{"id":199,"date":"2010-04-19T16:58:54","date_gmt":"2010-04-19T22:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.195.103.127\/health\/2010\/04\/19\/haiti-update-7\/"},"modified":"2012-12-26T13:13:51","modified_gmt":"2012-12-26T19:13:51","slug":"haiti-update-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/2010\/04\/19\/haiti-update-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Haiti Update #7"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jen Watters Haiti Blog
\nMonday, April 19, 2010 at 4:40pm
\n\"Jennifer Bon Fete! Bon Anniversarie! Happy Birthday!
\nFirst of all, thanks so much to everyone for all of the wonderful Birthday wishes!! It\u2019s been a very interesting birthday and a very interesting week in Haiti. We started the weekend and the Birthday festivities off with a big party at one of the HI houses. There were three other people celebrating birthdays this weekend and one of them leaving this week \u2013 so we had quite a celebration! There was lots of food, drinks and DANCING!! It was so much fun!! I think I was in the first group of people to leave, which was at 2 am!! See, I\u2019m not too old to stay out late (occasionally).<\/p>\n


\nSunday was a great day as well. I went back to church at St. John Bosco with my friend Lissette. It was my favorite mass in Haiti yet. The music was SO joyous. The priest was excellent and gave a rousing homily (at least from the response of the congregation \u2013 I surely couldn\u2019t understand him. Louise \u2013 we miss you!!) In the afternoon we headed over to one of the other houses for a little dip in their pool, which was a refreshing treat and I even got to watch a movie after that they projected onto the wall. It was the first time I had watched any tv or movies since I came here \u2013 it was nice. Then we had dinner out planned at a nice restaurant in a really beautiful old house to continue the birthday celebration. There were about 14 of us and we had our own room up on the top floor \u2013 it was so neat!! There was even a sofa and a sitting area. Unfortunately after we ordered I started feeling a little ill and I think that some leftovers that I ate at lunch caught up with me. After a quick visit to the bathroom, I ended up having to leave early and head back to the house =( But they did bring me my food to go. I haven\u2019t tried it yet, but I\u2019m sure it will be good! I had a little bit of a rough night, but I\u2019m feeling much better now. I stayed home today and slept a lot. I even tried some crackers and peanut butter this afternoon \u2013 and so far so good!! So, a quiet birthday so far =)
\nJust a quick update on some interesting happenings in Haiti this week:
\n– There was quite a stir surrounding Michelle Obama\u2019s visit. Which you probably know more about than I do, since I haven\u2019t seen the news. But I do know that there was a LOT of traffic. I actually didn\u2019t make it to the hospital on Tuesday because the roads were all blocked!
\n– They ran out of gas!!! It\u2019s been crazy, the gas stations are FULL of people and cars just trying to get what little gas is left. Someone said that the Haitian government controls the gas coming into the country and they felt that this was a political move, but I don\u2019t know enough about it to say. It seems like the gas is back but it was a challenging few days for many Haitians with no transportation and no gas for electricity.
\nAs far as my work, I have loved being back in the hospital!! I have some amazing patients right now. There are two spinal cord injury patients, both with paraplegia. They are great! Both with large pressure sores which is frustrating, but I don\u2019t think that there are many pts in Haiti with spinal cord injuries that don\u2019t have pressure sores. Our new coordinator is amazing though and she thinks we can get pressure relief mattresses made locally in as little as two weeks!! That would be amazing! My guys are on plain cots right now and I think that anything would help!! I have another patient who is an amputee from the earthquake, but he\u2019s had some complications and is still in the hospital. He had an infection and already needed to have one revision in the end of march. He was so depressed that he hadn\u2019t been eating, he refused to try standing or doing anything out of bed. So, last week, my friend Natalie who had been working at Croix Rouge before me had a brilliant idea!!! We have a guy who works with us at the Prosthetics and Orthotics workshop who is an old amputee who\u2019s been using his prosthetic leg for several years now. He makes peer visits and does some peer counseling, so Natalie arranged from him to come out to the hospital and visit our patient Example. They talked for over an hour and the rest of the week, he\u2019s been a super star. He\u2019s eating now and is always asking for food. He\u2019s up to walking 40 feet!! And even though he still won\u2019t lie on his stomach, I\u2019ve at least got him doing hip extension in sidelying!! Woohoo!!
\nThis week, I\u2019ll be back at Del Mas (once I\u2019m feeling better) for a couple of days, while the other therapist is assisting with moving the camps. They\u2019re starting to relocate people out of some of the camps in public areas, especially some of the more hilly ones that will be dangerous as the rains increase. So we\u2019ve sent a team to assess people as they arrive in the new camps outside of town and to identify if they have any disabilities or rehab needs. Then at the end of the week I\u2019ll head back to the hospital. It\u2019s great to be back at Del Mas, but I miss my Croix Rouge patients too \u2013 I can see how you\u2019d get attached if you stay at the same hospital for awhile!
\nOne more bit of exciting news: This week we will start a new schedule and Saturdays will be a half day of work where we will focus on training the local staff \u2013 which is exciting. I\u2019ve been trying really hard to teach as we work, but sometimes it is challenging, especially when you have a lot of patients waiting. So, this will be perfect!
\nThanks again to everyone for all of your positive thoughts and prayers, and especially for your Birthday wishes! My 29th year is getting off to a great start!! I am so blessed to have all of you in my life!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jen Watters Haiti Blog Monday, April 19, 2010 at 4:40pm Bon Fete! Bon Anniversarie! Happy Birthday! First of all, thanks so much to everyone for all of the wonderful Birthday wishes!! It\u2019s been a very interesting birthday and a very … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,10,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mission-to-haiti","category-chs","category-physical-therapy","category-mission-trips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1621,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/1621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}