Don't Be Afraid of the Dark!

Day 4: Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Today started off with all the preparations for the tropical storm Tomas that is going to hit Haiti in the next 24 hours. It's been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm, from 90mph to 75mph winds, but that doesn't deter an army of volunteers all around the hospital from putting important supplies up on pallets and boarding up windows with plywood and 2x4s. And, in case you were wondering, no, tropical storm Tomas and its 75mph winds does not refer to Tom's gas after the chili he ate last night! 

After yesterday's marathon performance, we'd all love to take it easy today. However, there's a list of ten people that need surgery today and just not enough time to do it. Again, we repeat the mantra from this past July - You do what you can. Starbuck's instant Via coffee pretty much saves our morning as we'd be walking zombies without it. After supercharging ourselves on caffeine we hit the OR. During the third case, ORIF of a Galeazzi injury (English: fixing a forearm bone) in a poor guy who got pommeled by a rock, the power for the entire hospital goes out for about 30-40 minutes. Luckily, Tom, Beth, and I are all already wearing camping headlamps and we just continue to work like this sort of thing happens all the time where power goes out in the middle of surgery! Jessica grabs Tom's phone and supplements our light with the Flashlight app. Tony, one of our translators, entertains us by teaching us to swear in Creole. Next time you happen to be passing through Haiti on the way to the grocery, try out "Ou dwe fou!" or "Coco mama" or "Deplasse la!"

In the meantime, there's some good news and some bad news. The pelvic fracture woman from last night is still hanging in there after four units. We order a fifth unit today. She still eventually needs her femur fixed but not until she's stable, which she isn't by any means right now. We feel her belly and check her pressure periodically. She is now finally starting to make some urine which is a good sign. Her belly is getting swollen from her pelvic hematoma but not hard or particularly tender, which is a good thing, since the Haitian general surgeon here whom we've called for help won't see her. The bad news is that the nonverbal guy with the femur fracture who's been languishing in the hallway (no beds available) since Monday is terrorizing passersby by flinging his feces against the wall and tossing his dirty adult diapers onto the floor as they walk by. Everyone is asking us to get his surgery done ASAP so they can discharge him back to the referring hospital.

Today is also the day where we discover Tom's true soul mate ... BETH! Because she is the one person on this planet who sweats anywhere near as much as Tom does, and eats about as much beef jerky as he does, which is saying a lot. After the operating in the dark episode (during which, of course the AC went out), she shows us her scrubs which are absolutely drenched. Paige, meanwhile, is terrorizing the poor Haitian kids in the hospital in her own way, with the alien embryo hatching from the back of her head. After reassuring them that it's only a false alarm (the egg hasn't hatched yet), the relieved Haitian kids come back out from the closets and under the beds where they've been hiding.

I also find out I left my phone in the OR twice today, whereupon Tom had to retrieve it, thus showing that even traveling down to Haiti some things never change. So we add to our list of mantras for the trip ... "Don't leave the country without Tom." Beth, as the baby of the group, still apparently needs her afternoon nap; we find her curled up in a fetal position sitting on the c-arm machine in the OR - which, by the way, is defunct, making surgery a lot more ... uh, interesting. Speaking of which, we do our last surgery of the day, which we've just finished about 2 hours ago, about 1 am, without c-arm, which is nothing new since we haven't had it since we got here, but this one is particularly difficult as you have to guess how far into someone's hip joint you've gotta drill this pin. Kinda like playing craps. You want to keep drilling so your screw can make the fracture more stable, but then oops, you roll 6's and penetrate the bladder. Fortunately after a lot of really tense operating and tight sphincter tones the patient turns out just fine.

After another long day and night of operating, Jessica proves to us that no matter how many pairs of shoe covers you put on, you're still going to get your $50 French pedicure ruined with all the dirt, dust, and hospital germs you come into contact with constantly. Jessica still has yet to hop on the bandwagon  started by Tom's bandanas ... we now see that both Andrea and Beth have drunk the Kool-aid and are sporting them too. Pat never will since his noggin is simply too big. Any head that has its own atmosphere and orbiting satellites will probably not fit into your standard sized do-rag.

Well that's it for tonight! Thanks for following our second adventure down here in Haiti with Team Tom and Pat 2.0! Stay tuned for another exciting episode tomorrow. Take care, stay safe, and be thankful for what you got!