proceeded with the next two stitches, and yeah, he was crying by this point.  The nurses were all saying something to him, I think making jokes about he was over-reacting.  I had one more stitch to put in and he was insisting that I just stop and he would leave as is.  I tried to put more lidocaine in but again, he kept pulling away.  So, I handed the stuff to the nurse, latched onto his leg, and held him down as she injected and did the final stitch for me.  In the end it looked pretty nice and I think it will heal well anyway.  The lady that I wrote about yesterday, with the really low blood sugar, she came back in today and I guess the doctors think she might have appendicitis....and I have no clue what they are thinking about doing.  From what I saw they gave her IV fluids and were just waiting -- not like we really can do much here at this hospital, so she may be transferred out if she can afford it.  

At this point Dr. Josef returned and we went and admitted a pregnant lady at 39 or so weeks...she looked ready to give birth at that moment.  But she hasn't yet, she's still down there screaming a lot, so we'll see if sometime tonight she delivers.  Hopefully they remember to let me know if she does cause that would be interesting to see how they do it here.  Obviously no epidural or any other kind of pain med.  I took a picture of the OB/GYN room to send to you later....it literally looks like a dungeon torture chamber.  I tried to listen to the fetal heart tones, and the doc swore she could hear them with the metal cone thingy....but I couldn't hear anything.  It's also very noisy in there in general, but even if it wasn't, I think I would need superman's hearing.....she said with practice I would learn to hear it.  We'll see.  We also went and saw a guy who had tetanus and we discussed what the treatment should be.  I guess her and the medical director were having a disagreement on it.  Luckily, some of the medical apps still work on my phone even without internet or service, so I was able to pull up some data that had clinical studies cited with the best treatment options.  We'll see if it helps.  I think they were trying to get the anti-tetanus immunoglobulin to give him but they don't have it here or something....it was a little confusing.  Either way, the guy is writhing in pain in an isolation room (basically a very small room, enough for just the bed) as his body is twisted and contorted by the toxin.  I read that tetanus causes hyper-reflexia, and I kinda wanted to go in and check, but since they already knew he had it (I guess it was immediately obvious), it didn't seem like a great idea to go and torture the guy more, so I resisted my temptation.  

So, at this point I'm just waiting to see if a baby comes out at any point tonight and if anyone comes into the ER for any other reason I'll help em out.  But otherwise, should be a rather quiet, very muggy hot night.  

Prayer:

- My health still....it would be nice if this cough would clear up for sure, but at this point just that I can push through it and make it to the end of the week without coughing up my lung....or my spleen for that matter.  I think with the little rest I had today that overall I'm feeling better....I'm no longer light headed or anything.  Excedrin is helping the headaches along with the Amlodipine I take daily now to knock them out.  Haven't needed to use the Imitrex injections yet, so that's been nice cause that really incapacitates you.  

- Amazingly I haven't gotten sick in any other way.  No diarrhea or nausea or vomiting -- I attribute this largely to the fact that they cook the food here so well and make sure that it's extra safe for me to eat.  Also, the water is all bottled so no risk there.  Even if I use the faucet water to wash my hands, I still usually use hand sanitizer afterwards just to be safe.  

- 2 more days of working in the hospital, so just pray that I continue to be effective in that matter and that I'm a blessing to the staff and doctors here.  The nurses and staff all keep trying to talk to me and laugh a lot about my responses -- I still know very few words as their accents are hard to hear so even when they try to tell me a word it's hard to really grasp what it is.  I keep wishing that my iphone worked so I could google it, read it, and connect it better.  If I had just a basic understanding of the language it would help a lot -- something to put on my list to work on in the future.  I know I suck at languages, and that hasn't changed yet.  When talking with Dr. Josef it's helped that she speaks Spanish too, cause sometimes if we can't communicate it in English we just speak Spanish.  Now my Spanish is pretty terrible as well, but I realize how much I actually do know, especially in comparison to Creole, so Spanglish is really working with her anyway.  Some of the staff think they know a little English, so they'll try to talk to me, but they are still speaking Creole and not realizing they aren't actually speaking English....then they laugh as they realize it and throw me a word or two in English.  Everyone wants to know how many brothers and sisters I have, if my parents are alive, if I'm married, where I'm from in the US, stuff like that.  So one or two words in English and we can usually get some stuff across.  Anyway, I'm not going to magically learn Creole, but I've been effective enough as is and we've had some fun at my expense, so pray that the last two days here at the hospital are just as good.  

- As I mentioned, Thursday I will plan to go to the children's home, so just be praying for the kids and that I'll be able to help them

- Prayer that everything works out with me getting home on time wouldn't hurt.....my return is going to be tight as I'm traveling back leaving here Saturday 11am and returning to Chicago 11pm -- gives me one day to rest up and start my surgery rotation at 4:30am on Monday.  So, not much room for error like a missed flight or anything.  Coming here, everything was great -- arrived on time, all my bags came (what!?), so going back it'd be great if it was the same.

- I'm hoping that this experience really helps kick start global health at Rush and my future organization and everything.  In the immediate future, sometime in January, I'm going to meeting with the community service director at Rush and the Salvation Army contact I initially spoke to about what possibilities will exist for other students to travel to various countries and have a similar experience as I have had.  Now that I've spent some time here I'm kind of making a list of what will need to be known in advance and how things would need to be set up and scheduled so that other students learn and don't feel as lost as I initially did.  But I really think that this opportunity is at least one of the keys to solving the global health problem at Rush as far as lack of opportunity for interested students and it will really open up the door for me and others to return here in Haiti and to other countries in the future.  I've had such a great welcome from everyone here and I realize a little bit more of how their system works that I think it will help launch other mission trips, some with maybe more of a focus than this one where I just hopped a plane and flew down here.....but it's the start to something much grander for sure.  I've always figured that if I just jumped in with both feet and hoped for the best that things might line up in a good way....so far so good haha, granted it makes for some crazy experiences and bizarre adventures for me (and lengthy e-mails), but in the end I trust that the ideas in my head will be put into action.....hopefully, if nothing else, that my these small things I'm doing others will be inspired and they can be the ones to really make the impact.  I'll update you all much more in the future with all that is happening back in America as far as the non-profit stuff, funding, participants, etc. as there is a lot starting to unfold and once it does, I anticipate amazing things.  But I'll save that for another lengthy e-mail.  In short, please just continue to pray that God uses this adventure to be the spark that really ignites the passions of others to join with in making what I believe to be His dreams, a reality. 

For the moment, that's all I have for you.  Thanks again for reading.  I am terrible at journaling, and every time I attempt it, I usually fail to do so the next time.  However, writing these e-mails to you all is a sort of way for me to journal out the day and will help me to remember what is happening here in the future.  I hope that the experiences I am having here are at least some sort of inspiration for you, as without your support I would not be here doing what I am.  So thank you again, and I know the people of Haiti are thankful as well. 

Orevwa (good bye) for now,

Aaron Tabor

Haiti Day 4, December 29, 2013

Bonswa!  Koman ou ye?  (Good evening! How are you? in Creole -- see....learning lol)

Day 4 is drawing to a close down here, and it's actually been a pretty busy day.  I'll start by telling you about the church service I attended this morning.  It was the Salvation Army Church, which probably had a couple hundred people there this morning.  There are several churches in Fond-Des-Negres, a couple Protestant and a couple Catholic ones.  Even though I could not understand a word of what was going on, it was an extremely moving and inspiring experience.  Their band consisted of keys, drums, bass, guitar, and a trumpet section (Bob Clauss, I'm talking to you here....Chris can pass on the message) and a very powerful lead female vocalist.  If you're familiar with the type of music they play in New Orleans, had a lot of that feel....can't think of what it's called at the moment.  Many recognizable hymns, just in either French or Creole, and many I did not know.....I followed along in their song book and tried to sing along...mostly humming because my pronunciation was horrid (though really who could hear) but also my throat is a little sore.  The music was scattered throughout the nearly three hour service, so there was a good amount of it.  At one point the pastor asked me to stand and welcomed Dr. Aaron Tabor from America to their service and said that he hoped their church could be a blessing to me while I'm here as much as I am to them -- I still feel like I'm gaining way more than I'm giving, but apparently everyone is extremely moved by the fact that I am here and maybe even if it was just that, they would say it was worth it.  Thankfully, I'm starting to get the hang of their medicine a bit and feel like I can contribute a little more in their system, but I'll get to that in a minute.  The pastor's sermon was probably around an hour, and though I could not understand a word of that either, it was amazingly moving.  All in all the service was a real treat to experience....even in another language it was amazing.  Everyone there was also so glad to see me and wanted to shake my hand.  

Okay, just took a break from writing and am back now cause there was another huge motorcycle accident -- that makes two for the day.  Motorcycle = more like dirt bike, and they fly around on them with 2-3 people piled on sometimes.  The roads are rocky and people drive crazy as it is, so it's a sight to see.  When they wipe out....well, it's not pretty.  I'm amazed how calmly some of these people come into the ER room that we have, gashed up all over the place....in America they'd probably be begging for morphine....maybe just cause we don't have it they don't ask.  Either way, it's impressive how badly injured they are.  Basically I spent from 12-7pm today cleaning, bandaging and suturing up gaping holes in peoples faces, heads, arms and legs.  This one guy came in, which caused me to cease typing, and he had wiped out or been run off the road or something, and his chin had this 3-4 inch cut down it that went to the jaw bone, a tooth or two missing (couldn't really tell how bad the inside of his mouth is, and I'm not a dentist anyway), a 2 inch gash across his eyebrow that exposed all the muscles, and a gash on each shin/knee that revealed quite a bit of musculature and bone as well.  As the other doctor worked on his face I worked on stitching up his legs, but with how much everything was bleeding, it took 2 hours or so.  The other guy, whose head I stitched up earlier today, had some type of coagulation disorder, so his blood was free flowing for several hours.....we tried to stop it and then eventually just shaved his head and started stitching.  That guy looked like he had been in a fight or something cause 2 other guys came in at the same time with huge gashes across their foreheads that easily could have been from a nice fist fight.....but they were all in a motor cycle accident too.  We don't really check for any type of internal damage, cause we really just can't.  The doctor said that they look to see if they patients are vomiting a lot, and if they are they use that as a sign that they have cerebral edema and then they might consider sending them to the other hospital.  Considering these three guys were thrown from a high speed dirt bike and landed face first resulting in nice open slices across their face.....there's a pretty good chance they have some brain damage too.....but alas, nothing we can do here.  

We also had a lady come in who was in some sort of crazed mental confusion and she looked pretty bad....I looked at her neck and she had some signs of pretty advanced diabetes, and low and behold her blood sugar was at 41, so we started a Dextrose infusion and she's still in the hospital cause she's got some other problems we haven't figured out.  Took the nurse about 30 minutes to get the IV started because she had like zero veins visible in her arm....she was basically just poking and prodding until she found it.  Mean while I was supposed to start an IV on this 2 year old with Typhoid.....she too had no veins visible and I searched and searched, then the doctor came and she couldn't find anything.  I really felt bad about the idea of just sticking her and seeing what I could find.....but the nurse just came and started doing that and got it eventually.  In an older person I guess I'd be less nice, but in a two year old I felt kind of bad just stabbing over and over.  She's doing well now though :)

So, for what was supposed to turn out to be a slow day in the hospital, as I guess Sundays normally are, it was pretty crazy busy.  Like I said, for about 7 hours we were bandaging up people from the different accidents......it was an insane bloody mess, and I don't mean like the British but literally....they aren't exactly clean in the same way we are in the hospital, people were just bleeding everywhere, over the bed, table, floor was swimming in it.....I changed gloves like every 30 seconds and had my white coat covering a good enough portion of me, but that's got some blood on it that I'll have to ignore the next few days I guess.  They actually do have a way to sterilize things, which was surprising, so we had all the tools sterilized before we started suturing, but they break sterile field pretty quick and it ends up what it is I guess.....better than nothing.  I'm glad I had all those supplies donated btw, the one guy didn't have money on him to pay for supplies, so they were waiting for his friend to get it.....meanwhile he's just gushing blood and I pulled out a bunch of stuff and started bandaging him up.  He was super thankful....literally his left foot had like 1/2 inch of skin ripped off it entirely, a gash above his eye, back of his neck ripped open, his right foot had multiple holes, and I forget how many other cuts he had.....so he's just bleeding all over the place and they are waiting to get the money to pay for the supplies to fix him up.  So, thanks to everyone who helped me with supplies, they've been a huge help.  Even when he got his supplies from the pharmacy, there was definitely not enough to stop the bleeding.  The gauze, alcohol pads, bandages, tape, ace bandages, etc. all that I brought has been entirely useful.  I'm just keeping it with me at this point and seeing what I go through and then before I leave I'll leave the bag for them to use whatever is left.  GLOVES -- boy am I glad I brought those.  They all wear them, but they only have mediums and they don't fit me, and they're latex, which just annoy me.  So my nice Large Nitrile gloves are really handy.....and I'm going through em, so good thing I brought like 1,000 pairs.   

All in all a busy but amazing day (for me, not the motorcycle wipeouts) because I got to actually be useful.  There is only the one doctor here right now and she has worked 22 hour days for the last 3 weeks, so she's tired all the time.  And then the last few days she has been teaching me, which she seems to really enjoy and has been amazing as I've previously said.  But today, with all the accidents and all the people coming in, it would have been impossibly hard for her to manage it all on her own.  The nurses here do quite a bit, but the hospital has a decent number of patients so they couldn't all just come into the ER to take care of it all.  So it was nice that I was there, there was a need, and I could fill it.  And it's something I'm pretty good at.....hence why I want to go into ER.  It doesn't overwhelm me and I enjoy the blood (which sounds weird yes...) and guts type of stuff, so all the open wounds were fascinating.  I had them show me once how they suture things up with their supplies and then I went for it.  I've closed up a cesarean section once, but never really stitched up an open wound before....so "see one, do one, teach one" as they say.  I'm now pretty confident at it and she was impressed at how well I did with it all.  Turns out she really hates blood so she's glad I was there to speed up the process too....less for her to do.  

Prayer:

- Continue to pray for my health....cough is just lingering at this point, can't tell if it's getting better or worse.  Thinking some allergies might be contributing cause my nose is running like crazy now, so I'm gonna pop some Benadryl and see what happens.  

- Next three days I continue to work in the hospital, so pray that I continue to find ways to be useful and continue to learn how to do medicine in Haiti.  I'll update you each day on how it goes.  Thursday is when I'm supposed to go to the children's home down the street and do wellness checks for the kids -- don't know how much I can really do with limited supplies, but maybe giving a few bandages, cleaning out an ear or two, and just spending some time with them will mean something.  If I see anything serious I can always send them to the hospital (it's like a block or two away)

- My hosts are continuing to be amazing.  Today because I was backed up with taking care of the patients from the accident, they waited like 2 hours to eat lunch.....which I was like, you could've just eaten without me....but they waited and wanted to eat with me.  They're insanely hospitable.  Pray a special blessing on them cause they really deserve it.  They've dedicated their lives to serving through the Salvation Army, and go above and beyond with taking in girls to help them go through school and teaching them to cook and all that.....they like adopt everyone and always want people to stay with them.  They're really just amazing and as blessed as they are to have me here, I could never repay how amazing they've made it for me to stay here.

I'll let you know how tomorrow goes!  It's getting close to 8pm here, so I'm just gonna go read for a couple hours and wait to see if any other patients come into the ER.

Thankful for the prayers and support.  I did just look and see that the Bears lost.....I can't exactly go screaming and yelling cause no one would understand here really haha.....I guess at least I wasn't there to witness it.  Go Blackhawks!  

Good night!

-Aaron Tabor