Melanie Thomas put this show together. She has some tremendous photos that I just saw for the first time today. Mel was a wonderful member of the Medical Teams International team that was on the ground in the early response to the earthquake. She spent a bunch of time at King's Hospital sorting out the supplies and organizing the supplies that came in. She is one of the type of people that doesn't scramble to get in the limelight. She just gets busy doing the tasks at hand. Wow, did she work hard! She was such a blessing to the team! The show that she put together will move you and bless you. After watching it, please consider the questions that I've posted for you by clicking "read more" below.

Here are a couple of questions to get the discussion going:

Haiti continues to occupy a tremendous amount of my energy, both consciously  and subconsciously. In fact, I think that most everyone that was on our early team is still processing this disaster. I'm still having some dreams and wrestling with what I saw. I'm processing it on a couple of different levels. First of all I'm still very concerned about the long term health issues in Haiti. They have a long, long way to go. I am confident, however, that progress is being made. I'm encouraged by some of the plans that I've been told about and I don't feel that it is a hopeless situation. It is just going to be a long term struggle.

The other way that I'm processing the experience involves us. I can't help but ask myself, "What if it happened here?" That is good discussion for us to have. We need to be ready both from a physical, structural and procedural basis. We also need to be ready from a psychological basis. That is one thing that very few people talk about and I will address it in a new blog series entitled "How to Become Unshakable in Tough Times".

For now, let's take a look at what you can do from a physical, structural and procedural perspective. There is the check list of things that we can do to be ready from that standpoint. Here is a list that I lifted from the FEMA earthquake website:

Now that I've been back for a couple of days I thought I would share my heart with you. Perhaps you would like to know why I went.

It has occurred to me since my return from Haiti just over a week ago that there are two ways to look at major disasters. One can look at it from the perspective of Google Earth (the satellite view) or from the perspective of Facebook (relationships and networks with people) .

(Photo: Pastor Devariste's wife in route to Miami aboard a donated Learjet about 2 weeks ago.)

I was able to speak to Pastor Devariste in Miami and he told me that his wife is doing well. Not only is she going to live but it looks like she is going to be able to keep her vary own foot as well. Please keep her in your prayers. She is having surgery this Wednesday.

We are still seeing a lot of wounded people that have not yet been evaluated by anyone. Unbelievable!

Today was an interesting one. Once again, for me it was a day of networking and coordination. We received word today that the anesthesia machine that we had been anxiously waiting for was finally in Haiti. Now, the challenge was going to be getting it from the airport to the hospital. The roads are dirt moguls and potholes. They could easily destroy sensitive medical equipment. It turns out that the machine was delivered to Haiti by the US Air Force. The folks at Hope Force worked it out. After even more behind the scenes work by them, they were able to arrange to have it delivered to the hospital by helicopter! The Canadian Air Force agreed to deliver it by sling.

It was awesome to see it come in and I couldn't resist being up on the roof to get some great pictures. Well, that was a big mistake. The roof used to be covered with concrete dust and gravel. Now, all of that is under my eyelids, in my ears and down my pants. But, we have our anesthesia machine! Nice! The US Army 82nd Airborne were with us and they coordinated with the helicopter to land in a nearby field while they provided security. That way the Canadians were able to retrieve their harness and hook and drop off two of the guys from Hope Force to help uncrate the machine and transport it down stairs to the OR. Great teamwork!

(The above video was originally streamed live from my iPhone!)

I'm overwhelmed by the amount of injuries and the severity of the injuries! Everywhere that I look there are buildings that have been destroyed! Even banks! BANKS!? Good grief! Taking pictures of the destroyed buildings seems pointless after a while. They all just look like pictures of piles of rocks. I don't allow my brain to wonder what it could be like to be trapped alive. However, I must admit, my mind keeps burping the concept up since the aftershock scared the heck out of me. Last night I woke up about five times thinking we were having another earthquake only to realize, several heartbeats later, that it was only a US Air Force C130 transport plane taking off. Our guest house is somewhere just beyond the end of the runway. Those things are loud!

Today was a blur. The one thing that I do remember for sure is that I fell in love. No doubt. How can you not fall in love with a 12 year old 7th grader with huge brown eyes, a cute little sundress and a smile that could stop time itself?   When "The Thing" happened she was so frightened that she ran out into the street and was hit by a car. She was pinned under the car and sustained third degree burns on nearly the entire right side of her face and her right shoulder from the muffler! Her neighbors pulled her out and she ran in to help her mother get out of the house!

When I met her she was a patient at the UN - U of Miami hospital. I fell in love with her instantly. No way was I going I let her stay there.  I told them that we would be happy to take her to our hospital (where we could love on her and give her some personalized care). We loaded her and her mother into our car and took her to King's for some outstanding care (not that I'm biased but I really like our team). 

Jay Leno said calling it an aftershock is like calling the second twin an "after-birth". He is right. No matter how you look at it, we had an earthquake early this morning that was a 6.1.  It was scary! But there is more to the story. You see, at home I usually sleep naked (TMI?) but here I have been wearing shorts. Well, last night I was just too dang hot so I decided to sleep in my bun-huggers. When you were a kid did you ever have the same recurrent nightmare that I did—the one where you went to school and forgot to put your clothes on? When the quake hit, I was sleeping and the room started to heave and rock. There was an amazing rumbling roar that was a very deep sound/sensation. Bill jumped up and yelled "Earthquake! We gotta get out of here now!!!" I jumped up and asked myself a quick question, "Dan Diamond, would you rather look for your shorts and possibly die or experience a compound fracture or would you rather run outside in your underwear?"   I went for the underwear and ran outside. When I got outside I was the only one wearing briefs. Then a little girl passed out and I ran over to check on her. Now Nick, our video guy that is documenting the trip (eat your heart out Brittany Spears, he didn't film me in my underwear)--Nick said that the girl passed out BECAUSE she saw me in my underwear. Needless to say my staff and the Haitians at my new home spent the rest of the day laughing at me.

The tremor was really scary. When we arrived at the hospital we found our night crew outside with ALL of the patients. They evacuated all of them. They were amazing! They had them all organized with their names, medications, and their diagnosis.  They even drew out a grid of the hospital grounds and mapped their location so they could be located. Fabulous! I am working with first rate people.

Today it hit me. 

 Bill and I were up very early to take the pastor and his wife to the airport. It was very emotional putting her in a exclusive Leer Jet. Her husband was overwhelmed with joy. His smile went all the way around his head. Then to top it all, the pilot asked him if he wanted to go as well!!! He was blown away. He hugged me like I just saved his life. Hmmm. I can still see his smile. It's only a 90 min flight in a Leer Jet. It was a happy ending to an amazing story. She was picked up at the airport by an ambulance and, as you read this, she is already in the hospital getting the care she needs. 

At the hospital today I was able to define my departments and assign department heads. The departments are Triage, Intake, OR, Inpatient Floor B, Inpatient Floor C, Inpatient Floor D, Supply/Pharmacy, Operations, and Security. I have an outstanding team, they have rallied and made tremendous progress today. The OR looked like a real OR. We have had, however, significant troubles with the generator. It is too small and frequently the breaker trips. When that happens, the autoclave that sterilizes the instruments shuts down and has to be restarted. It has caused some frustrating delays. We ended up shutting down all of the breakers to the entire hospital except for the autoclave. We have big-boy huge generator on a palate but we don't have the cable to hook it up. There is only one forklift in town that can move it to the best location and it is at the US Embassy. All the UN lifts are being used to off load the supplies at the airport so we might be able to pull that one off soon. 

I spent a good amount of time scrambling trying to find supplies and have made some great finds at the UN. We also agreed to take up to 15 post-op patients from their tent if they would send us their cots. I've been trying to find some cots today with a goal of about 250 cots. Don't tell the staff, they aren't quite ready for that many patients yet but we are growing rapidly. We also started using a regular charting system today. All patients are formally checked in and have a chart. Orders, notes and meds are all recorded. We are nearly JCAH certified! We even have radios so the Dept Heads can communicate. 

It was an unbelievable day! Before I tell you about it, you need to learn about the fine art of cup showering. That is how it gets done around here since there is no running water. You see there is just a five gallon bucket in the bathroom with a bowl floating in it. I'm not sure how water can be colder than air but, just like KY Jelly, it is. So my strategy is to fill the bowl then dip my hand in it and splash the water on a section my body. Then soap. Then I move on to the next part of my body. Then I go back and rinse each part. Now Bill, on the other hand, pours the water over his head while squatting and somehow manages to get his whole body wet. Then soaps. Then he rinses by pouring two cups over his head. Good grief. Three cups total. How does he do it? Mystery. I spent the majority of the day at our hospital today. We had several breakthroughs. Today our other team arrived in two waves. It was great to see Dr Tom Haggard again. I haven't seen him since we were working at the New Orleans Convention Center after Katrina. He is a great guy with an amazing servants heart. We also added Dr Todd Ulmar (Ortho), Dr Chris Achterman (Ped Ortho), Kathy McCoy (PT), Huston Hedinger (all around good guy) and Michael Graves (EMT and all around good guy). The second wave of folks came as I was heading out so I don't have all of their names yet. Stay tuned. Today the team worked hard and we were able to get our OR up and running just around noon! We were even able to treat the pastor's wife. The orthopods were able to debride her wound and, using external stabilizers, fix her leg so she can be transported to the United States so she can receive the treatment she needs to save her foot! Bill and I are taking her to the airport where she will be flown to Ft Lauderdale in a private jet. The use of the jet for one week was donated and we are using it to bring in supplies and volunteers. I am excited to see her someday with her foot still attached. I am celebrating today that she is still alive!! God is good. Today I also worked on organizational structure and figured out department heads etc. This evening I went to the UN field hospital and I was able to find some supplies that we desperately needed. I got some morphine, demerol, antibiotics, disposable surgical gowns, IV solutions and more supplies that were very needed. The new team is struggling with the fact that we don't have x-ray.  For difficult cases we write what x-ray we want on a Rx pad and then the patients family has to go and find someone with a vehicle and painfully place them in the vehicle and take them around to find someplace with an x-ray machine that works.  When I close my eyes and imagine transferring into a car (not a cushy ambulance), driving on horrible bumpy roads, transferring out to get the x-rays and then doing the procedure in reverse to get back to the doctor it makes me so grateful that I live where I do. My patients at home often put up with wait times that are embarrassingly long but these people have patience and gratefulness that would make Mother Theresa envious. I have much to learn from them.
We are working on getting some intake forms up and running. They are installing a generator that should give us enough power. By the way, we ran out of fuel for the generator in the middle of a surgical case today. They had to finish without power. I was trying to get some forms downloaded from the Internet this evening and to do that in these situations we use a portable satellite link device. The fun thing was the dozen children that were hanging all around me while I was doing it. They sure are curious and full of smiles. I speak very tiny bits of Creole but I do speak fluent "Kid".  It was really fun with special handshakes and all that stuff. There were lots of giggles, even in the midst of all of this. Off to bed. I have to get up early to take pastor's wife to the airport at 5:30 or so. But first I have to get up early for my cup shower.  Perhaps I will try Bill's technique. Please keep the prayers up. I could sense His strength throughout the day.