Losing Anesthesia

We got a call tonight from Dave, a team leader. Our two anesthesiologists have dropped out for the first of the two weeks, so unless someone else turns up we will have to switch our plane tickets and go the second week. Giana and Cole are going the first week (with us) but now can't afford to change their tickets. The cost to change is $450 per person so they will go the first week and John, Nancy and I will go the second week unless suitable anesthesia can be found. I've put out some feelers so we'll see what happens. Bummer. 

TO HAITI AGAIN

I haven't blogged for quite a long time.  I'll admit, recovering from Nepal took awhile.  Perhaps that's why we decided to head back to Haiti.  The mission is well organized and leadership is great.  We were worried a couple weeks ago about the mission as there was a split between the organization in the US and the Haitian administration.  I haven't been privy to all the details, and I'm famous for speculating, but I don't know exactly what it was all about or how it was resolved, but in the end the mission goes on.  This time the CMMT is made up of John and me, Nancy Rinkol, LPN, who works in our office and Giana & Cole Boyle.  Giana is a PA and Cole MPH (Masters of Public Health).  We are joining Grace 4 Haiti which is headed up by Dr. Joe Miller, FP from Lexington and Dave Ingram, organizer extraordinaire.  It turns out that family circumstances are not going to allow Dr. Miller to go this spring.  We will miss out on his wonderful leadership and wish the best for his family. The total team while we are there was 27 at last count.

John has been packing and organizing on our end like there is no tomorrow.  This all got sorted and packaged.  Some of it went to Zambia for Dr. Marjie Heier.  I'm now on her Chifundo Clinic board. She has an ambitious building project adding onto her clinic so we are sending some of our supplies to her.  They are sending a cargo container soon.

Our garage

We have packaged all our surgery packs with drapes, gowns, etc and sterilized them in our office and the hospital depending on the type of sterilization needed.  I think Kim J. of Grace 4 Haiti is impressed with our (John's) organizational skills.  We figure to carry our own totes with the ENT stuff so we can keep a close eye on it. Most of it we will leave behind, but we are borrowing some surgical instruments from the hospital which we have done before and will get them home in one piece. 

Nancy, John and I are started to study Creole. We can now say "I don't understand Creole" in Creole.  It will come in handy, I'm sure.  I plan to get our CD's to Giana and Cole so they can start also.