I wanted to bring you up to date on Pierreson, the very sick newborn baby brought in to the Oct. medical clinic. He was extremely dehydrated when he arrived because he had not been nursed due to his mother's illness. The nurses we had on team running our medical clinic worked with the baby and mother, who also spent a couple of days in the clinic hospital at Titayen.
After their release from the clinic the came to stay at the orphanage so that we could monitor Pierreson's care and provide meds & infant formula for him. (Upon release from the clinic mom had misunderstood instructions and thought the vitamin syrup was what she was to feed the baby, and had not given him any milk- so we thought their care needed to be closely monitored in order to have a successful recovery, thus the invitation to stay at the orphanage for a time.)
In November Pierreson seemed to be doing fairly well, he had gained some weight and looked more like a typical newborn. We were concerned however, that his fontanel seemed too large, stretching across the top of his little head from an inch or so above his ears and front to back all the way from the top of his forehead to the crown, almost like a cross. In late November he started having some mild seizures, usually following or during feeding. They were short and infrequent , but we started looking for somewhere to send them to get it checked out.
In early December I learned from Micheline that a low cost hospital had been found and Pierreson and his Mommy had gone there for evaluation and care. We have heard noting else from them.
Sorry, if you thought I was going to able to tell a sweet story of how they all lived happily ever after (I really wish I could have). The reality is that we live in Haiti where that is rarely the case. I don't know how Pierreson is doing now, what his future holds or even if he has a future at all. I may never know. Often when I give aid to in Haiti it's like that, they breeze in and out of my life- or me in theirs, I'm not sure which.
This is what I do know. Pierreson would not have survived even one more day if those nurses and a mission team form Mandarin Bapt. had not been in Haiti. He would not have lived had not someone had the vision to "go and make disciples" and if Marcus and Mrs. Billie and countless others had not given sacrificially of themselves. If Christians had not opened their wallets to give financially to bless the ministry, Pierreson would already be dead.
Instead, he and his Mom were loved, treated with kindness and dignity, given hope and direction. Whatever happens from here out is not in our hands, but during that short time they were in our lives, we loved them with the love He shows to us... and we were blessed.
While looking up Haiti info online, I ran across this letter from Father Rick Frechette, who runs a Mission hospital in Port-au-Prince. He expresses the flood of crazy chaotic thoughts when trying to make a decision about when and how to give aid. I journaled a little about it when trying to decide how to best help with Pierreson. He is much more eloquent.
Recently in the vast Port-au-Prince slum called Cite Soleil, a sickly young woman asked me to help her. Her name was Solange. She was so small and slight, I was surprised when she told me she was in her twenties. When I listened to her heart, the gushy murmurs made me picture her heart valves as thick, shredded sponges. I was sure she had valve damage from previous rheumatic fever, which is still very prevalent here. A cardiologist friend confirmed this and thought surgery was still possible, so I arranged for Solange to go to Dominic Republic for surgery.
A few days after Solange left, we had bad rains, then terrible rains, then worse rains still, and then a full stop flood. We went into high gear, helping thousands of flooded neighbors get out of the water to shelter. While in the midst of all the flood chaos, I got a call from the Dominican Republic saying that Solange had died during the night. They didn’t know what to do with her body or how to let her family in Haiti know that she was dead.So we handled a disaster within a disaster, using cell phones during flood relief to arrange the return of Solange’s body to Haiti by airplane, and to call the family to come to find us in the floods so we could give the news personally and not by phone.
My head started to spin. The family will probably blame us for her death. They will want money. They will say I should have left her alone, that the trip was too tiring for her. When the body comes on the plane it will difficult getting the body through immigration. They will need to be bribed. The family will want us to pay for the funeral, etc, etc, etc….Fatigue, frustration, and cynicism know how to twist the mind and heart. They are the weapons of the Antichrist.
Having worked myself up into an angry and defensive posture, when the family asked us to drive the body all the way to Thiotte ( a six hour drive), I recited in full voice a list of everything we had already done for Solange, and what it cost in terms of money and effort. Soon the force of my words started to fade. There was her body, in front of me, in a simple coffin. There had been no problems at immigration, no bribes to pay. Just compassionate officials who helped things move rapidly for the grieving family of paupers. I realized with embarrassment that I should be using my mouth for blessing her body, for praying for her family standing before me in their grief, and not for my unsolicited defense. The family was kind and understanding. No demands. No blame. They were only asking for a ride to Thiotte. If we couldn’t help, they would try to manage another way.
Then I was completely caught off guard. The family told me they were going home to Thiotte because their simple home was destroyed by the water and mud of the floods, and they had no place to go with Solange. They had no place but home. There life was all loss. Then, they thanked me for sending Solange to the Dominican Republic. If she hadn’t gone, they said, she would have had a terrible death in the water and mud.
Who had the sicker heart? Me or Solange? How did St Nicholas, and so many great people through the ages, keep the right heart in the face of danger and stress and disaster? They had a special gift, a keen intelligence as to what was really happening inside people and in their true situations, that could not be blunted or distorted by preconceptions or habits of response based on fatigue or cynicism. What a great gift to ask for at Christmas, from the real Santa Clause- a keen, intelligent heart.
Fr Richard Frechette CP
Port au Prince
December 6, 2007
No comments:
Post a Comment