Today was a day unlike any other, Day five had no clinic patients but a wealth of surgeries. It also said goodbye to a new friend( even though he's a red sox fan) Dre Dawg was missed today and we hope he had a safe trip back to Albany! Today would be the day for all the regional blocks! Day five welcomed a familiar face, Jeff the younger who joined us after a stay on the east side of the island to follow up on patients seen at the CURE hospital. Day five also saw a transition, a culmination of our work here, although we have a very busy clinic/ OR day tomorrow, we will be leaving this Sunday. Jeff will be heading up things as we leave and we are helping to train not only the nurses and EMTs and local docs but the fantastic OR staff as well, helping show our tricks quips and pearls to many of the trickier procedures...Day Five would not be complete without a few things.
1- JJ and Jeanty are two of the most caring, respectable and kind men I have ever met.
Jeanty left nursing school to help work at HAH 1 week after the earthquake, inspired by a
visit to this hospital to visit a friend who had been crushed. JJ is our glue in the OR, never hesitating to help us which is a big reason Nathan hasn't heard anything from our group except "hello and Bonjour"
2- Tara and John and Merrill. Our PACU team is amazing, working in a 2 bed room with a side table full of everything you need over flowing with all the generous supplies donated. On the cupboard top, blankets made for the children by some wonderful human beings who even sewed a pocket with a beautiful note- in creole. We have two loaner pro pac monitors for excellent post op care and AC which if we stopped running in and out would be more effective in cooling that tiny room! Charting is key here as the patients end up taking their post op instruction and operative slip with them when they are discharged. Merrill and John R keep us on task!! They are the unsung heroes, while the surgeries may be over for the surgeons at 7 their day continues until our patients are fully recovered, well enough to move to less monitored beds and sometimes it continues into the night to check on a girl that although an outpatient surgery lived to far away to realistically send her home.
3- Cindy, Jenel and Chris And Alex you guys are great. Alex and Chris wow what fast leathers you are- circulating running back and forth getting this suture and that wire or half pin.Cindy and Jenel have a solid experience base allows time to teach, Thank you for taking time to allow JJ and Jeanty to scrub and learn.
4- I saw a woman cry today, tears of disappointment, despair and longing. Tears we had caused. It was a day of long complicated cases, executive decisions had to be made as our most valuable resource, the team, if burnt out would be no good for any one. The shear amount of pathology we saw this week and likely adding to it tomorrow was a bit overwhelming, unfortunately the deformities we were mostly seeing were complicated corrections that take a bit of time to complete, leaving us at a loss for just how many we can help. These are the facts. I cried when I saw that mom. I felt for her and understood her despair. In certain towns, villages and cities around the world, foot deformities are of some of the more shameful conditions. This mother likely thought she would come, her child would be fixed and no more stigma, ostracizing or ridicule would be put on them....the hope in this story is that there are amazingly generous souls that do what team Sinai does and will be here to help her daughter soon, the tragedy of this story is....Now that the tragedy of the Earthquake is a years old....how many will still think about an island nation in the carribean with no front page news story? Operation Rainbow, team sinai and CURE will because they are dedicated to helping anyone and everyone to aid in contributing to a quality of life some of these children have never known. Now that the dust has settled, new tasks must be accomplished, new goals must be attained. We saw very few people affected by the earthquake this week. The majority the population were people, babies and children with congenital deformities that need our help. Need our supportus need us to not forget them when the hype dies down.
Love and Peace
Yo, Jen
P.S. Dr. Ron......thanks for the coca cola great end to a long day!!
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