Friday’s Post from LaValee
We slept late today, until about 7:30am, thinking that the numbers of
people streaming into the hospital would be much more manageable today
because of the new doctors from New Orleans that have come to help. I
am not sure what happened but by 10:00 the clinic was hopelessly
behind. So I offered to help one of the doctors and see some of the
patients. He said, yes, that he had paperwork and administration that
he needed to do, and I could see his patients. “Whoa doctor!! You and I
will both see patients, but I am not doing your work so you can do
paperwork!” He got the picture and they gave me a treatment room and
George who is Haitian. He currently lives in Boston and came with to
translate.
Half way through seeing many of the common ailments that these patients
are presenting with, two people holding up an 85 year old man came into
the clinic. He was short of breath, a blood pressure of 220/130, huge
swollen ankles and feet, wet sounding lungs. I have never seen a
patient in Congestive Heart failure this bad before. I called the
hospital doctor and told him we had to admit this man. The doctor did
not have a clue what to do to treat this man, so I had to leave clinic,
start an IV, put in a foley, give IV lasix and digoxin, and a blood
pressure medicine. I got another tent set up outside in what has become
our intensive care unit and got the man settled. I am wondering now
even with this aggressive treatment if this man will last through the
night. There is no nasal oxygen to give the man to help with his
difficulty breathing.
My patient that we did the amputation on was laying in a wet bed in his
tent this morning and the dressing covering the amputation was soaking
wet. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach. I had the translator come
and tell the family that this could not happen. He had to be kept dry,
and they needed to get him up. So I got the supplies together took off
his old dressing, and I was very happy to see the site of the surgery
looked very good. I cleaned his whole foot, irrigated with saline, and
redressed the wound. I went into the store room and found a crutch and
taught the man how to use the crutch and told him to get out of bed and
stay out until he was tired and needed rest. The next time I saw him he
was up and cleaned up and walking around the hospital really well with
the crutch even weight bearing on the foot with the amputation a little
bit. He was so happy when I saw him, and so was I! I will send him home
tomorrow if we can find him a ride so he won’t have to walk the 2 hours
home. Saw many more patients before the day was done.
Looking around the village you really don’t get a sense for the great
need for tents. The man with the amputation is a perfect example. When
he goes home tomorrow he will be sleeping outside because where he
lives on the next mountain none of the houses withstood the quake. At
dinner tonight I found out that the workers at the hotel that we have
gotten to know are living with ten other families just out of site of
the hotel with no tents. The people living here all this time don’t
have tents and the people streaming into the region won’t have tents.
Appearances are so deceiving. I realize now that when I met with the
mayor and village elders and they said the need is for 4,000 tents,
that would be a very accurate description.
I hope I remembered to tell you on my post yesterday that the night before last we had a 4.2 aftershock around midnight.
Yesterday during the funeral I noticed from where I set next to the
Presider’s chair that the columns on the right side of the church were
not lined up quite like they were when I arrived. I mentioned this to
the engineer here, Theodore, last night at the party at the hotel, and
he said he had noticed the same thing and thought maybe metal rings
around the columns might be needed. I sent Robb Anderson and Bill
Carter a note about that this morning, because I was not sure the
church was safe enough any longer to have Sunday Mass. I was thinking I
need to tell Fr. Guy to close the church and plan to have Mass outdoors
at the soccer field. The last thing I wanted to was to do this
unnecessarily because the church is the one place of safety and refuge
for the many, many people that cannot or will not sleep in their
houses. Building architecture and engineering is so far out of my realm
of knowledge I really did not know quite what to do. George who
translated for me today is an engineer from Boston, so I asked him to
come to the church with me today and give me his best guess.
He explained to me that the weight of the church was actually in
the walls and balconies of the church. What had happened was that the
church actually swayed in the earthquakes and that the exterior walls
had swayed at different times and intensity, but that the structure did
not appear to have been shaken severely up and down. These center
columns that have moved since I have been here are really only
supporting the wooden upper structure and a metal roof. He pointed out
areas that definitely needed pretty immediate work but that this 100
year old structure was not in danger of spontaneously falling….at least
for today. I’m praying he is right and have decided not to ask Fr. Guy
to close the church for Mass this Sunday as this would cause him an
unbelievable amount of stress, and I can’t even begin to describe what
it would do to the people. I base this decision on both what Theodore
the engineer from here and George the engineer from Boston have told
me. But I will feel better when Robb Anderson gets here on Sunday from
Nashville to tell me this was the right thing to do. I am asking for
lots of prayers from all of you that this was the right thing to do.
I’m talking the kind of praying where you take to your knees to do.
Well another day in Haiti comes to an end and many, many challenges
have been faced today and met, so I am off to bed for another day. Will
write again tomorrow my friends. Au revoir till then.
Deacon Jim McKenzie
Cathedral of the Incarnation, Nashville
St. John Baptiste, LaValle, Haiti
Thursday, February 4, 2010
7:04 p.m.
LaValle, Haiti
Thursday’s Post
This
morning I had to wake up early because the funeral for the seminarian
was at 7:00am. Who has a funeral at 7:00am? What I have learned is that
when you are told that Mass is at 8:30 on Sundays or this funeral is at
7:00 a.m., that is the time you start to gather in anticipation of
having Mass in, say, 45 minutes.
When I arrived at St. Jean de
Baptiste at 7:00am the administrator of the diocese was introduced to
me. We sat in Fr. Guy’s dining room and had a nice conversation. The
administrator’s name is Father Domond also because he is a first cousin
of Father Guy Domond. He spoke wonderful English and was a very
pleasant and warm man. In the conversation he told me that this
seminarian for whom we were about to celebrate the funeral Mass was at
a conference of seminarians in Port au Prince. They were leaving the
conference and 13 of them were in a truck. As they were driving through
the gates of the seminary the archway over the gates fell and killed
all 13 of them. The truck continued to run with the dead seminarians in
the cab and in the back until the gas ran out. Such a horrible story!
After
coffee and bread we went and vested for the funeral. There were 12
priests and 14 seminarians. The administrator of the diocese was the
Presider and I was the deacon of the Mass. As we were vesting there was
a prayer before Mass at which the names of all of the seminarians who
were killed were read. All the parents and families of all of the
seminarians were there. As their relative’s name was called a wail came
up from the families. The sacristy is behind the Altar at St. John de
Baptiste, so I could look out and see the grief and sadness in the
faces of these people as they cried out in sadness at the name of their
loved one. It was so sad.
We processed out and reverenced the
Altar and the Mass began. At different times throughout the Mass
different people in the assembly - both men and women - would be so
overcome with grief that they literally would have to be carried out of
the church, but the sound of their crying was still to be heard as the
church is open air for comfort. The Administrator of the Diocese told
me to distribute Communion in the main aisle of the church. After
Communion he spoke to the people from his heart. First one and then the
other began to cry out with arms outstretched in the most heart
wrenching grief I have ever experienced. The entire church was filled
with wailing. The screaming, crying and wailing gave me a new
understanding of the scripture meaning of “wailing and gnashing of
teeth.”
The seminarians were seated on either side of
the sanctuary facing one another and were also in tears. I could not
hold back my own tears as Father Domond gave the final blessing. Then
all of the clergy one by one went and greeted the family of this
seminarian seated in the first row on either side of the main aisle. I
cried with them as each one greeted me with an embrace. I finally I
left the church with Fr. Domond and returned to the sacristy. The
crying and wailing went on long after we left the church. Such grief is
so painful to see. I can’t imagine what they must be feeling.
After
the funeral Mass we all gathered in the courtyard for a meal. It was
with the Administrator of the diocese, all of the priests and all of
the seminarians, the immediate family of the seminarian, two sisters
(nuns), and me. It was a pleasant meal but one of the brothers broke
down uncontrollably again at the meal. So, so sad.
When
I left the funeral and meal to go to the hospital I was emotionally
spent. I had been told that the people knew that the doctor from
Doctors without Borders had left after clinic yesterday and so there
would not be many in clinic. I walked to the front yard of the hospital
where our patients are staying in tents. I saw that was not to be the
case. Over 100 patients were waiting to be seen. I walked into clinic
and there were two new doctors (interns actually) from a medical school
in Haiti that will be here in LaValle for awhile. They were working
hard and seeing patients! Content that the patients were going to be
seen today, I took the opportunity to take a break from that chaos. I
really needed a break, so I just left and went to my hotel to have a
little alone time to decompress. James got Dr. Renee’s keys and drove
me back to the hotel. It is good to take the afternoon off.
The
owner of the hotel is expecting some bigwig related governor or
something so everything is spic and span. The repairs to the hotel from
the earthquake, the extra supports that were put into provide more
support for the building, have all been covered in stone. They are
expecting a group of 20 from Sweden with a television crew here
tonight. Evidently they have been in Port au Prince making a TV
documentary. They will shoot in LaValle tomorrow and then move on.
Since
these bigwig visitors are here we actually have running hot water! So,
I am going to take a shower and have supper with the visiting governor.
All of the LaValle leaders will be here at the hotel tonight including
Fr. Guy. So many of these people are now my friends I am looking
forward to dinner with them. I will write more later my friends.
Deacon Jim McKenzie
Cathedral of the Incarnation
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
8:00 pm
LaValle, Haiti
(Email)
Last
night, after writing my post to you, I went to bed exhausted. Of course
our friendly neighborhood dog that barks every night starting barking
at 9:00pm and at 10:30 it was still barking, but I fell into a deep
sleep from exhaustion.
At Midnight Doctor Charles Renee (the
OB/GYN that is from here and practices in New Orleans) came knocking on
my door at the hotel. There was a young girl who was in labor at the
hospital, and she had been totally dilated and completely effaced and
had been pushing for 5 hours. He wanted to know if I could come with
him to do an emergency C-section. Of course I could come. It was
pouring rain when we left the hotel about five minutes later. When we
arrived at the hospital, I walked into the labor and delivery room and
the baby came all on his own. I suctioned the baby’s airway out and the
baby started screaming which was music to my ears. After making sure
the mother and baby were alright we returned to the hotel where of
course I could not fall asleep for two hours. I last looked at my watch
at 3:00am and was back up at 6:30 to get ready for the amputation that
was scheduled for the morning.
After breakfast we all headed
down to the hospital to try and figure out how this ancient steam
autoclave worked so that we could sterilize the instruments that the
orthopedic surgeon brought with him for the surgery. Again, this
operating room is remarkably well stocked, but the hospital staff is
not allowed in the OR area because they don’t know anything about
surgery and because if they are allowed access to the OR things seem to
go missing. So, I spent the entire day finding everything we needed,
setting the case up, bringing the patient to holding, starting the IV,
giving pre-ops, sitting with the patient until surgery, doing the
anesthesia for the surgery, plus taking on the role of what would be
the circulating nurses in a regular OR. This man was so sweet. It was a
pleasure spending the day with him and getting him through the
amputation of what ended up being his big toe and second toe.
After
recovering him, I left him with a nursing tech. When I walked out of
the operating room, one of the translators told me that I was to go to
Father Guy’s church. I assumed it was for supper, and I really looked
forward to sitting down for a minute because it was already a long,
long day. When I got to St. Jean de Baptiste, I was told to go into the
church. Just starting was a vigil service for one of the seminarians
that lived in the St. Rose of Lima area of LaValle who was crushed in
the earthquake. None of the clergy vested for the service but instead
sat close to the family in the church. The singing again was absolutely
beautiful. Some hymns, some chant, the rosary, prayers and talks from
priests, seminarians, nuns, and two members of the family. Again, I
could not understand the language but the grief was clear.
Three
hours later, after the service ended, the mother of the seminarian came
to tell me how grateful she was that I came to the Vigil Service. Then
Father Guy asked me to go with him to take them home. Probably 20
members of the family piled into a cab and the bed of a truck, yet they
insisted I sit in the passenger side front next to Father Guy. We drove
through the valley stopping every so often to let different ones out.
Everyone came to my window and thanked me for coming. When we got to
the last house the seminarian’s mother and 4 siblings got out and I
asked them if I could give them a blessing. We stood in the driveway of
their modest home and I asked God to please give peace to this family.
They wept openly while I blessed them. They stood in the driveway until
Fr. Guy and I drove off and out of sight.
On the drive
back to the hotel Fr. Guy asked me for the full name of Bishop Choby so
he could write to him and thank him for letting me come to LaValle.
When Father Guy dropped me at the hotel I realized that I hadn’t eaten
all day. The hotel had bread and butter left from supper which I was
glad to have. Now I write so very, very tired but very happy and
blessed by the opportunity to be so close to God in these people.
I received news that things are firming up for food and relief from
Nashville. I will be happy to see you when you come. Good night my
friends. I will write tomorrow.
Deacon Jim McKenzie
Cathedral of the Incarnation
St. John de Baptise
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