Not Our Story

This is an email I just got from my mom. Just a quick preface: She's in Haiti for one week working with Samaritan's Purse. Please join me in praying for her as she will be there until Saturday.

Hello from Haiti!

Just wanted to update you on my trip. I am working in one of the Samaritan's Purse cholera clinics. The cholera clinic in in-patient - the patients stay there until they are well. So it is more like a tent hospital. Then new patients come in either walking, carried, or by "ambulance" - which is not exactly like an american ambulance, but it does have a siren. I have been working 13 hour night shifts every night since I arrived. Then the ride back to the compound where we are staying (about 25 minutes away), shower (decontam) breakfast, sleep and start all over.

The Hospital is actually several buildings. One is the large central tent that they have showed on TV and on the videos I've seen. It has 3 sections, like the frame of a large barn, divided by blue Samaritan's Purse tarps. There is a second duplicate hospital building that is not in use now that the epidemic is slowing. The beds are cots lined up along the wall in rows of 10-20. The Triage area is an open tent. There is another tent for starting IV's and stablizing patients. Another tent is the ORS area for less ill patients. There is a discharge tent, where patients go before they go home to get cholera education on clean water and hydration. There is a Pharmacy tent, a supply tent, a large break room tent w/ cots and chairs for the Haitian staff to take breaks. The bathrooms are porta-potties, separate areas for staff and patients. There is a tent for administration. Then there is our break room, which seems luxurious. It is a "container" like they put on a truck or train. It has 6 bunk beds along the walls, cubbies for our stuff, a coffee maker, a water cooler... and AIR CONDITIONING!. We can go in there for a break or even to sleep for a while if we can. Between each of the areas described above there are wash stations where you step through a bleach soaked trough to clean your shoes and there are buckets of bleach water w/ faucets. Each station is staffed by someone who turns on the water so you can wash your hands and your shoes every time you go between areas to keep down contamination. There are many Haitians employed here. Probably 150 each shift - cleaners, nurses, doctors, translators, security, chaplains, etc. They have a better cleaning staff than any hospital I have ever seen. They are constantly mopping the floors - which are plastic tarps - with bleach water. They decontaminate ever spill of blood or body fluids. The compound is surrounded by a block wall and razor wire. It is right next to a tent city in a very bad area. We have security at the gate, always at least two vehicles parked by the front gate and a truck in a secret location in the back for fast get-aways through a back exit. They have a lot of security measures and strategies. One strategy is that they hire a lot of people from the surrounding community, so the community has a vested interest in keeping us there. I could tell you a lot more, but that's the basics.

The patients come in more severely dehydrated than anything I've ever seen before. Then they either go to the "ORS" are if they can drink fluid and keep it down, or the hospital triage where they start the IV and admit them. I am working in the hospital, last night I was the "provider" (doctor) for the men and children's unit. Even though the nurses are teaching me everything - since I have never seen cholera before and they have been here a couple of months and know exactly what to do - I have to sign everything off and round on the patients and assess them. There are Haitian doctors and nurses that work with us. So far the doctors are excellent, and the Haitian nurses are unpredictable as their training is not very well regulated. Sometimes we go to meet the ambulance and help get the IVs started, especially if it is a child. It is amazing how bad they look when they come in and how much they improve w/ a few hours of fluid. Most of them stay 2-3 days. (For you medical people, one man was on his 3rd day of hospitalization and he had already gotten 67 liters of fluid when I left this a.m.) Without the IVs I doubt many of them would have survived. They lose so much fluid so fast w/ cholera. We also have other meds that treat the cholera, and other co-existing symptoms and illnesses. So it's not just the IV's that we are managing, but that is most important.

The compound is nice, but so far all I've done is eat, sleep, and work. The women's dorm has 80 beds in one open room, and that's just for the short-term workers. There are 2 cholera clinics that they are staffing, a general medical clinic, and some mobile medical clinics. The helicopter takes some teams to remote, mountainous areas to run clinics. I met the pilot at breakfast today. I just heard the helicopter leaving. There are also other non-medical outreaches that they run.

There have been a lot of interesting things happening so far - medical and non-medical. There are Haitian pastors who work all night at the hospital visiting patients, praying and singing. We had a really sick boy last night, who probably shouldn't have been in our hospital because he did not appear to have cholera. We were going to transfer him to a children's hospital, but we couldn't (I'll tell you why later.) So I told the pastor's to go pray for him. Within an hour, he improved, and by morning we discharged him home! It was a miracle.

So keep praying for me, for Haiti and for these cholera patients!

xo Kathy

Posted via email from Three Nelsons and a Dog

This year has been a year full of excitement and challenges for the Nelson family. One of the many highlights of 2010 was Heather graduating from Azusa Pacific University with her Master’s in Marriage Family Therapy. She worked hard for 2 ½ years and completed over 150 hours of therapy with a variety of different clients. She will eventually work toward getting her 3,000 hours required to become a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. For now she is just enjoying spending time and home and working on being a mommy (more on that below).

Evan has been very busy this year including a relief trip to Haiti in March, enjoying a babymoon (one last vacation without kids) to Vegas with Heather in May, and putting on a Halloween outreach event for over 5,000 kids and families in October. He is enjoying his job of working with over 600 first through sixth graders every weekend with a team of amazing people. He’s excited to see where God leads in 2011.

Perhaps the biggest gift of 2010 came on October 15^th with the birth of our first baby, Jeremiah Scott Nelson. Our little 7 lb 13 oz buddle of joy has been the biggest blessing and is continually making us smile every day. He has grown over three inches and three pounds and has begun to smile and develop his own personality. We are so thankful God has entrusted us with this little boy and pray we will be great parents for him.

We are so excited to see what God has planned for 2011 as we continue to follow His path for our lives. We are thankful for friends and family who have loved and supported us through 2010, especially during the adjustment of our first baby. We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Evan, Heather, and Jeremiah