phew

I know I said I'd be posting on another blog and I did set it up but haven't written anything yet. Our experience has been far too overwhelming and I've been far too busy and removed by reliable internet access. Right now I'm working at a field hospital in the emerg tent, but tommorow morning I'm designated to the internal medicine tent which is more my background.

Earlier today we drove up to one of the orphanages around ground zero near port au prince and treated some of the kids who have had zero access to basic health care. The clinic room consisted of a 60 year old cot and a dental chair. There was sewage running freely through the pathways in the orphanage compound. I'll write more about this later but I think these orphanages are the reason why I ended up volunteering here. I'm going to start up a project in tandem with some other NGO's to bring a mobile medical team for one week per month to 40 orphanages in the area who have no medical care for their children. Without it or any health education these orphanages end up with epidemics of typhus and cholera that are easily preventable forms of suffering. I think I'm supposed to do something about it. Actually, I don't think anyone could not do anything about it.

Working in the emerg tent has been stressful for me tonight as we had some major intakes; shootings with intestines leaking from the abdominal cavity, a full cervical fracture, crushed skull, a hefty ton of malaria cases and etc... The stress was just because it's been a while since I've done emergency rotations. Generally most of these cases require some out of the box thinking to make up for lack of resources. The IDF field hospital is gone and with it all the high tech equipment.

Today most of Haiti was fasting because some Israeli woman told the Haitian president before the earthquake that there was going to be a disaster if they didn't fast and cancel the Carnival. So, when the earthquake happened, the president ordered that the whole country fast and pray to make up for not heeding the warning of the Israeli woman.

So much to say but I'm too tired to write this and I have to go back to see if there are new patients in emerg. I'll be back here writing again when I get my next burst of written energy, because at this point inspiration doesn't provide me with enough energy to type. My tent and sleeping bag are looking awfully good right now :-)