There's no place like home!!

In my seat on the plane to FLL. We stopped at the hospital to see our patients from yesterday and pick up all of our trunks. Check in was smooth. Sleep time!

About to leave our guest house en route to the hospital. Coffee and breakfast are helping me to wake up. It has been a good trip: short and intense, but good.

April 14-15

April 15, 2012

It is midnight on Sunday, and our trip is winding down.  We are leaving our guest house at 6 am tomorrow for the airport.

It has been a busy, intense trip.  Yesterday we operated until about 1 am.  It was around 2 by the time everyone was back at the guest house and all was done for the day.  We had an ambitious schedule as well as equipment and other issues.  We did 4 urology and 2 ENT cases in one room, and 5 cleft lip/palate and 2 ENT cases in the other room.  They brought us dinner and we ate in the hallway between cases.  It was an intense day, but all of the patients did well.

Today was another busy day with 6 urology cases in one room and 2 cleft lip patients and 3 hernia patients in the other.  One of the cleft lip patients was so malnourished and frail that we were unable to get an IV placed after she was asleep and we had to cancel the surgery.  It was quite stressful.  Our plan is to teach the mother how to improve her feeding and take care of her next trip.  It really highlights how complex the care of these patients is and how fragile they are.  We had pizza for dinner. 

There are a few differences in Port-au-Prince this trip.  Many of the tents around the airport have been moved.  I don’t think it was because they had housing but because they wanted to clean up the area.  It appeared that there was a high ranking official from Mexico visiting Haiti when we arrived.  The roads are in awful condition, mostly from the rain, not the earthquake.  There is much confusion in Haiti about what the time zone really is.  Some people think that Haiti is on daylight savings time, some think not, some think it changed when the US time zone changed.  It seems so odd that no one knows!

We had a good trip, but we are all exhausted.  I think we will all enjoy a snooze on the flights tomorrow!

Too late for pictures or more details. All of the patients did well. They brought us dinner and we ate in the hallway outside of the OR. More tomorrow.

It is 1:40am, just going to bed. It was a long difficult day. 4 urology and 2 ENT cases in one room, 5 cleft lip/palate and 2 ENT in other. We are exhausted.

April 13 2012

April 13, 2012

We had a very busy day today.  The urology team did eight surgical procedures, and plastics did four.  One of the patients having a cleft palate repair was a patient who had a cleft lip repair last May.  He looks great!  We had some challenges setting up the equipment and supplies this morning, but we figured it all out.  The day ran long, and we hope that tomorrow will be easier.

It was raining really hard at the end of the day, and it reminds us that it is the rainy season.

We had lunch with grilled chicken or beef and rice and beans, and a similar menu for diner.

We have an amazing group of people here, and it is awesome to meet so many wonderful people.

Haiti April 2012

April 12, 2012

I am in Haiti again with the LEAP Foundation, a Dallas based plastic surgery foundation.  This is my third trip to Haiti with LEAP.  We are here to do three days of surgery for cleft lip and palate, peds urology and peds ENT.  There are over 20 of us, mostly from Dallas but a few from other places.

Our travel was uneventful and all of our team members and luggage arrived safely.  One additional person arrives tomorrow.  We landed mid afternoon and then went directly to the hospital where some of us unpacked and sorted supplies and others saw patients.  In total over 60 patients were evaluated and 34 are scheduled for surgery.

We are staying at a guest house which is owned by the hospital.  Our accommodations are very nice including electricity, water, fans, internet and someone who cooks for us.  We had spaghetti, fried plantains, veggies and mango for dinner.

We will be busy tomorrow with OR cases and hope to get a good sleep!

In PAP all is well! On our way to the hospital to unpack, see patients. Trip was fine, I think everyone and everything made it! Hot and cloudy here, might rain.

On the road again - headed to Haiti with the LEAP foundation to do cleft lip and palate, Peds urology and ENT. Remember us!

Driving to work this morning I was listening to a CD of Ethiopian music while thinking about my trip to Haiti tomorrow.