Waiting on a wheelchair.....

As I waited mere minutes to write this blog I grew impatient ....and then stopped and laughed at myself...I have spent the last few days watching people wait all day to hope to be seen and then told to come back tommorrow....people hoping to catch your eye after waiting all day to have their loved one seen and hope they are the lucky ones after hours and hours of waiting...and I was impatient after minutes...how laughable

so the wheelchair saga....it started on Monday with a stroke patient I saw who had a massive stroke that has left her left side completely flaccid and unuseable...to the point of being unable to sit up at all unless you hold her up...she is in a country in which there are no wheelchair vans or medical transport or good transportation....in our country she would be taken to rehab for 6 weeks to up to 3 months (depending on how great her insurance was!) and afterwards she would still have a 1 to 2 year journey in outpatient....but we are in Haiti and we have to figure out something for this woman because they want to send her home in 1 to 2 days. Speaking through our translator is an experience in itself, but I found her family to be willing to do what they could for her. Danielle and I agreed she must have a wheelchair, otherwise she would fall out of anything else and be unsafe.

Now to get a wheelchair to take home is not an easy task....believe me. I spoke to the people in our tents...no wheelchair....I went to supply....no wheelchairs...I went and begged at a handicap international company.....no wheelchair.....I then went to our facility in which we were staying....no wheelchair.....I started again the next morning with buying ground coffee to try to bribe the people at the facility and while they wanted the coffee-they truly had no wheelchairs....so I tehn took Samuel a wonderful translator with me into the street and we tried to buy a wheelchair from the street vendors....Did you know the going price for the only wheelchair we could find in Haiti that would have been too small was over 100 dollars for a old broken down wheelchair-but I had only brought 40 dollars with me that day...so no wheelchair....so I went back to every place, any place and believe me everyone at General Hospital know me as that crazy woman that wants a wheelchair yet ...no wheelchair. Back to camp I asked other happy campers if they had resources...one camp 1 1/2 hours away has one and they will ask if they can have it and transport and maybe get it to me this week. I then tried to find the name of the woman who was a contact for the wonderful private hospital CDTI that was shut down in hopes that I could get a wheelchair....no wheelchair. I then spoke to the German medical team stationed here with a bunch snobby doctors who were willing to take my request in front of a panel and after my interrogation from Hans was found to be suitable to be considered for a wheelchair...maybe this week...but yet no wheelchair

...and to think in America all I would have to do is make one phone call and the wheelchair could be guaranteed to be delivered anywhere within 2 hours....so I will wait patiently, but I will get the wheelchair

Kimberly