Delmas 75
Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 10:00PM Today was a great day. At breakfast Lila, wife of the pastor of the compound, asked if I would be willing to see another pastor's wife. She has been having a fever for the past several days and her breasts were very painful. She hurried over before our truck headed out for the clinic. I expected to see that she had mastitis, a breast infection most commonly associated with nursing. Instead she had an infection due to her baby not latching on properly.
After I treated her, I asked if I could treat her two month old baby boy. We made a "lap table" out of her baby blanket across our knees. His cranial mechanism was very slow, the base of his skull was very "jammed", and there was a strong strain through his entire body. His little body responded to the OMT the same way as all the little newborns in the nursery at the hospital at home. What a treat to be able to treat a baby with OMT here, giving him a better chance of good nutrition early in life. I'll see him again on Friday morning.
After the treatment was over, Mom asked many questions about breastfeeding, formula and water. Apparently her sister had been killed in the earthquake, so her milk began drying up from the stress, combined with the pain of nursing right now. She has baby formula to supplement, but wanted to know if she should be giving him water as well. We encouraged her not to, but to try & nurse more to bring hermilk back in.
Clinic today was closer to our compound at Delmas 75. It was more up in the hills on the edge of town than our prior sites. We bumped our way on very dry dirt hilly roads, lined very closely with brick walls in varying states of condition, some standing tall, others totally demolished. Behind the walls were houses in like condition. Some"yards" were full of tents. Many are living in tents beside their homes as their homes are not safe for re-entry or they are afraid to re-enter them for fear of another quake.
Our clinic was held on someone's driveway & front porch. Two little girls stick out in my memory from today. They came today with their mother. The eldest was 10 years old an her younger sister was five. There are five children in the family, the oldest 10 and the youngest three. Both little girls were complaining of stomach aches. I've learned to ask if the pain goes away with eating as much of it is due to lack of food. The girls were no exception.
Haitians normally eat two meals a day; breakfast and a midday meal. The girls usually get up at 04h00, eat some breakfast by 05h00, then off to fight the city traffic to be at school by 07h00. They get out of school by 13h00 & the next/last meal of the day is eaten by 16h00. No wonder these little girls' bellies hurt, they have less food than normally available and there is a 12-13 hour gap between meals. Mom just laughed when I suggested that children, or anyone for that matter, should eat at least a little bit evey six hours. Limited food and cultural customs are difficult to counter.
Evidence of clean-up and rebuilding is everywhere. Within the past two days I have seen lots of cement work, new scaffolding on buildings for repair work, even painting to walls, gates and business signs. The ever present trash and rubble in the roads are disappearing. Teams of young people in "sponsorship" t-shirts (USAID, etc) are armed with brooms and shovels, making piles for the garbage trucks that are slowly appearing. Men are on top of crumpled buildings, chipping away at the cement with hammers, sawing at the protruding rebar, dragging full buildings away, one wheel barrow at a time. Order is slowly returning, there is hope everywhere.
Reader Comments (1)
"The same Spirit gives great faith to another,
and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing."
1 Corinthians 12:9 (NLT)
Luckily for both those in Haiti and us here at home, He has given you BOTH! May God continue to bless you and keep you safe during your most important work! Love and prayers with you always! :-)