Dad's Reflections on Haiti

Here is what my dad sent out to family and friends:

Hi Everyone,

It's good to be home!

I’ve been back on US soil for 2 days after 10 days in Haiti, and thought I should give a summary of this amazing trip.

This trip to Haiti was, for me, an impulse decision. On the day after the quake, I watched the CNN News, and kept saying to myself, “I have to go over there.” I emailed 3 agencies, found that the application process took too much time, so I called and emailed the LDS Humanitarian Services Department, asking if they were considering sending medical help. They responded within hours, and told me I needed to be on the next plane to Salt Lake. A 2-day delay in SLC allowed me to gather much needed meds and supplies, and our medical team left with little definite plans, but big desires to help wherever we could.

Our 20-member group was made up of 11 doctors (surgeons, ER and FP docs), 3 nurses, two reporters, 2 mental health counselors and 2 admin people from Humanitarian Services. We came from Oregon, Washington, and Utah. It was the first time that the LDS Church had sent an emergency medical team this large for a relief effort. Fortunately, four members of the team had lived in Haiti (one was born and raised there) so we had some idea of what we were getting into, and we tried to plan our activities on the trip in. Without going into details, I will say that is difficult to work in a place where the roads are damaged and strewn with rubble, the communications are mostly down, there was usually no electricity or public water, and the needs are so dense, that every city block had enough medical needs to keep someone busy.

I feel I have just returned from a war zone. Yesterday, back in my office at Corvallis Family Medicine, a dear patient came in, who was born in Aachen, Germany, and was 16 when her city was laid waste by the Allied Forces bombs. She had heard of my trip, and seen the news, and brought a book of pictures of Aachen after the bombs. It was so similar to what I had just seen in Haiti: almost every building flattened or damaged beyond use.

The description of the extent of damage is difficult. Haiti is a country where nearly every building is totally made of concrete: ground floor, wall columns with some rebar, walls of cinderblock and scanty mortar, and ceilings 6 inches thick with rebar. If the building is 2 or 3 stories, its just a repeat of the first floor, with more concrete. When the earthquake happened, the walls of cinderblock just crumbled like liquid onto those inside or outside the building. The weight of the ceiling and upper floors, were more than the columns could bear, to they became powder, and the floors pancaked down killing everyone inside. We heard many stories of entire schools and universities collapsing and killing everyone inside. The nursing school was in session, and every student nurse was killed. Driving around the city was very slow because everyone is avoiding going inside the remaining buildings, so they are on foot or in cars. The streets were narrowed by the rubble and the crushed cars and the piles of garbage. The stench throughout the city was pungent, the smell of death all about.

The medical carnage was mostly from falling concrete: when it cracks into pieces, it is like glass fragments, with sharp edges, coming down on the head, shoulders, arms, legs. The huge number of broken legs led me to imagine that the people were first knocked down, and then the large concrete pieces fell onto the arms and legs. We saw many with both legs broken who first found medical help over a week later, since they had been unable to get up. One lady with both legs broken was brought in on a door by family members on the 7th day after the quake. Most of the lacerations were large and deep and dirty and infected. Often the size of the open wound was 6 or 8 inches across, and would be treated in this country with skin grafts, but in Haiti will be left to heal in from the edges, a process that will take weeks or months. Some were so large, that we would clean the wounds, then put them in a car, and look for a facility that could try to access the Navy ship, “Comfort” off shore. One 18 year old girl, had a laceration from temple to temple, deep to the bone, gaping open an inch. It was severely infected, so closure would have made things worse. If she survives the infection and heals, she will be left with a giant scar across her forehead, so deforming that, unless it can be corrected, it will snuff out most opportunities for a normal life.

The case that seized my heart, more than any other, was 12 year old Fedline MonFleury. She was walking on the sidewalk at the time of the earthquake, and saw all the buildings around her crumbling to the ground, with large concrete missles flying everywhere. Her instinct was to “dive for cover” under a car in the street. The car motor was running, and she found her head, face, neck, shoulder and upper arm pinned against the hot muffler. When I saw her on the 6th day after the quake, she had only been seen once, on the 2nd day, and had been treated by placing gauze over the extensive burns. I removed the gauze, and with it came all the skin, exposing terrible infections and dirt, and on the scalp, exposed bone. We had no anesthesia, and she bravely endured the terrible pain of debridement. I knew she would need more treatment than she could find in Port Au Prince, so I promised to try to find a place for her to be treated, and asked her to return the next day for more wound care. The second day, after more painful removal of dead tissue, and infection, I hired a man with his slightly functional car to take me and Fedline and her mother to other facilities to see if we could get her to the US. We first went to the US Embassy, where we were told that they could do nothing. Then we went next to the UN, where they had set up tents for various volunteer medical groups. As Fedline and her mother waited in the car, I found Mediserve and Medical Teams International who were sharing a triage tent, and I quickly found interest in her case, by showing pictures from my camera. Medical Teams International accepted her, moved her to Kings Hospital, and Dr. Rob Sheridan, an excellent surgeon at Mass General’s Burn Unit in Boston was also able to visit her and verify her need for medevac to the US. Within 2 days, she was flying with her mother to Miami Children’s Hospital in Florida. I called the hospital last night where she has been treated with skin grafted from her legs on January 29th.

One member of our group was Jeff Randall, a physician who served an LDS mission in Haiti, then returned home, and decided to go to Medical School for the express purpose of returning to Haiti to create a facility to take care of people with disabilities. His organization, “Healing Hands for Haiti” ( http://www.healinghandsforhaiti.org ) is now over 10 years old, has a compound with 6 buildings, and takes care of over 4000 Haitians who have lost or disabled limbs. His work will now take on a huge increase in demand after the earthquake, with thousands of new amputees. Here is a section of Jeff’s blog on our trip to Haiti – he says it all so well:

We all have heard the story of the boy and the starfish. A small boy at low tide is picking up starfish one by one and throwing them back into the water. A man comes by, looks at the thousands of starfish strewn up and down the beach, and tells the boy, “Look at all these starfish! You could stand here all day throwing starfish into the water and it wouldn’t make a difference”. The boy picks up a starfish and throws it into the water. “I made a difference for that one,” he replies. Why did I come to Haiti? I couldn’t stay away for one thing. I love this country. I cry for the suffering, ache for the innocent in misery and rejoice in the joyful resilient spirit of the Haitian people. I have friends here that I have known for more than 20 years. I also came because if I could, I wanted to get a starfish back to the water.” http://chiefhhh.blogspot.com

Our time in Haiti was a mix of clinics at churches, surgeries in two hospitals, connecting with other agencies, distributing food and shelter assistance, and a huge amount of help from locals, many of whom were college students and med students. Our clinics tried to serve anyone with need in the surrounding neighborhoods. The cooperation between various faith-based, medical, and governmental agencies was remarkable. We worked alongside with the US military, Islamic Relief, Cuban doctors, NGOs, etc.

For the past two mornings, I awakened thinking of the cases we treated, and all the people who still need treatment, and wanting to get to work on them. So many people with fractures, and wounds that are infected, and need daily re-treatment – and I am hoping that someone is there to help them in the coming weeks. The job was just beginning when we left, and I find myself thinking of trying to get back to Haiti. I believe I will see Haiti again, perhaps with others in my family. My hope for Haiti is that there will be sustained comfort from the rest of the world, and that this tragedy will be a catalyst for political reform and an improved economy, and educational opportunities for young Haitians.

Thanks to all of you for your concern, prayers, and interest.

Mark

LDS Newsroom Blog on Dad

The LDS newsroom blog had an article about Dad, with a few short sound bytes as well. Currently it's the most recent one there, though it might quickly move down the line.

On My Mind: NurtureShock

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A fantastic read! I want others to talk about the ideas with! I made Taylor read one chapter tonight that I was especially excited about, and he says he'll read the whole thing; I would reread the chapters as he does, to refresh the ideas in my mind. And I'm hoping my book club here in Springville will read it, too!

The authors are the ones who wrote the article "The Inverse Power of Praise," which explained that praising children for being smart, instead of for working hard, actually DECREASED their confidence and willingness to try difficult tasks. This book goes through various topics in child-rearing, and often challenges our assumptions (which are frequently based on "research" highlighted for a moment by the media, ingrained into pop culture, and never clarified or disputed when further studies come out). Chapters cover confidence, sleep, lying, racial attitudes, intelligence, sibling conflict, teen rebellion, self-control, aggression, gratitude, and language acquisition. The authors are journalists, but have unearthed studies in these topics to find which theories really come out on top. I do love psychology, and what it can tell us about human behavior, so this book was fascinating to me! (I think I am a psych junkie -- I get as engrossed in psych studies about human behavior as some people do in People Magazine articles about celeb behavior!)

I think the chapters that most intrigued me (though ALL were engrossing!) were those about were self-control, praise, and language acquisition. As I read chapter 8 ("Can Self Control Be Taught?"), I was so excited had to pull out the computer to see what more I could learn about "Tools of the Mind," the preschool and kindergarten curriculum they highlighted. I want to order a book that teaches the curriculum ("Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education"), and find a preschool that uses this approach.

In the language acquisition, they discuss why baby language DVDs actually decrease infant's vocabulary. Babies need to see the human face to learn where one word ends and another begins, and the voice-overs used alongside cartoons in such videos doesn't help infants at all. The determining factor in an infants' language acquisition is not even how rich the language that surrounds them. It is how quickly the parent responds the the INFANT'S attempts at language. Infants of "high responders" have vocabularies 6 months in advance of "low responders." In one study, merely by touching a child when she babbled, over the course of 10 minutes, the child began to babble more and with increased complexity, such that the child sounded five months older (in terms of the types of sounds they were experimenting with) after the 10 minute session. So interesting!

And you may have heard about the "inverse power of praise." Even though Taylor and I read the original article almost 3 years ago, we still find it hard to remember: praise the effort, not just being "smart", and make the praise sincere and specific. But I do use that mantra on my high school students in our discussions, too: don't just say, "That was a great insight!" Tell your peer what specifically you liked about their thoughts.

Here is the blurb on "NurtureShock" from its publisher's website: http://twelvebooks.com/books/nurture_sho... Interestingly, Twelve books only publishes one book per month, and strives to develop "communities of conversation surrounding our books." That's a mission I can support!

Read this book! And then talk to me about it!!

View all my reviews >>

Haiti: "None of us had ever seen anything like it"

This was posted on the Stanford Medical website. The authors, Paul Auerbach and Robert Norris are part of the seven-member team of Stanford physicians and nurses who traveled to Haiti in the days immediately following the Jan. 12 earthquake. They e-mailed this letter about what they and their colleagues have encountered there:

http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2010/january/haiti-report.html

Christmas Books for Children: II

I know it's the wrong season. But I posted a blog back in November asking for recommendations of good Christmas books for children. Then my book club shared favorites in our December meeting. So, though it's the wrong season, I finally got around to compiling the list! Here it is!

Emily M:

- The Gingerbread Pirates by Kristin Kadstrup

- The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey

Lisa H (me!)

- Angela and the Baby Jesus by Frank McCourt (but has some Irish swearing!)

- a chapter from The Twelve Little Cakes by Dominika Dery (more for adults)

Laura B:

- Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck

- I Believe in Santa Claus

Alice S:

- Giving Chest

- The Legend of the Candy Cane

Mary F:

- Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas by Ace Collins

Brandie Black: had a bzillion! (: Here is what I caught:

- Penny's Christmas Jar Miracle

- If You're Missing Baby Jesus

- A Christmas Dress for Ellen

- He Took My Lickin for Me

- The Crippled Lamb

- Why Christmas Trees Aren't Perfect

- God Bless Your Way

- A Christmas Bell for Anya

- The Miracle of the Wooden Shoes

not actually Christmas but warms the heart

- What Love Is (Carol Lynn Pearson)

- The Spyglass (Richard Paul Evans)

New Hands to Help in Haiti

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/article_28b92a0e-8de7-5180-85ba-06bed1fe179f.html

I've had at least 3 friends tell me they are headed to Haiti this week. It's good to know the help continues to poor in!

My dad showed me his photos yesterday; if he shares any of them, I'll post more.

Dad in SLC, En Route to Portland

This morning my dad arrived in SLC. Anna and her boys were there first; David and I drove up a little later. Here are two photos, as well as Anna's report:

It was great seeing Dad during his layover. He showed us pictures on his camera (and with Meta on the phone), showed us videos on his flip video, and had so much to share and talk about. Mom- I wonder if you guys could post his videos and pictures on Picasa (it's really easy and I could walk you through it) sometime so that all the kids could see them. There were some priceless pictures on that camera.

Lisa and I drove him to the airport and said goodbye. He was REALLY tired, and so I called him right before his flight was about to take off to make sure he had made it to the terminal awake, and he was in line to board. So, he should be landing by now in Portland.

Haiti: It's Just Plain Old Beans!

Anna sent this link and these words. In addition to the video, there are some very haunting photos by Jeffrey Allred of The Deseret News. I'll post just a few here, too.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=9473798

"Click on the above link, and then click on the video. This short clip of a helicopter drop off of food made me cry. The people are so hungry- and it's just plain old beans! I heard that this group that does the drop offs has learned to slice open the bags, rather than just drop the bags unopened- this way more people get it and the chances of having one person make off with the bag and then not share are less likely.."

Haiti: One of the Best Days of All

Latest from my mom:

Here's an update based on my latest conversation with Mark.

He felt that yesterday was one of the best days of all and that usually means that he felt he was able to help in some way. Mark is not one to enjoy thumb twiddling. The team always starts with a prayer and ends with a prayer. I believe that their prayers and those prayers and well wishes from all of you have been a sustaining factor in this endeavor.

Some of the team members drove to a poorer part of Port au Prince (hard to imagine...). LDS church members in that area were contacted ahead of time and told that a medical clinic would be set up in the chapel and to let their families and neighbors know. So there was a good crown there and they worked from 10 am to 5 pm with no breaks. The team now consists of 6 doctors, 1 operating room nurse, and 2 mental health specialists since some departed on Sunday.

They saw lots of dirty wounds and gashes which needed attention. These people had not been in contact with medical personnel for the last 11 days except for 2 guys who had pins put in their broken legs earlier. So they did follow-up consultation with these men. The team did diagnose a new broken leg during their clinic, too. Mark saw 2 babies that were dehydrated and vomiting so they got them started on rehydration liquid. He also saw two brand new babies (only a couple days old) that were born in these crazy conditions in Haiti.

When there is a head or other injury that will need future attention, they write with a felt pen on the gauze what the diagnosis is and what has been done or needs to be done. That way the next group of docs and nurses (whoever they are) in the coming days and weeks will have an idea of what has been done. Continuum of care is not a definite in Haiti.

They also saw just regular fevers and colds which come with daily existence and are heightened when you are living in refugee conditions in tent camps or just out in the open.

One woman with diabetes came in with a wound on her leg, the size of 3 footballs. The wound was so infected and diseased and the doctor who took care of her removed pounds of dead tissue which he put in a bucket. The healing can either start now or she will eventually need an amputation due to the wound, diabetes, infection.

The rest of the team members delivered food during the day and worked on other projects. They even took a couple boxes of food to one group of the US military which for some reason had not received their food allotment yet. They were most appreciative and very hungry.

The best news of all is that it was confirmed that little Fedeline with the scalp injury and burns is now at a burn center in Miami, Florida. Medical Teams International were the ones that arranged for her transportation there.

Many of you ask what can be done. Mark continues to share that this country will need our monetary donations to one agency or another. He also feels that rehabilitation doctors and plastic surgeons are going to be very important in the coming months/years. He also hopes that organizations like Habitat for Humanity will have a strong presence there as the country rebuilds. Construction workers will be needed. Attached pictures, taken by Deseret News photographer, Jeffrey Allred, provide an amazing visual of the extent of the destruction in various parts of Port au Prince. I also attached a photo of Mark (gray shirt) helping a patient with leg wounds in the chapel yesterday.

Mark has met an LDS Bishop who also runs an orphanage there. He said there will be thousands of new orphans in this country. Like so many of the orphanages, it will need rebuilding and resupplying. Mark will try to get a list from this man of what needs to be done. I think every orphanage in Haiti will need help to get back on their feet.

He also shared that it seems like additional shipments of supplies are not the best answer right now. It has become a nightmare finding secure locations for these shipment supplies to be stored. He reiterated that the supplies which have been delivered or will soon be delivered just have to be stored and then allotted to those in need. If this isn't done carefully, they could fall into the wrong hands.

Once again, he thanks the staff at Corvallis Family Medicine for making it possible for him to take this journey. It would not have been possible without his partners- Doctors Bruce Thomson, Aaron David, Jared Nelson, Lara Gamelin, Ed Piepmeier, and Bette Lenehan, who covered his call and saw his patients. And thank you to Shelly Hunt, Office Manager, for rearranging the schedules. He's also appreciative of the flexibility of his patients who had all their appointments adjusted.

He plans to fly directly from Port au Prince to Salt Lake City at 5 am tomorrow (Wednesday), arriving at SLC airport around 10 am. He doesn't know when his connection to Portland will be yet, but it is scheduled for that same day supposedly.

It will be wonderful to have him back home again.

On My Mind: Darn Tootin' in Mockingbird

I'm asking my students to blog on To Kill a Mockingbird, so I figured I should, too! Part of this blog I already posted back in February 2008...but hey, it's a good story to remember. So here is what I posted for them to read:

I've read To Kill a Mockingbird multiple times, but it's only in this read-through that I noticed a connection between the book and my own Great-Grandma Georgia.

In chapter 15, we have a tense scene in which Atticus goes to the jail where Tom is being held, ready to protect him from the mob that appears and wants to lynch Tom. The tension is eventually diffused by little Scout, who upon recognizing the father of her classmate, Walter Cunningham, pipes up, "I go to school with Walter. He's your boy, ain't he? ... [H]e does right well. He's a good boy, a real nice boy.... I beat him up one time but he was real nice about it. Tell him hey for me, won't you?" (153-154). Walter Sr. is reminded of his own humanity, and brought of of the mob-mentality to the thinking of an individual, with a conscience. He convinces the mob to leave.

But as Atticus and his children are about to leave the scene, you find out that Mr. Braxton Underwood, editor of The Maycomb Tribune and a man who "despises Negroes, won't have one near him" (156), has been watching the whole scene, poised with a double-barreled shotgun to protect Atticus (and, it seems, the justice system which his odd-ball and rather libertarian attitude value above all else).

So when Atticus assures Tom that "They won't bother you any more," Mr. Underwood pipes up: "You're [darn] tootin' they won't. Had you covered all the time, Atticus" (155).

Now it is swearing...but my great-grandma said the same thing! Must have been a common way of swearing back in the day! (And Great-Grandma did have a potty mouth, so I've heard.) My Aunt Merrie Ziady wrote an article (or letter to the editor?), November 1, 2004, recalling the whole story (in which I take pride, swearing aside):

"When she was 81, my grandmother, Georgia Henderson, recalled in a 1968 Election Day newspaper interview that she first voted in 1915- 'I was 28 before you darn men decided we women were smart enough to vote': - and cast her first presidential vote for Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

"At the time she was quoted, Grandma was confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home. She generally voted by absentee ballot, but that year there had been a slip-up and she hadn’t received a ballot. She called the county election department and was told it was too late to get an absentee ballot.

"Angry but determined to find a way to vote, Grandma called her hometown newspaper to see if they could help her.

"'I’ve just about used up all my cuss words,' she said over the phone. 'I’m 81 years old and I’ve been voting since I was 28. And they tell me down at the election department I can’t get one now.'

"Grandma was fortunate. The person she talked to at the newspaper had a sympathetic ear and took on her case. A few phone calls confirmed it was indeed too late for an absentee ballot, but a wheelchair cab service was arranged to pick her up and take her to the polling place, free of charge. Along with one of her roommates, they headed off to the polls.

"As she went to work on her punch card ballot, she apparently kept up a running commentary of the candidates and issues – from dog control to garbage levy to presidential politics

"'My father was a hard-boiled Republican,' she said. 'It’s a good thing he died before I married, because I married a Democrat.

"Back at the convalescent home, she proclaimed, 'I made up my mind that if ther was any way for me to vote, by George, I was going to vote. And I did!'

" Was she glad? Beamed Georgia Henderson; 'You’re [darn] tootin’ I am!'

"The moral of the story? From the figures I’ve seen, there are still many Americans who are eligible to vote but don’t exercise that right. The reasons range from 'My vote doesn’t matter' to 'They’re all jerks anyway' to 'I forgot to register' to 'Who's got time to figure it out. There are too many issues, too many choices.'

"Some Americans, like my grandmother, remember what it was like not to have the vote and therefore hold dear their voting rights and responsibilities. Others have, over time, let this value die for whatever reason.

"I would simply ask the non-voting readers of my story to take a lesson from Grandma. Will you be glad you voted? If I can speak for her: 'You’re [darn] tootin’!'"

Haiti: Setting Up Another Clinic

Another article from The Deseret News, and some photos taken by Jeffrey Allred.

Haiti: A Brightness of Hope

My mom's most recent email:

Mark was not able to get through via the satellite phone on Saturday but he called last night. Even with the satellite phone, the transmission is very rough and goes in and out so sometimes it takes him 5-6 phone calls in 1 night to get the message across.

He's been in the country for 8 days now and last two days were spent seeing the injured and delivering food. There continue to be people who come with terrible injuries, but infections in those injuries is the big worry now.

Five of the containers of food and supplies from the LDS church have arrived. Mark and team members helped unload the hundreds of boxes from 2 of the containers into a secure warehouse. Then they took a truckload of these boxes of food and delivered them to the people in refugee camps, waiting outside of the hospitals, and camping on the grounds of the church. 1 box of food can feed a family of 4 for about a week.

He can tell that supplies and medical teams are becoming much more abundant. The lines of people waiting to be seen are shrinking. In fact, when he went to a hospital that is called the "command center", there were many physicians and nurses looking for things to do. Part of the problem seems to be the lack of a central coordination effort. When I asked him if the teams had enough suture and supplies, he said that the recent shipment deliveries throughout Port au Prince seem to be providing what is needed, but the system is overwhelmed and what has been sent needs to get delivered and utilized in the best way. When I asked him if there was something in short supply, the main thing he could think of were sterile gowns for surgerical procedures. But basically, the supplies seem to be getting there, at least from his perspective.

When I asked him about what was happening in the city, he said that Port au Prince is filled with a massive odor- the smell of death from all the decaying bodies. One Haitian took him to a location and showed him where at least 100 young people (mostly women) were studying to become nurses. All of them died during the earthquake while attending classes. No one was recovered. He sees many rescue teams in Port au Prince without anything to do now because no one is being rescued anymore.

The bulldozers have finally arrived or been repaired and have started to clear certain areas of the city. It still reminds him of photos of Germany and France in the WWII photos showing bombed out cities. Most houses in Port au Prince are built with concrete blocks and then have a couple of concrete beams across the top to hold the roof on. It is those concrete beams that collapsed that have caused so many severe head injuries, broken limbs, amputations, etc.

Mark is very impressed with the work of Jeff Randle, medical doctor in Rehab medicine and a member of the LDS Humanitarian Team, and his work with Healing Hands for Haiti. He started the clinic on a shoestring budget 12 years ago and by 2005, they were seeing nearly 5000 patients. Here are some other stats on their website http://www.healinghandsforhaiti.org regarding what they accomplished in 2005:

• 4934 patients seen in clinic, 15% are children
• Therapy staff treated 2612 patients, or 55.51% of the total patients treated at the Clinic this year
• The Orthotics and Prosthetics Department at Kay Kapab Clinic evaluated 496 patients, manufactured 220 devices, including 29 lower extremity prostheses and 6 upper extremity prostheses. There were 133 orthoses and 52 other types of devices made
• We now have 4 volunteer Haitian physicians at Kay Kapab Clinic. Specialties include physiatry (physical medicine and rehabilitation), orthopedic surgery, and internal medicine. The physicians treated 25% of the patients seen at the clinic.
• Healing Hands for Haiti and Medishare http://medi-share.org/ partnered in sponsoring surgeries for hydrocephalic babies. This year 17 surgeries, one orthopaedic corrective surgery and 16 shunt surgeries for hydrocephalic children were performed
• Offered a seminar on sign language in order to enable our staff to communicate with deaf patients and one of our employees who is deaf
• 20 candidates selected to enrol in the Rehabilitation Aide I Program. 15 actually began the course which was taught by 4 foreign teachers (physical therapists) and 9 Haitian teachers ( 7 doctors and 2 teachers from the Department of Linguistics).
• 399 chairs were distributed in Les Cayes, Jacmel, Gonaive, Port a Paix and Cap Haitian
• Generous anonymous donation received to be used toward planning and construction of first rehabilitation hospital in Haiti

Although the clinic was greatly damaged and some employees died, teams of doctors and construction workers are heading over to help with the repair. This is important because, besides offering rehab therapy, a shop had been built where Haitians were trained to make prosthetic limbs. This will be a great need in this country where so many have had an amputation in the last 10 days. Here's a recent article.

Back to the LDS Humanitarian team: Although 1/2 of the team returned to the US on Sunday, the remaining members feel that the best service they can offer in the next couple of days is for the least served. What has been determined is that the needs are now greatest outside of Port au Prince. So they are heading out of town today.

Mark's last comment was how the Haitian people have demonstrated amazing resilency throughout this horrible catastrophe. He said that even those men and women and children who are lying on the ground with broken limbs and injuries, have a brightness of hope in their faces. He feels grateful to have had this opportunity to meet them and to learn from them.

We are still hopeful that he will be returning Wednesday night, but based on their logistics getting there, I will believe it when I see it!

Thank you, again, for all of your positive thoughts, emails of encouragement, and prayers.

Update from Healing Hands for Haiti Blog

http://www.chiefhhh.blogspot.com/

Haiti: Liz Howell & Jeremy Wardle

Two articles from The Deseret News focused on Liz Howell, a nurse who has been in Haiti with Dad's humanitarian medical team. Liz sounds absolutely amazing: she lost her own husband in 2001 in the 9/11 attacks. I think you'll enjoy both of these articles:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705360696/Nurse-draws-on-power-of-love.html

and

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705360697/Haiti-binds-a-broken-heart.html

She had this to say about the people of Haiti:

I think the people I have been most impressed with during this entire trip is the native Haitians. They are resilient.

They're putting their lives back together. They're going through compound grief, but they're resilient, and they will get through this.

The third article is about the Wardles, whose adoptive daughter Gabrielle survived the quake. Jeremy Wardle was able to get her -- and 20-something other Haitian children -- airlifted to the States. (All were children whose adoption had long been in process, however.)

Thoughts on Haiti

Tonight we had one session of what, in the Mormon Church, is called "Stake Conference." Mormon congregations (wards) are determined by geographical locations (in Utah that means my ward is only about 3 X 5 blocks big!). A number of wards make up a "stake."

Before the actual session began, beautiful prelude music was sung. With that beauty surrounding me, my mind went to Haiti. I remembered my dad's words, "Today is a day beyond words," and "This will become a country filled with amputees." Images of Fedeline Mon Fleury flooded my mind. Mom sent some photos of my dad treating the wounds on Fedeline's face, but she (Mom) asked that we not post them; perhaps she felt they were too graphic. The photos made me cry when I first looked at them, and again, as the music surrounded me, my eyes filled with tears as I thought of all the pain and suffering in Haiti right now.

This happened to me before, where beautiful music made me cry because it contrasted so starkly with things in the world: Mom, Anna and I were in Krakow, Poland, in 1993, and had visited Auschwitz that day. While walking around, I was horrified but didn't cry. But that night, at a concert in a beautiful church in Krakow, the peace of the music and the terror of Auschwitz contradicted so sharply, that it made me break down and cry. Evil and beauty, destruction and creation, are dissonant bedfellows.

A few nights ago, Taylor and I were talking about the destruction in Haiti, and Taylor drew parallels to the earthquakes and destruction that the Book of Mormon records occurred in the Americas at the time of Christ's death. We believe that Christ then visited the people of the Book of Mormon, teaching them and performing miracles even more incredible than those done in the Holy Land.

Mormon artwork, such as this painting by Arnold Friberg, tends to portray Christ's arrival as occurring immediately or very very soon after the destruction had ended. However, the Book of Mormon record says that the destruction occurred in the first month of the 34th year (3 Nephi 8:5). The land was covered in darkness. In the next chapter, the people hear the voice of Christ, then silence for many hours, and then his voice again, promising to gather them "as a hen gathereth her chickens" (3 Nephi 10:4). At that point the darkness disperses, "the earth did cleave together again" (10:10), and the survivors rejoice: "their mourning was turned to joy" (10:10). The next few verses are not an account of events, but an explanation of prophesy. Then verse 18 reads: "And it came to pass that in the ending of the thirty and fourth year, behold, I will show unto you that the people ... did have great favors shown unto them, and great blessings poured out upon their heads, insomuch that soon after the ascension of Christ into heaven [from the Holy Land], he did truly manifest himself unto them -- [s]howing his body unto them, and ministering unto them..." (10:18-19). The chapters that follow recount Christ's visit to the people.

Why am I going through all of this? Taylor pointed out to me that Christ most likely did not show up days after the destruction. His visit was perhaps 9-11 months later, according to the dates recorded ("first month" vs "ending" of the 34th year). My dad is currently in a place of great destruction, and is trying to heal and save lives immediately. Survivors are even now being pulled out of the wreckage. Other doctors and aid workers will follow on the heals of my dad. What will those doctors see a year from now? Will Haiti really be a "country of amputees"? What healing will be needed then?

I believe that Christ came, that he taught them many truths, and that He healed their sick, as 3 Nephi 17:6-10 testifies:

6 And he said unto them: Behond, my bowels are filled with compassion towards you.

7 Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy.

8 ...[F]or I see that your faith is sufficient that I should heal you.

9 And it came to pass that when he had thus spoken, all the multitude, with one accord, did go forth with their sick and their afflicted, and their lame, and with their blind, and with their dumb, and with all them that were afflicted in any manner; and he did heal them every one as they were brought forth unto him.

10 And they did all, both they who had been healed and they who were whole, bow down at his feet, and did worship him; and as many as could come for the multitude did kiss his feet, insomuch that they did bathe his feet with their tears.

The horrors in Haiti are making this passage all the more meaningful to me. Their society too may have been "a country filled with amputees" -- or of people otherwise injured from the great earthquakes that had ravaged them nearly a year before. It is all the more poignant to me that the people healed had been living with their lameness -- lost limbs, incorrectly healed bones, scarred faces, maimed eyes -- for that year before Christ miraculously healed them. Their appreciation of His miracle could only have been deeper for having had to live with the pain and the lameness for that length of time.

And Taylor stressed the fact that for Christ to come and preach -- while the people were still pulling themselves out of the rubble -- doesn't make much sense. Christ lectures for long hours to the people; could they have gained anything if the aftershocks were still reverberating through the country!

How I ache that so many in Haiti will continue to live with pain and lameness and loss! I want miracles to be poured out on them, too!

On My Mind: The Wednesday Wars

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this book in a Sunday, thanks to Taylor doing all the parenting and dinner-making for the day! It's a young adult novel set in 1967-68, and the narrator is a 7th grade boy who thinks his English teacher hates him. (Dont' they all? ... All 7th graders think their teachers hate them, not all teachers hate their students!! :) The clincher? She assigns him to read Shakespeare!

Beginning with The Tempest, they read through several of Shakespeare's works. Surprisingly (ha ha), the themes fit with things in his own life. (I am kidding; we all know Shakespeare is true to life!) There's a lot of humor to the book, but also some real poignancy, as another teacher loses her husband in the Vietnam War, as his older sister runs away from home, and as he realizes his father is not the hero he thought he was.We read it for book club and it made for a lively discussion. If you like YA literature (and to be honest, I haven't though I liked that genre, though "Tangerine" and "Catching Fire" and this one have changed my mind!), this is a good one!

View all my reviews >>

Haiti: "Today is a day beyond words"

Email from my mom:

Yesterday was another busy day for Mark and the team.

General comments from him:

"Today is a day beyond words."

"I have never seen so many dead limbs in my life. This will become a country filled with amputees."

"Rehabiliation specialists and plastic surgeons are going to be in dire need in the coming months."

"Sepsis (bacterial infection) is setting in with many of the injured."

"The entire country was riddled with earthquakes."

Mark started the day at the church medical clinic in Port au Prince. The young woman with the lateral gash on her forehead was feverish from the 3rd degree burns on her foot & ankle in addition. So he loaded her up and took her to a Choa (?) center that had been set up by the airport and used as a triage center for the injured. But it was basically gone when he arrived- only a few tents and no staff. It seems like some of the tent facilities come and go depending on staffing and need. So then he took her to another tent facility and they were willing to take her and give her 24 hour coverage as in a hospital.

Many of the team then gathered supplies and headed south to another LDS chapel in an area that was hit by the earthquake but hadn't had much medical attention. They got there and continued to see infected wounds and burns. After about 30 minutes, they heard noise out in front of the church and saw a man and his brother and his son who had just showed up. It was one of those images that Mark said he'll never forget. The man and his brother were carrying the man's son in a chair mounted on 2 sticks. Mark said it was the kind you see in pictures of Cleopatra or some royal person being carried through the crowds, except this was just two simple sticks and a broken chair all roped/wired together for this young 9 year old boy. The trio had been traveling for 2 days down from the mountains and because of the boy's injuries, this was the only way to get the boy out of the mountains. The boy's mother had been killed in the earthquake and this was the family's only child. They had stopped at various towns/villages as they made their way down the mountain but there wasn't any medical help along the way, just more devastation. So they were happy to know that there were medical personnel in this community. The boy's arm was basically crushed and dead. Mark said that the hand had turned black and was like jello. The boy had a fever of about 103-104 degrees and only had a few more hours to live before infection would take over his entire body. So they found a pick up and rushed him to the University Hospital where his arm was amputated up to the shoulder. They are hopeful that he will survive. Mark has heard that the people in the mountains don't have much to begin with and it is an area that has been turned upside down like Port au Prince but with much less medical and media attention.

A US medical student from Fort Worth has been working on and off with the team. During one of his last days, he went on his own to an orphanage out in the country. There was a building but due to its instability, all of the kids were outside in the yard, many of them injured. He fell in love with a little girl there and wanted to adopt her on the spot. But he was told that he will need to go home, get a background check and health/home approval, fill out the proper papers and come back in a couple of weeks. So unless you have adoption papers in process, it sounds like most of the children still need to be adopted through some governmental channel. And that's probably for the best because there could be a possibility of these children falling into the sex/labor trade channels if future homes are not approved and verified. So for all of you that asked if Mark could bring home a baby, I don't think it will work.

Good news- Dr. Rob Sheridan from Boston's Mass General was able to see Fedeline, the 12 year old girl with the burns on her scalp. Mark finished his day yesterday by going to visit her and found people filling out forms for her visa to the US. If all goes well, she will be flown to either Boston or Miami for further care and surgeries by today or tomorrow.

The phone transmission was not very good yesterday so it was a short conversation and I think he had more to share. His plans are to fly home Wednesday night. He'll be staying with members of the team at the airport on Tuesday night because they leave early in the morning. Another team from LDS Humanitarian Services is flying in and they will be using their plane to fly out.

He thanks everyone for their words of support and encouragement. He said the devastation is immense but there are many rescue and medical teams from all over trying their best to make a difference. He also said the Haitians are a loving and kind people who are grateful for what is being done.

Alice