timeline.

You may have read in my previous blog entry about Chadasha [the organization I work with here] partnering with the International Children's Heart Foundation [ICHF] to provide kids in Haiti with lifesaving heart surgeries. I had written that there would be a wave of these surgeries in late August, but those have been pushed back until mid-September. Today I had the pleasure of spending some time with a precious little girl name Kathline.

Kathline

I first met Kathline a few days ago when she and her mother were getting out of a taptap on the side of the road. We just talked briefly with her through the window while traffic wasn't moving. Michelle explained that Kathline was 3 yrs old and had been on the list for heart surgery back in July, but that the team didn't have the equipment needed to do her surgery. So, she was back on the list for surgery in September. When I saw her then, she didn't even look sick.

Then today I went to a hospital here called Medishare where I am about to start volunteering as a nurse a couple days a week. We went there so that I could meet the nurse manager, but when we got there Kathline and her mom were in the ER. It was then that I learned that Kathline had Tetrology of Fallot, a severe heart condition that would have been fixed long ago if she were in the US. She had started retaining fluid, and they thought she was in the early stages of heart failure. We were supposed to evaluate her and talk with the doctors to decide if she could wait until September for her surgery or if she needed it sooner. She continued to deteriorate while we were there, and the nurses finally got her stable enough to give her some meds to get her to sleep for a while.

We decided she couldn't wait, and we tried to arrange for her to come to the States for surgery. The thing is, we can't send a kid to the US without a receiving hospital who volunteers to do their surgery [for free] as soon as they land. These are hard to come by. If you know of anyone who would be interested in this, let us know! The best we could do was arrange for Kathline to go to a hospital in the Dominican Republic where they would at least have more equipment to stabilize her if she got worse before the surgeries. We left her sleeping in her crib with her sweet mom by her side.

Later tonight, we were eating dinner when Brittany, the nurse manager, called. She said that Kathline had woken up and was getting worse. Then she coded. We all loaded up to go to the hospital in a hurry, but before we even got out of the drive way Brittany called back and said she had passed. We went on to the hospital any way to support her mother, who lost her husband about a year ago to a cardiac condition as well. We found her hovered over her baby girl, repeating "She's still warm!" and shaking her violently begging "please wake up, please wake up for Mommy?" We loved on her and her brother [Kathline's uncle], then arranged for a funeral home to come pick up Kathline's lifeless body. We all knew that Kathline was on a timeline... but none of us could have guessed it was such a short one.

It was a hard day. The saddest thing about the whole situation was that Kathline was totally fixable. Her heart was not broken, just flawed and a simple surgery could have fixed her. She just needed it sooner. She needed people with the right resources and the right knowledge and hearts for Jesus to come to her rescue sooner and take care of her. This is the 3rd patient off of our heart surgery list that we have lost. These are senseless deaths. They can be prevented. I will post more information soon about how you can help get these children the care that they need, before it's too late.

Tonight is one of those nights. You know the kind I'm talking about. The kind where you lay down and can't sleep, so you eat a whole candy bar at midnight and listen to music and read your Bible, trying to find comfort, trying to find rest. Praise my Jesus that He is the ultimate Comforter. That I need not look any further than Him, because He provides me with peace and rest. Tonight is one of those nights when I am so thankful that I know that my God is here. That I know that "The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold." [Psalm 18:2]. And that I can go to bed knowing that "Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning" [Psalm 30:5].

Goodnight from Haiti :)