The Haitian Donkey and friends are wrapping up the work in the homeland

Hi All:

As usual, it seems like life flies by a lot faster than we would like it as we stumble along our pathway.  It is hard to believe that it is Thursday already and time to think about tying up loose ends before departure on Saturday morning. Duane and his group of 5 relatives are at the airport for their return today. Hopefully they (at least the two grandsons) will be able to smooth out their youthful pranks and regain favor with the traumatized moms and grandmother. Duane and their fathers have taken good care of these ambitious young men and done well until yesterday, when they decided to text mom that one of them had fallen off the hospital roof and broken a leg. This did not go well with nurse mom, nor grandmother. They thought it was quite funny, but meeting face to face with mom and grandma today might make them realize it was certainly not a kind joke to stress them with. Sometimes the games our minds play with ourselves and others need a bit of reflection before they are acted upon.

Dave and Kurt are seeing their share of the Haitian sun as they stopped by last night to use the phone and contact their families and looked considerably darker and redder than several days ago. They seem to be making good progress on the repairs, which I likely will see tonight as I have dinner with them at Caleb and Olga’s house, if I get done with work in time. They seem to be doing well, thankfully. Less drama than Duane has had to put up with.

The hospital work is doing well. I have had a standing rule that we don’t do more than 6 hysterectomies in a day, just to not stress the staff and myself as they can be tougher to do than in the US with less adequate anesthesia and thus less relaxation for the abdominal wall muscles, etc. Each day, when we arrive at the hospital, the patients for the day trickle in as they gather their families, funds and supplies for the surgery, we never have much of an idea who, what sort of cases or how many may come. Yesterday, 8 hysterectomies came and I told them I was too old and decrepit to do that much, but we took the cases one at a time and ended up doing all 8, plus a few extras, including a ruptured ectopic (tubal) pregnancy we saw on Monday and it wasn’t ruptured yet, so we tried to encourage her to let us do the surgery when it was still easier and less risky for her. She went home to think about it, against our advice, of course, and returned yesterday with no blood pressure, unresponsive and with a belly full of blood. Fortunately, we had talked firmly enough to her family about the risks, etc, that they came with several members willing to donate 2 units of blood and we added her to the list of surgeries to be done. I saw her on rounds today and she seemed quite open to our discussion about the fragility of life as I shared gospel tracts with her. She should do well from a medical standpoint and will encourage consideration of how close she came to eternity and to take appropriate steps to ensure her future.

By God’s grace, the infection seems to be responding well to the IV antibiotics and I feel good and sleeping like a log. I have not suffered for the availability of food and have enjoyed the variety of meals prepared for multiple sources, our usual Haitian meals made by Moise’s sister at lunch, plus those made by Mike VerKaik and his brother in law, Josh, with help from their kids for dinner with them. They made homemade crepes yesterday that I had for breakfast this morning as got home too late to bother eating last night, just wanted to head for bed and get ready for today, which promises to be more gentle? Others may not agree, but I think the weather is most wonderful here and I enjoy running around in just my scrub clothes, no long underwear, socks, etc and feeling fine. But then, a Donkey likes to keep his life simple.

 

In His Service, with Thanksgiving,

Ben, Dave, Duane, Josh, Kurt, Mike, Michael and Bill