The Last Round of Goodbyes

I knew that this last week would fly by, but it is still hard to see it ending so soon.

This week has been full of scrubs and hand sanitizer and "take these and come back in June." I have renewed interest in medicine and am considering pursuing a nursing degree. I was able to do so much hands-on (with gloves) learning here, I made and gave shots, removed IVs, changed IVs, held tiny little babies while we gave them shots, and comforted so many people during their operations, giving them consolation that the pain was only going to last a little while longer. I have seen the most beautiful smiles, showed women their babies inside of them and helped them calculate their due dates. I've counted pills and passed out chocolate, held hands and danced with two tiny old women on International Women's Day.

One woman in particular will always stay in my heart. Her name is Laurencia and she is married with 5 children. She came in on Monday morning with a cyst on her upper inner thigh; it truly resembled a testicle and caused her quite a bit of pain when she sat down. She had had it for the past 9 years after her 3rd child was born but it had only recently begun to hurt. I wandered into the operating room right as she was lying on the table and was asked to translate what Dr. Bill and Critical Care Nurse Levi, were about to do. I wound up sitting on a stool at the head of her bed, holding her hand and talking with her for the majority of the operation. She smiled the whole time, and it lit up the room. After the operation was finished we gave her some money so that she could pay the moto driver to go extra slow on her way home to Gonaives. I was struggling to imagine how she would straddle a motorcycle for a 12 mile ride on bumpy dirt roads after having this surgery in her groin. Gratefully, Pastor Delamy corrected us by explaining "this ministry has vehicles for many reasons and taking her home is one of them." We told her to keep the money and use it so that she and her husband could come in and get his feet checked out. (She had asked if we could give her cream for his excema. Thankfully, Dr. Bill said no, because when they both came in Thursday morning, it was not excema that he had!) I walked into the clinic Thursday morning and there she was, first in line and greeting me with her beautiful smile. She told me that her husband was waiting outside, his name is Markeuty, and that I should find him. I walked outside, said hello to a man with a huge smile and then turned to face a crowd of perhaps 70 people and thought "how am I going to find her husband out here?" I simply said "Markeuty?" and of course, it was the man with the huge grin. The entire time we treated him - including a very painful foot bath, he smiled. The two of them have to be the sweetest couple in all of Haiti and I was absolutely blessed to have met them! And to think they are only 2 out of the 900+ patients we saw here this week!

We're leaving Terre Blanche tomorrow morning to stay the night at Kaliko, a hotel on the beach just north of Port-au-Prince so that we might catch an early flight on Sunday. It's going to be hard to leave this place.

The past 10 weeks have been some of the best weeks of my life. I am grateful for all of the friends and memories I've made and will cherish them always. I'm also terribly grateful for all of the people here who are now praying with me that I can find a job in the States that will enable me to "vini anko byento" (come again very soon).

Si Bondye Vle.