I'll hopefully put some of my pictures up over the weekend - sorry but an attempt to catch up on sleep has taken a priority...
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I love happy endings!

Yesterday I went to have a birthday lunch with my mother, and she handed me an article from the wall street journal on Monday about a mother who had been searching for her two year old son since the earthquake and had tracked him down to a hospital in Milot. I raced through the article reading the details about the baby's leg being amputated, his arrival to Milot at the same time I got there, etc. When I saw the picture of the mother holding a photo of her missing son my heart stopped. I knew exactly who the boy was. I tore through my pictures and compared one I had taken of our Jean Pierre and I knew it had to be him. I frantically started emailing two of the peds nurses I met down there that were staying down there longer than I was. They both emailed me back that it was Jean Pierre! The updated article from the wall street journal today says they flew the little boy to be reunited with his mother! Here is the article from today and there's a link on that page to the article from Monday:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703795004575087683673968688.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond


And the reunion article!! http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703795004575087683673968688.html

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HOME

I have finally made it home to find that the 5lb 6 week old puppy I left has doubled in size. Saw Jimmy Buffett in jacksonville Saturday night which was amazing as usual. Thanks so much to the people that worked so hard to get me back in time! Back to work tomorrow but hopefully will put some pictures from my camera up here soon
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Here are the last two pics from my phone me and Tim Traynor, your worst nightmare and me with John, my favorite surgeon to work with EVER and my new hero and my birthday savior, Dr Lovejoy III
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I'm coming HOME!

Its official: I'm coming home today (won't be back in Atlanta til Sunday night I think-going to see Jimmy buffett in Jacksonville tomorrow night!)! I'm at the airport in cap Hatien and the plane is here and I will be on it soon. I owe all of this to both Dr. Lovejoy's and Carol Fipp. They worked so hard to get me home and have saved my birthday!!

I'm so overwhelmed and exhausted but will put up many more pictures when I'm home. I dropped my camera today and broke the screen on it but I'm pretty sure the pictures will be fine. At least I saved breaking the camera for the day I was leaving!

It was bittersweet (but mostly sweet) to do the schedule for the last time and pass off my sharpie markers and give up the control of the board (or lack thereof). The last 12 days have been hard and everyone works crazy hours everyday. I finally took a break yesterday afternoon to go see the citadel but aside from that I was working all day/night everyday.

And the Lovejoy surgery team has been ABSOLUTELY phenomenal. Words cannot express how much I loved working with them!! They are all such amazing people!

And of course I couldn't leave without having to do a little work... I ran the board for a little bit and then we got word that a helicopter would be arriving in 20 minutes to take two spine injury patients to the USS comfort bc we couldn't operate on them here. So Suresh, the neurosurgeon who actually made me like neuro a little bit (but I'm totally going back to cardiac when I go back home... We actually had a cardiac surgeon down here who found someone who might need a pericardial window-of course they find this the night before I leave...) and I ran to the tents to get the patients who hadn't been told that they were going to the comfort yet. So he took one and I took the other and we basically said you're going to the comfort NOW. But the best part of the story is that when we got the patients on the stretchers ready to go, they realized they couldn't find the key to the ambulance to pick them up. So the patients were carried down to the field and got on the chopper. The ambulance key was found shortly after that.

Alright time to get on the plane and attempt to relax. We work so hard everyday that I don't think I've had any time to think about it all. Definitely going to be hard to look back on it all-prob a rough couple days. I need some Jimmy Buffett and a margarita!!
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We have been SO busy its crazy. We average 25 cases a day and we have really only 2 fully functioning ORs. Its a lot to handle. But I did make time tonight to go to the pediatric ward with my roommate Denise who is one of the few people who has been here as long as I have. She is absolutely incredible. At age 12 she was diagnosed with bone cancer and given a 10% chance of survival. At age 19 she had her leg amputated above the knee. She does not want her real age disclosed although she looks like she's 25. But now she is happily married with 3 kids. She is such an inspiration to the amputees bc she can show them that they can still lead a normal life. Some of the patients down here cannot fathom the possibility of a prosthetic limb. Its amazing to see the reactions the patients down here have to seeing this girl walk in and show them her prosthetic leg. One of the other volunteers told her that they had never seen the patients happier bc it gave them that much hope that they might be able to lead a normal life. The pictures are the kids in the peds ward. There was one girl with am amputated leg who really connected with Denise who was sobbing when she left. It was heart breaking.

The one that really got me last night and today was a young 23 year old girl transferred from the USS comfort with crush injuries to her left arm and leg. While on the ship, she refused amputation and they did everything they could but her arm and leg were infected and they removed all the nerves and muscles from her arm and explicitly said her hand would never function again. When we rounded last night she refused amputation even though she was told the infection was already damaging her kidneys and she would die. She was very upset but said that she didn't want any amputations bc God told her not to. They brought her over to the pre op area to discuss things with her today and it was too much for me. She's so young and we are telling her that she can either have an arm and leg cut off or she can die. It was so hard bc it was a girl my exact age and it hit way too close to home. I can't imagine how I would feel being told those options at such a young age. She agreed to the amputations and we're supposed to do them tomorrow. I just am realizing how much I take for granted everyday.

That's it for tonight. Thanks to everyone for keeping me in their thoughts and prayers!!
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