Day 2 - 6: The Cuban Hospital

The next day, Wednesday morning, we were up and going by 5:45.  Sam had been stirring most of the night, in pain from his swelling and/or fever.  I kept him upright most of the night, on my chest, and continued Tylenol every 4 hours.

We had gone to bed around 8:30.  Sam was up several times and I had woke up once with bug bites.  I got up to check the time -praying that dawn was near!- and it was only 10pm!!  That was how that night rolled.

Anyway.

Our group was packed in the van and ready to go on time.  Ecefi, Sam's previous nanny, was asked if she would like to join us.  She loves our little guy and wanted to be there for him.  Like I said, I love this woman.

We all agreed that the swelling had gotten worse over night.  Our anxiety was high to get him treatment and answers.  Quick.  The 2 hour drive, north east of Port au Prince, over the mountains to the town of Mirebalais - the location of the Cuban hospital - was a quiet one.

Normally, I would have completely enjoyed the views but it was not to be on this journey.

We arrived a while before the 8am opening of the hospital and took up real estate on some benches outside with the rest of the Haitians waiting to be seen.

A few minutes before 8am, Ecefi stood up and said that we needed to be by the entrance to the hospital to make sure that we could get in... AND THIS IS WHERE OUR JOURNEY TOOK A TURN FOR THE BETTER!

As we walked up to the entrance of the hospital, a Cuban nurse was sitting in the only chair.  She immediately stood up and offered me her seat (seeing that I was carrying a 40lb boy that was in obvious need of care).

Haitians tend to be very curious by nature and not shy about it.  Many came up and asked what had happened to Sam.  Mirlande was explaining that a rock had hit him in the head while he was playing on the play ground.  I could tell that the Cuban nurse understood a little bit of Creole because she kept on listening to them and then looking back at Sam.

As we approached 8am, more and more nurses and doctors started arriving.  As one doctor arrived, the kind nurse that had given me her seat approached the doctor and started talking with her.  I could tell that they were discussing Sam.  As she walked by, they motioned for me to follow.  I quickly did!

As we entered the hospital, the ladies led us to the first office that had 'Director' above it.  This was the director of the hospital!!  Hallelujah! She didn't waste any time.  She grabbed her stethoscope and checked Sam out.  She sat down and started writing out scripts for blood work and x-rays.

This was the interesting part. The doctor only spoke Spanish and some Creole (no English).  We had picked up Mirlande's sister-in-law that was fluent in both Spanish and Creole (also, she didn't know English).  Mirlande, herself, is fluent in both Creole and English.  Me?  I just knew English.  Boy was I wishing that I had payed attention during my one semester of Spanish in high school!!

So, our conversations went kind of like that old game of telephone....

The Cuban doctor would speak in Spanish to the sister-in-law.  She would translate into Creole for Mirlande, who would then translate into English for me.

We were quite the sight, I bet!

The Cuban doctor, Claudia the sister in law and Mirlande

The doctor escorted us down to the laboratory for blood draws.  There was a line of people waiting but the doctor walked us right up to the technician, grabbed a chair and had me sit down.  Instead of trying to stick him with a needle, they did a finger prick and drew a few small viles - like what they use at the blood bank when you are donating blood.

Compared to the day before (which I could see the bruising on his arms from) this was a breeze!

The technician then personally walked us over to the radiology department.  They explained that we had to wait for about 15 minutes before they could do the x-ray.  Why, you ask?

I hadn't noticed before this time but, apparently, this hospital had no running water or electricity.  I'm serious!  They were waiting until 9am, when the generator was turned on.  But within a minute of the generator turning on, a young Cuban doctor stuck his head out and motioned us in.

I walked out of the room while they did his head and chest x-rays.  He only wanted to be held by me and my presence was making the situation worse BUT I ran back in the moment that he was done.

They didn't process his head x-ray right away but the technician handed me his chest x-ray (still dripping) and escorted us right across the hall to the director again.

This was all so amazing, organized and FAST!  All of this was completed by 9:45!

The doctor looked at his chest x-ray and then started the translation line.  I might have gotten things "lost in translation" but from what I gathered Sam had pneumonia and the doctor thought that this was somehow connected the the infection/swelling in his head.  I believe she said that because he had the infection in his lungs, that triggered this EPIC swelling when he got hit with the rock.

It didn't quite make sense BUT that's the way of the telephone game, folks.

The end result was that they wanted to keep Sam for 2-3 days to give him a strong course of antibiotics.  My first thought was that there was no possible way that we could make that happen.  I was trying to reach out to the Embassy daily and couldn't do that here with no electricity/internet/phone, plus there was NO WAY that I could leave Sam alone there.

Then Ecefi spoke up, "I will stay with Sam, if that will make him get better."  Oh, Ecefi, was our knight in beautiful shining armor!

Ecefi is the woman on the right

Again, everything moved fast from this point on.  They walked down to another short hallway that had 6 hospital rooms.  Each room had several beds but Sam's was the only one that had cribs.  Mirlande and Ecefi left to go to a market and buy a change of clothes for her and Sam (we weren't anticipating them staying.)

Once they returned, my friend Tina and I went to the food vendors on the street to get something for Sam and Ecefi to eat.  There we had an interesting experience with a woman who was not thrilled to serve us food at all.  I'm assuming because we were not Haitian.  We were asking for mamba sandwiches (similar to peanut butter sub rolls) and she just handed us the bread and wouldn't even look at us.  A very nice, bilingual man came up and took control of the situation - and, I think, told her off too.

So we left Ecefi and Sam in their room at the hospital.  Ecefi was given a blanket to sleep on the concrete floor with, bless her heart, and she never complained.

 

I remember thinking that I was VERY at peace with this course we were on.  I felt some-what good about the competency of the staff and the care that they would give Sam.  He would be getting some antibiotics that would, at least, help him get rid of the pneumonia.

Thankfully, Sam was resting peacefully when I left.

I was hoping to go and see Sam on Thursday but they were not able to take us for the 4 hours round-trip, which was very understandable.  So I kept myself busy with things that needed to be done around the orphanage.  This day, we were told that the head x-ray reports came back and showed a 2cm wide fracture from his forehead back.  The hospital also told us that they would be willing to write us an official letter stating that Sam needed to get out of the country to seek medical treatment for this. THAT was something that we needed to plead our case with to the Embassy.

Friday was Valentine's Day and I was excited to go and see my Valentine!

The swelling had not gone down on his head BUT he was able to open up -slightly- the one eye that had been severely swollen.  The doctor came by to see us.  Actually, a lot of the hospital did.  People were even standing outside of the windows looking into Sam's room.  I didn't know if they were looking at Sam or us but Sam would just wave to them... oh yes, his personality was starting to come back!  He was quite the favorite with the staff too.  The original nurse, the savior on our first day, took quite a liking to Sam and would bring him a treat... a big bottle of Coca Cola.  I kid you not!

Anyway, the doctor said that she didn't know what treatment would be needed for Sam's skull (surgery or not) but said that he seemed to be stabilizing.  However, they wanted to keep him for one more day to continue the antibiotic.

I was not expecting that and was heart broken.  We visited with them for a while and then made the 2 hour trip back to the orphanage empty handed.

I told Barbara, the orphanage director, that she would have to be my Valentine's this year and she bought me a glass of wine.  She must know me well!

Anyhoo.  I was up and ready to get our little guy on Saturday.  Wild horses could not keep me away!!  With it being a Saturday, the hospital had no one it in.  Literally!  Ecefi and Sam were the only ones in there.  We gathered their stuff, scooped up our boy and headed out the door!

There was a quick setback when we noticed that the letter from the hospital didn't have any official stamp or seal.  That took about 20 minutes to get a doctor to come over to the hospital to do that.  Interestingly, the doctor's quarters are right beside the hospital in these little bungalow-looking buildings. 

We made that last 2 hour trip back to orphanage with Sam sleeping on our laps.  My momma's heart was happy... now we just needed to get his immigration approved and him home for treatment!

*Most of the pictures from this post were taken on our Friday visit.  Thank you, Audrey for taken them.