A Day in the Life of Mis Diane

Curious about my daily life? I felt like today gives one a good idea of a typical medical person's day here in Haiti. They call me Mis Diane here, which means Nurse Diane, with the understanding that I function like a nurse practicioner. I have a really good imagination, but I don't think that even I could have imagined that my life would look quite like this... It's full of love and loss and hope and heartache.

8am-- Arrive at the hospital for an awesome time of staff devotions with our 83 year old pastor. Thankfully, I can understand every word he says because he talks so slowly. He's an incredible, godly man!

8:15-- Find out that one of my babies died. She was my precious little patient. She was 8 months old and so malnourished that she didn't have the strength to smile or even cry. She seems to have been neglected by her mother, who I only saw once during her 6 day hospital stay. Her AIDS test was negative, but I'm still suspicious... She was so malnourished that her skin was breaking down and allowing horrible staph infections on her arms and legs. We pumped her full of antibiotics and vitamins and milk every 2 hours, and she seemed to be doing so much better!! And she was, until early this morning when she spiked a fever and didn't pull through.

8:30-- Devotions end and clinic work starts. The clinic is like a combo ER/primary care office. If you're sick or pregnant, you sign in early in morning, and then get seen in order of arrival/level of urgency. If you're sick enough, you get admitted to the hospital from the clinic. If you need to be rechecked, a follow up date is provided. Usually pregnant women will show up for one prenatal visit before returning to give birth. What a different world here!

Noon-- Enjoy lunch with the other missionaries. Matthew's brother and his wife are visiting from my hometown, and it was fun to have a meal with all of them.

2:00-- Take Matthew's family on a tour of the hospital. Kelley is 6 months pregnant, so we tested out the ultrasound equipment on her and did an impromptu ultrasound! It was so sweet to see their son's little face!

3:00-- Go to the orphanage. Filled to the brim with 53 children ages 4-12, it is a place of stories of past heartbreak and present nourishment. Some of them look incredibly different, in a healthy, happy way, from the sad, starving little ones I saw in March when I was here for a week. I'm so thankful they can be there! And I'm so thankful that I can spend time with them! I had a group of 8 little girls who enjoyed braiding my hair and begged me to come see them again. I can't wait to go back!

4:15-- Getting ready to have the church's youth group come over. At prayer group on last weekend, they asked if they could come over to pray with us before we left to go to the States for Christmas. Justine and I were delighted to accept! How sweet! While I was getting ready for them to come, I got a call from Joy that one of our missionaries had been hit by a motorcycle! Dr. Emmett is a wonderful retired missionary doctor who comes to Haiti every year for a month or two to give some of the Haitian doctors a break. He's 77, and while walking back from the hospital this afternoon, he was struck by someone driving a motorcycle with brakes that don't work!! He doesn't remember the accident, but somehow he face-planted on the gravel road. The Haitian docs spent 3 hours sewing his face up, and we extracted a rock from one of the cuts on his chin. I ran errands for them and keep his wife updated on their progress.

8:00-- Go home for dinner. We finally finished up at the hospital and I managed to get home for dinner.

9:00-- Start neuro checks on Dr. Emmett. Without a CT scanner here, I have no way to know for sure that he doesn't have a bleed inside his brain. Even if we could do one here, he's still at risk for bleeding for the next 72 hours. So, tonight, every 4 hours, I'm going over to check and be sure that he's okay. Please keep him in your prayers!

Whew! Such is my life! I'm so thankful that God promises to order our steps, cuz my day sure is full of steps!!