back from haiti

last night, i had a dream. gary coleman popped out of an elevator and asked me if i was lost and if i needed directions. i told him i was looking for the prom.  he told me how to get there in creole. i didn’t understand everything he said, but i got the gist.

i have been back from haiti, 2 days now, and i am going through serious withdrawl.  while we were there, we complained about the heat, but i would do anything to be back. i had never swam in my own sweat before. we were constantly soaked while we toiled in the emergency room. the stream of patients was constant once word got out, doctors were in the ER. but after a while, the sweat felt good, because we knew we were working harder than we had ever worked under tougher conditions than we had ever found.

haiti taught me that i am more than i thought i was. haiti taught me, with an open heart, i receive so much more than i give. even though we were surrounded by spoiled garbage, rubble, and chickens tied to a brick… we always found love and laughter. it is amazing, how much love there was at the hospital. it is a testament to the wonderful people i worked with. through unified for global healing, we were a team of 24 doctors, nurses, artists and social workers. and everyone went to haiti committed to service and compassion. and boy did that compassion flourish and thrive within a hospital, where patients survived on one meal a day.

back in the US, i see my car, the running water in my sink, the computer on my table, and i can’t believe the disparity in our lives.  i have never been so profoundly grateful for all my limbs. i am grateful for the food i eat. i am grateful for my parents who are still alive. i am grateful for my health. i have so much.

before i got on the plane for haiti, i sobbed at the airport. my husband held me and i cried uncontrollably. i wasn’t quite sure why. i realize now, i was overcome with fear. i had so much fear in my heart about haiti, but about everything in my life. my future, my job, my lack of relationship with my father.

but haiti helped put things in perspective. things will work out. my capacity is so much grander than i thought. i have the ability to take care of a 28 week preemie, a 4 year old boy seizing, and a 2 year old with severe hydrocephalus. haiti stretched me in ways i didn’t know i could bend. and boy did it show me i could laugh, and dance and sing, louder than i thought, under the full moon light.

mesi anpil a ayiti. thank you to unified for global healing. thanks to zola, sandy, and thea and the whole crew. you know who you are. mesi to the kids who won their way into my heart.

thanks mr. coleman.

sequins, rain and laughter: july 2010 in haiti

The rain is refreshing after the stifling heat that just sticks to your body and molds beads of sweat down your forehead. After hot and hazy Haitian mornings, I welcome the rain in the afternoons, especially because I miss the rain. Having lived in Los Angeles, I have learned to appreciate rain and how it cleanses the earth. I felt the rain fall on my head today, and I smiled. I was happy to receive the gifts of the sky, and cleanse the dust and sweat from the day at the hospital.

Our team, Unified for Global Healing, has been here in Carrefour for almost a week now. We are working at the Adventist Hospital, a mile and a half from the epicenter of the earthquake that devastated this country in January. I have the privilege to be a part of an amazing team of professionals. We are artists, journalists, social workers, nurses, paramedics and doctors. Most of us have experience working internationally. Most are trained in disaster situations and have stories for every part of the evening.

Here in Haiti, some things are exactly the way I had imagined, and some things are surprisingly sweet. The rubble and tents set up along the roadways are all images I had seen on TV. What was surprising was the life in between the rubble. The small pathways the people have carved to continue their daily routine. The markets continue with blue tarps overhead. The women squat on the curb with the fresh vegetables, the chickens run around, and dogs cross the street without missing a beat. The people have piled up the rubble and trash and are simply continuing to live and thrive, just like they always have despite hurricanes, embargos and military coups.

The hospital is not simply a building for healthcare, but its compound has transformed into a community of people living and healing there. The patients are inside the hospital, receiving physical therapy and medications, but the family members live in various tents around the main building, because they have nowhere else to go. Some patients have already received their amputation surgeries, and have healed, but they are waiting for the prosthetic lab that is still sealed in containers at the port. Apparently, the hospital has not been able to clear four huge containers of supplies through customs. Perhaps it’s the same disorganization that allowed military airplanes to land ahead of doctors and medical supplies, right after the earthquake.

After working at the hospital for a week, we have learned our way around the hospital, know a few phrases in Creole, and know everyone by name. We are more familiar with what we have and what we don’t have. We have become flexible to double as pharmacists and janitors when we need to get things done. Most of the volunteers have formed attachments and there is a favorite eight-year-old little girl. Somehow, she had made it to the hospital, and survived two amputation operations. But both her parents were killed in the earthquake. She gets around well in her wheelchair, and loves to get down on the ground and play, just like any other eight-year-old.

The community arts team has built a beautiful curriculum of fun games and projects. Slowly, their magic has penetrated the hospital as I see purple and green sequins in the hallways, and mobiles hanging at the bedside. The children are no longer bored but engaged and challenged. They said what they want most is to go back to school.

I have been rounding with our pediatrics team in the mornings and then working in the emergency room for the rest of the day. Many of the children I see in the ER are very similar to our outpatient clinic at Riverside County Regional Medical Center. They have rashes, runny noses and ear infections. But several children have walked in with rare and serious conditions and have not received the surgeries they need. I found myself craving for pediatric cardiologists, GI specialists and neurosurgeons. The mothers brought their children, hoping the new group of doctors would be able to fix them. I saw a little boy with an imperforate anus, who has been living with a colostomy for over a year, because he hasn’t had his final surgery. Today, there was a two-year-old boy living with severe hydrocephalus. I’m so used to calling specialists on the phone and being able to get my patients what they need to thrive and grow to their fullest potential. It’s frustrating not being able to give the same level of care to the children of Haiti.

There are a few children on the pediatric ward who are really sick and we can’t seem to figure out what they have. We have learned that malaria and typhoid have to be on our list of differential diagnoses. But diagnosing diseases has become more difficult because of the lack of lab tests and specialists. I found myself in the lab looking at a peripheral blood smear to see if one of our kids had leukemia, because there was no one else in the hospital who knew what to look for. It just so happened I had spent a year working in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. I looked into the microscope, and found myself overwhelmed with gratitude, to all my doctors who have trained me to this moment in time. I was thankful for my education, my privilege, for everyone and everything that had supported me, for me to be able to travel to Haiti and serve. He didn’t have leukemia.

When the flurry of the emergency room calms down, I sometimes sneak into the outdoor tent space to watch the kids in the community arts programs. Seeing the kids in their wheelchairs and external fixators (mechanical contraptions to stabilize the bone from the outside) smile, create and laugh is worth everything in the world. Kids always make everything better and they know how to get better. I wish we could help create a world, where they can heal, where they can get the surgeries they need, where they can get three meals a day, and where they can go back to school to become doctors and nurses and social workers and artists. I hope for new beginnings in the ashes of this devastation.

poem 30: travel

new realities of time

and space

take me out of my head space

my habit habitat

of self created lies

and everyone-else-created-prophesies

a new person

a harbinger of the universe

a new food

a gift of the earth

a new song

a union of hearts

lift me up

and away

help me find my steps

upon this universe

of

hope

destruction

and

life

and

second

chances

poem 29: the quake

dis mem ber ment

dissolution

of

members

crumbled

beneath

pavement

chopped

by

concrete

left

rancid

by

rain and humidity

and maggots

there are no boundaries

to stench

to suffering

to pain

to hunger

walking amidst

cracked childhoods

splintered bones

evisceratedmothers

you cannot see

where screams begin

or end

but just pray

and listen

mother earth

has spoken

poem 28: life

(please forgive the lapse in writing over the past week. i moved and did not have access to internet. please know i continued to write the poems in my heart)

“it’s your life,” she proclaimed

i heard it as if it was the first time

it

is

you’re

life

you

‘re

life

you

are

life

it

is

you

are

life

poem 27: cacti, why can’t it?

i remember to stop and look

saw rocks curved protecting their shade

saw sage bent over to expose their new found flowers

even cacti

in the heat of the desert

find water and warmth

and room to grow

so can i

poem 26: putrid

i remembered sitting on the banks of the ganges

knowing it had been blessed by millions of people

and for a millenia

but was filled with putrid bacteria

the cesspool of our decay

we pray our hoplessness

our sicknesses away

but it collects in some other place

what if we stopped  creating trash

and illnesses in our minds?

mindless replays of regrets and worries

we fantasize in our heads

creating our own illness

until it has come true

if we can create it

we can heal it

feel it

forgive it

forgive me

for doing it

again

let’s try

something

different

this

time