June 04, 2009
Hi Everyone,
My recent trip to Haiti from May 10 – May 19 was great. First and foremost my mission was to take a little 3-year-old boy with a severe heart condition for a battery of tests in Santiago, Dominican Republic. Joseph Israel’s wife, Carline, was also at the top of my list for going. She’s been suffering from extreme abdominal pain for almost 2 years now, and this has meant many sleepless nights for both Carline and for Joseph. As you know, Joseph is absolutely essential to our work in Haiti. So finding the cause of Carline’s problems was very, very important.
Half of my time in Haiti was, therefore, spent at Hospital Metropolitano de Santiago (HOMS) in Santiago. Santiago is a large city of over 200,000 people, and traveling through the busy streets there is always interesting. There are three rules you have to remember when riding around Santiago.
1. There are no such things as traffic lanes ~ regardless of any lines you see painted on the asphalt. There is always room for your taxi to squeeze in between the multiple cars lined up across the road and the huge truck or bus on your left or right.
2. You absolutely should never travel in a vehicle without a good horn and good brakes. It doesn’t matter whatsoever what the outside of the vehicle looks like :)!
3. A red light usually means to proceed at your normal road speed, while showing a little caution at times for the vehicles coming at you from the left and right.
Seriously, the Dominican drivers are some of the best I’ve ever seen in the world. The same goes with the drivers in Haiti. If we Americans had to drive for 5 minutes in either country, there would be one huge accident.
But back to why I went. First off, HOMS is a modern and wonderful hospital with absolutely wonderful doctors. It is very much like any great hospital you would find in the US, with state of the art equipment and extremely competent personnel. My Spanish has improved to the point that I was able to communicate and understand most of what was being said. The operative word here (no pun intended) is “most”. One doctor actually complimented me on how well I spoke Spanish (in spite of my awful verb tenses that force me to always use the present tense)! Believe me, there is room for a world of improvement, so I refuse to embarrass myself in front of any of you out there who truly speak Spanish well.
We found out that Carline has gallstones ~ painful, but not life-threatening. We’re researching some natural means to help her pass the stones; and we have a great medical team coming in July that can operate on her if necessary. Secondly, little David is a very sick boy. The cardiologist at HOMS says that surgery will doubtlessly save his life. An EKG and an echo-cardiogram revealed that the right side of his heart is very enlarged and it appears he only has one pulmonary artery. Upon returning to the US, I sent the full medical results to a renowned hospital in New York City that is considering providing all the costs for surgery and hospitalization for free. They are doing this in cooperation with Rotary, International’s Gift of Life Foundation who will also help with many of the costs. Please pray with us about this. I wish that you could meet David and his father, Daniel. I had the privilege of sharing a hotel room with them for several nights, and they confirmed what I already knew. David is a very sweet little boy, and Daniel is an absolutely wonderful and caring father.
We hope to have the “yes” from the NYC hospital within 4 to 6 weeks. Then I’ll have to take David and Daniel to Port-au-Prince for an up to 10 day stay to obtain medical travel visas, etc. through the US Embassy. This is not a pain-free process, so we’ll really need your prayers (and possibly a little financial help) to make this happen. I’ll keep you posted over the next few weeks!
Jenny Patton is the wonderful individual who is the catalyst behind this entire effort on David’s behalf. Without Jenny, none of this would be possible! Above right Jenny is examining one of our children from L’Acajou. I know she’ll want to kill me for putting in this picture, but it is too cute to resist. The top photo shows Jenny and Mo assisting another of our little ones.
Till next time,
Craig
