Birthday

Woah, can we say crazy? The time here alone is turning out to be so awesome and crazy all in the same breath. I'm loving the work here, especially in the past week. Going at it alone is forcing me with my creole and I'm having a lot of fun with the patients in the hospital. It's so rewarding to be able to start building relationships and woah, Haitians have a humor all there own. I usually don't leave without having a good laugh. We have a full house and it takes me more than an hour to do rounds in the morning and then I have three people with wounds to clean and change bandages. By the way, Belizaire (aka the man with the leg) is getting closer to having some closed wounds. He has 3 larger wounds on his lower leg and he and Annelies have a bet going as to which wound will close first. There is pate (fried bread) on the line for this bet. So it's up to me to keep track while Annelies is gone! (my pate is on the gigantic wound on his upper leg that has hardly any skin, but they all just laugh at me),

So wow, today is my birthday. I wasn't expecting anything, but Annelies had told Anne-Marie who also told everyone in the hospital. So, I was greeted this morning with Happy Birthday in creole and a few of the mother singing and dancing and hugging me very enthusiastically. Haha, it was a sight to see. But the day doesn't end there I'm afraid. This morning a Haitian ambulance came with a woman in labor. She wasn't progressing very well, and was sitting outside on her bed most of the morning while we saw the other mass of patients who came today. So when she was done with consultations, Anne-Marie decided to give her an IV to speed up contractions, since they seem to be diminishing. And speed up they did. The baby was born probably 30 minutes later and I pulled it out (with a little help of course), clamped and cut the cord. Ti fi (a girl)! And all were joking ti Ryna came today. And I guess this is common practice: the mom told Anne-Marie, just give her any name. So yeah, you guessed it. Haiti now has a Ryna of it's own (Rayna). Oh my goodness. I cannot believe this day.