Halfway there!

This morning discover that the little 3-year-old boy we added on the schedule for this morning didn't show up to have his external fixator removed and his leg casted. Perhaps it's just as well, since we soon find out that there are two C-sections the local docs have added on for this morning  that would have bumped us anyway. Funny how things work out. We make rounds.  The 9-year-old girl we fixed on Wednesday has already been up and about on crutches for the past few days. Not too shabby at all. The elderly lady with the hip fracture we fixed Friday afternoon has also been up and about. Not too shabby either. We note to ourselves how little pain people have here, or rather how little they let their pain prevent them from wanting to get better and get out of the hospital. The lady with the metatsatic tumor in her humerus that we put the Kuntscher nail in a few days ago is also looking up and up, especially now that she's had her first BM in many days. I'm sure that's gotta feel great!

Tom and Amy are leaving for the airport, and the other 4 of us - Beth, Kris, Paige, and myself - hop along for the ride to say bye and to get over to the Hotele Ibalola to meet a friend of mine, Al Ingersoll, and hang out and relax for the day. Al's a prosthetist, husband, father to two girls, father to an adopted son from Haiti who also happens to be a double amputee (above the knee and you'd never know if from watching him walk!), soon to be grandfather, and just all-around an amazing guy. Last summer he and his wife Deb sold their home in Minnesota and moved full-time to Haiti, where he is the country director for Healing Hands and she works with Catholic Relief Services. We have an amazing view of Port-au-Prince below us to the north. Again, the central highlands off in the distance to the northeast and the words of that Haitian proverb come to mind again. Something about overcoming osbstacles reveal the presence of more obstacles - or more opportunities.

Deb notes how many of the expats around us at the hotel - we're hanging out at the poolside having Prestiges and rum punches - are European or South American, and how few are American. This pretty much jives with her experience working in CRS for over the past year here. I swallow my Creole omelet and think to myself, we gotta get some more people down here to help out! After a thoroughly relaxing afternoon lounging around, enjoying the view, and cooling off with the mountain breezes, it's back to Adventiste where we meet up with Pat Ebeling, a buddy of mine I've known and kept in touch with since residency, an Ruth Bowen, a rep from Wright Medical, who've just arrived from the airport. It's a new team. The two of us who've been here since the week before are refreshed after a much needed break after working full steam ahead for the past week. We're ready to hit it again tomorrow morning!