Haitian Adventure

Travel day! We woke up at 3:30 and were on the road by 4:45 am...... so early! It is a good thing we start early through because traffic starts to pick up around 6. We did. It break down at all and we had the fancy new bus! About a half hour in we got a road block. Some truck had pulled off to the side of the road and the. A car got stuck. Our bus could not get by. A few guys got out and moved the car and after a few scary moment where I was convinced we were going off a cliff we made the turn and were on our way. I slept 90% of the way( surprise surprise) and when I woke up we were 75% of the way there. This was a much easier ride than the way to PDP! We arrived at our hotel and immediately I put in my bathing suit and hopped into the pool. After two weeks of hard work it felt great to be splashing around a pool at a fancy hotel. I hung out by the pool for s few hours and the hopped in the shower( hot water!!) and took a nap. Dinner was buffet style with lots of veggies and food I hav

Last day of clinic😳 I  so sad that clinic time has come to an end, but alas all good things must come to an end eventually. Luckily I will be back in September ! Today was a lot of wrapping up all of my patients. I saw most of the people I have been seeing for the past two weeks to give them heirbqound care supplies as well as instructions on their dressing changes. Most of the patients have been coming for years and are well versed in what they have to do, but it is always good to review. I saw my little girl again today. The hypergranulation tissue I was trying to get rid of with the play dough was much less then yesterday which was great to see. She was also started on a nutrition program today and will be followed by an American EMT who now lives in Haiti. I showed her how to do the wound care so she will do that as well. It makes me happy to know that this girl is getting the care that she needs.  I saw a few ortho patients today. I dry needled a knee and a lower back totally on

Teaching day!!!!! I got to go into town and teach a group of 1st and 2nd year nursing students about wounds. It was a very interesting experience. The school was two rooms with no electricity. The kids did their labs outside. The desks were like the school desks we sat in a kids back in elementary school. I was having flashbacks to the stories my dad told me as a kid about his school days. The kids were engaged in the lecture and asked great questions. It was fun watching them during the lab part. I was teaching them how to debride and dress a wound. As I was talking to the kids I found one of them Jd recently burned his leg on a motorcycle and had crushed up amoxicillin and put it in his burn. Needless to say , I told him to come back to the clinic with me so I could clean the wound and dress it . After teaching I cam back to the clinic and treated wounds for the rest of the day with one or two ortho patients thrown in there. I did get to needle a patient independently which was fun.

Teaching day!!!!! I got to go into town and teach a group of 1st and 2nd year nursing students about wounds. It was a very interesting experience. The school was two rooms with no electricity. The kids did their labs outside. The desks were like the school desks we sat in a kids back in elementary school. I was having flashbacks to the stories my dad told me as a kid about his school days. The kids were engaged in the lecture and asked great questions. It was fun watching them during the lab part. I was teaching them how to debride and dress a wound. As I was talking to the kids I found one of them Jd recently burned his leg on a motorcycle and had crushed up amoxicillin and put it in his burn. Needless to say , I told him to come back to the clinic with me so I could clean the wound and dress it . After teaching I cam back to the clinic and treated wounds for the rest of the day with one or two ortho patients thrown in there. I did get to needle a patient independently which was fun.

Today was another crazy wound day, but a lot of repeaters that I had told to come back. The wounds are all healing well. It is amazing what anwound can do when it has a dressing on it ! It is about900000 degrees today. This is the first day where I was like Wow, this is hot! But since I live the heat I don't mind . The rest of the crew however was not so pumped . That is all for today!

Today was the day of moto wounds. I saw at least 5 people with crazy , chronic goopy wounds from motorcycles. Lots of bleach dressings used today for sure! In addition to wounds I saw several people with back and neck pain. I was able to manipulate one of them independently !!! Go go gadget ortho skills! I am learning so many new skills here that hopefully I can carry over tinto my practice at home. Even though I will probably not use the techniques I am learning here exactly how I would at home, they will be very helpful for me. At night we had a salsa lesson and got to dance the night away. It is great how we are able to work so hard every day and then relax and kick back at night. Makes for a fantastic trip😜

 What a day!!!! We saw about 150 patients today , which is a lot for the first day. I saw 6 patients with wounds in the morning as well as an adult who had never been able to walk. Seeing him was the highlight of my day. I wanted to build him something that could help him stand. I have no building experience , but luckily we have an engineer and contractor in our group who helped shape the stander we made. After about 5 hours and several shoe, brace and material trials. We finally had a stander we could use. It was based off of pulleys and levers and using a cement fence that he had at home. I got to go to his home and help set it up. It was really neat seeing his home and neighborhood. We had a whole crew watching us set up our device. It did not turn out exactly how I wanted, but he was happy with a huge smile on his face. He even danced a bit for us at the end before we left. Made my day🤗. When we got back we did some manual therapy on each other. I have cupping done to my pecs and

I can't believe it has been 9 days!!! Time flies when you are having a good time. Although this past week had been crazy busy, I loved every minute of it( well not the sick part but every other minute!). This morning I was feeling back to normal and able to eat again. Wahoo!! We woke up leisurely and slowly unpacked all the new supplies . There is a ton of new wound care supplies . So many that the closet is now overflowing! After organizing we headed out to Tortuga to spend a leisurely day at the beach. Even though I have been a few times already , I still can't get over how beautiful the beach is. Today I got to see some flying fish. They are small fish, probably the size of a hummingbird, but they legit fly. It was really cool to see whole schools of them flying outside of the water. We spent a few hours splashing around the beach getting to know all the newbies. This time we have a few engineers with us which will be incredibally helpful in problem solving equipment needs.

Today was a lazy day after a night of giving the bathroom very personal attention. I slept most of the morning and then played some iPad car games and an alphabet game with the two kiddos who live at the clinic . The kids are 8 and 9 and are super cute. They follow us everywhere and love to play games with us. The girl kiddo brought me water to make me feel better and kept coming over and askin" you better"? So cute!!!! By afternoon I was feeling much better but napping felt great so I napped pretty much until the new crew arrived. The new crew arrived around 9 after a long uneventful bus ride. Lots of unpacking to do and I am sure a ton more wound care supplies , but we are all tired and are going to bed. Bon nuit!

Last day of clinic for the first week crew 😢. I am sad to see them go. Such a good group. We saw a ton of patients this week and even if we're were not able to totally fix them, we were at least able to help a small bit. My day was a bit more lazy than the rest of the crew. I had a Haitian stomach bug that kept me close to the bathroom all day, but it was short lived and I am already feeling better and keeping my distance from the bathroom. A good night sleep and the beach tomorrow will be a good cure:).

Bon fait dropo!!!!! Happy flag day! Today is a national holiday in Haiti and people have work and school off. The clinic was just as busy as ever. We had a fun start to the day with the interpreters leading the patients waiting outside in a Haiti s national anthem. Immediately after we got down to business. I saw 6 people in the morning most of whom had ortho issues. I did my first solo cervicle manipulation and got a crack each time I did it!!!!! I also quickly saw another persons patient who needed stitches taken out... always good times. In the afternoon I saw a few people who had had strokes and several smaller wounds I have been following. The running theme of my day today was high blood pressure. I had a patient who had a blood pressure of 200/100 and a few at 180/100 eeek!!!! Luckily we are well stocked with BP medications . Educating people on food choices is one way to help control BP; however, The difficulty here is that people eat what they can get. If you advise them to lim

Great day again today, but very different from yesterday. Today I mostly saw people with wounds ... gnarly wounds just how I like them😜.i won't go into details about each of the wounds, but they kept me busy for 6 hours! One thing that was interesting to me was how people described how they got the wounds. At home you ask people how they got a wound and for the most part they will tell you ever little detail . Here , you ask people how they got a wound and they often  will either tell you they don't know or it was a vodoo curse. Culturally here it makes sense. They believe in curses . If they can't explain how they got a wound to them it makes sense they a curse was placed  on them. While culturally this is very interesting for me to ponder, medically it makes it rather challenging!  I did see a few patients with ortho complaintes. I did my first dry needling as well as manipulation today.  Dry needling was not a technique I was familiar with until my least Haiti trip. In

What a day what a day! It started with a 34 year old who had a history that sounds like guillian barre. She had not walked in 10 years and stood infrequently. My interpreter had to carry her in. I worked with her for about 3 hours. We got her a brace for her foot, sneakers to wear and a cane. We did some transfer training, sit to stand training and finally some walking! By the end of our session she was able to walk out of our clinic! This is why I love coming to Haiti and working with STAND. A woman who had not walked in 10 years was able to walk out of the clinic on her own. I may have shed a tear or two😜. All she needed was a little training and encouragement . Suffice it to say my day was made . My next lady had a far less complex history and was in for back pain. Although her pain was not totally gone when she left she was so happy that her pain was less she started to dance for us. I worked on her with two students and she insisted on a picture at the end of our session. I have

First day of clinic! What a day. Controlled chaos with over 130 patients seen by 30 PTs in a 6-7 hour period. To give you a better picture of the clinic I have attached a picture at the bottom of it before the patients came in. It is about 800 square feet with 14 beds. There are 30 therapists, 30 interpreters  and more than 30 patients and heir family members milling around the clinic at any given time.... all these people while we are doing gait training, family training for transfers , bracing trials and orthopedic interventions. That is what I mean by controlled chaos. Although I am constantly bumping into people and saying" excuse me" I would not have it any other way. If I have a moment of down time I look to the therapist next to me and 100 percent of the time they are performing an intervention I have not seen before. I look two feet beyond that therapist and see another therapist teaching a PT how to do walk using techniques I had read about but never seen. All the bo

Today was a relaxing day spent at the beach. The beach we went to is not just any old beach, it is an old pirate rum cache ( according to pirates of the Caribbean anyway😜). The island the beach is on is called Tortuga. Pretty much the most beautiful beach I have been to. The sand is white and fine and the water is a clear torquiose blue color. The water is like bathing water so I can actually stay in it for more than 5 minutes! To get to and from the beach we took a water taxi, which is nothing like a water taxi in Boston. It is an old sailboat with a motor attached and goes at a nice leisurely place ( Haitian time it takes about an hour to get there.... real time about 2.5 hours). I got to really chat with a bunch of the other volunteers and they all seem like great people. We are all from different states so it is interesting to hear how PT practice state to state varies. Although we all have different pet peeves, we all agreed that insurance companies are the bane of our existence

We have arrived!!! After a smooth flight and a sleepless night hanging out in baggage claim watching some guy buff the same part of the floor for 4 hours, I met up with the rest of the crew at customs. We hopped on our bus and after 9 hours and 2 breakdowns we arrived in Port de Paix. Immediately we ate and then started to unpack. My wound closet is overflowing with goodies , so much so they are going to build me shelves!!!!!  I am so excited to be back in this amazing (warm!) country and can't wait to get to PTing and wounding .  Below are some pictures from the towns we passed on the way to Port de Paix.        

Almost all packed and ready to go! Thank you all for your donations. I have managed to fit everything( including 15 pounds of paper and a 25 pound bag of plaster) into 2 suitcases weighing just 50 lbs each.   I can't wait to get to Haiti! ( this is the view from my " bedroom")  

T-3 day!!!!!!! I am beyond excited to get back to Haiti and delve into the adventures of caring for people in a developing country where running water and electricity is not always guaranteed . This trip I will blog to keep everyone updated on my adventures and the wonderful impact STAND has on the Port de Paix community. Bare with me as this is my first experience blogging!