Tough days...

 This is the view of the mountains from the compound I'm living in.  This is rainy season so there skies are rarely clear to really see the mountains.  One of my friends and coworkers showed me how to climb to the top of the water tower where the view is better so I hope to take the chance to get some photos on a clearer day some time soon.

Wednesday was a tough day. I cried for the first time here.  I know it won't be the last.  We had to send a woman away who was very ill but needed medical care beyond what this facility can provide.  It took 4

                                                      family members to carry her out of the backseat of a car. They so desperately needed help and we had to send them to the general hospital, not knowing if the family would actually take her because of the cost.  She had severe heart failure with swollen legs, very short of breath, unable to even sit.  I went on my first "home" visit to take a patient who started going into withdrawal from alcohol, wasn't eating and threw up on me in the am PT session.  He lives behind a wall by the main street, where his wife and family sell various items under a tin roof held up by 2 branches.  He sleeps on some blankets behind the cement wall under a fabric canopy and a family member carries him to the public bathroom.  He has already lost one leg and just had toes amputated on the other foot.  Sorry, I didn't take pictures of that, but I rode in a truck with 8 other Haitians into an unknown part of town and didn't want to risk it getting stolen.  Anyways....

Today it rained in the morning and the heavy rains flood the streets so many of our outpatients didn't come.  That gave us some more time with the inpatients.  This picture is of a woman named Osinette.  She lost her leg in the earthquake.  She now has a great prosthetic and we are getting her ready to go home and back to work.  She makes money by selling fruit and items on the street so she has to carry baskets on her head and get up and down off the ground.  You can see how straight her basket is and how crooked mine is.  I dropped mine 3 times and hers never wobbled a bit!!  They will carry as much as 5 gallons of water on their heads at times.  That's 40# and I couldn't hardly hold up the 5#.  By the way, this is the new neck rehab protocol for my patients when I get back :-)

This is Clare, showing off how good she is at holding her basket and moving around.  I need much more practice! 

We got a shipment of shoes that the main OT, Erica, brought in and I was able to give a patient a pair of shoes today and she was SO HAPPY, ear to ear grin, because she got a used pair of tennis shoes.  Makes you think, doesn't it?