updates from canada now

so i am back home now. since the last post i ended up getting a little sick again so they had to do a bunch more tests and studies and i changed my flight from the 16th to yesterday (the 22nd). but a cool thing... the one day they were doing all these tests and it looked like i had kidney stones all of a sudden and i was in a lot of pain, and they said that my kidneys kept inflaming which is why it was interfering with my breathing as it was pushing on my diaphragm too. so the next day i went back to do some more intense tests, but i had woke up that day feeling AMAZING and i walked into the clinic and all of the staff stopped me to say how great i was looking and wondering what changed. but as i talked to the doctor afterwards he said "we arent sure quite what happened. i sure can't explain it but all your results from today aren't showing anything. you are healthy!!" so i said "amen", he said "hallelujah" and that was it with my sickness - a miracle.
so i spent the last week catching up on things i had missed out for the month i was working with hero holiday, and the 2 weeks i was sick in bed. i was finally allowed to leave the house so i went up to nazaret quite a bit to hang out with antera and nano and bascally the rest of the village and i had my sad last day in the clinic up there. i also got to help with another hero holiday medical team that was down and it was really cool because they did a medical clinic in the hotel they stay in and that i have been visitng for the last 5 years. so staff and family were able to come and get checkups for free which was a huge deal because they're wages arent very good and they barely get an afternoon off each week so to just walk down the hall for a quick consult worked out amazingly. they were so appreciative also because missionary groups and medical groups always stay in their hotel but as far as i have heard this was the first time anyone did something for them.
i also got to get nano his very first mochila (backpack) because he is starting school in nazaret this september, and his mom was telling me how he wont let anyone touch it or look at it without his permission. he is just so excited. and on my last day i took him to the beach and on a whole day adventure - he fell asleep on the way home and as soon as we got there and he woke up, he started crying again (which he does everytime i leave the house) but this time he knew i wouldnt be back until next year... so sad!!!
i also luckily got some more chances to hang out with rana and friends and right now if you want to be praying they are in haiti but should returning shortly to the dominican for their remaining 2 weeks.
so i got home yesterday finally after both of my flights being at least 2 hours delayed, but two friends genevieve and elise came to pick me up in buffalo - sadly one of my suitcases is lost still but will hopefully get in today - and i just unpacked and fell asleep pretty early.
i have had such an amazing summer - crazy busy just how i like it, so i might be sleeping for awhile though. but i have to go get ready for church - i hope they dont think im gonna go up and talk today.
thanks for following everthing and for all your support and prayers. love you all!
and if i get a chance i will try to write a little more once i get more settled.
if anyone feels like praying i wont go through too much of a hard transition back into canadian life i would appreciate that.
i also had to say some really hard goodbyes this week to amy, who had been down since may like me, and obviously all my other friends that live down there, so i am really glad i stayed the extra week or else i would have left without getting to see anyone.

patient versus nurse

quite a bit has been going down since i moved in with gabi this month. i'm not quite sure where to begin but as you all know i will just begin rambling and hope to stop sometime before lunch...\
we had jsut been going through a marathon of everyone leaving - hero holiday, josh and kirstin, kara, kyle etc when finally, sunday august 2 rolled around which means RANA. so i woke up nice and early to make sure i didnt miss her flight but i could barely walk, my whole body ached, my skin hurt to be touched, my head was pounding, my stomach hurt etc etc... so i just assumed i was a little tired so i went with mama D and jimmyjames to the airport to get rana (doubled over, laying on the ground when possible, shivering everytime the wind blew...) but soo excited to see ranita and meet her friends that were coming down. so we got them all sorted out and i just went home and layed in bed for the rest of the day with the beginnings of a fiebre (fever) and everytime i would stand up i would practically fall back down. that night i slept (off and on) with a blanket off and on because i just couldnt decide - and my friends took shifts checking on me.
the next morning was nazaret clinic day so donna decided to take me for some blood work and then up to the clinic, where they immediately threw me on the bed and hooked up 'un suero' (an IV) and i wasnt allowed to move all day. then int he afternoon they got my test results back and were sure i had dengue fever so i was sent to a hospital in puerto plata (everyone gets mad when i call it a hospital because here that means a place you basically go to die, so i was sent to a private clinic). i ended up going through 9 IV's i believe from 7 that first night to 4 the next day, had a fever of 102+ (even though the nurse said "no fever"). they did some tests to show that i didnt have dengue but instead had a bad kidney infection (un infeccion de los rinones) - we ended up having some issues with this hospital overcharging me for things i never had and it was a very expensive overnight experience but i hopefully have the right paperwork for insurance to help me out...
then on wednesday i had a bunch of house guests (people came all the way down from nazaret to check on me - probably spent their weeks worth of wages to do so) and every friend that i have practically ever met came to see how i was. its a really big thing in their culture that i am just learning about (and loving, since i hate to be alone), and if people couldnt make it in to see me they called or sent someone else.
so i had just been taking it easy for a couple days (nobody would let me do anything - rather annoying if you know me) and on friday i was feeling good so i went to find my friends that work in the emergency room in puerto plata. unfortunately they werent working that day and by the time i got home i was back in bed, with another wicked fiebre, this time struggling to breath, my whole body started tingling and i could only cry - which again if you know me, you know is something that i dont do. even when i broke my pelvis i only cried because i didnt want to ride in the ambulance hah..
this time they checked me into a brand new clinic here in sosua (5 minute walk from my house) and they did a whole bunch of other gross tests and found out i had an ovarian cyst that ruptured as well and if i hadnt gotten in when i did, then i would have needed emergency surgery. so they made me stay in for two days to keep an eye on me and to continue doing tests and such. luckily, yesterday morning they came in and said i was doing well enough to leave. so i just have a check-up on wednesday and until then i am pracitcally on house arrest which is VERY annoying just incase anyone wanted to know (im sitting out by the pool write now to write this but shh dont tell, gabi is still sleeping).
so i am feeling a lot better. thank you all for praying. and if someone is reading this and had no idea i was sick it is because i didnt tell anyone. my friend called the parents while i was in the hospital.
basically i just think this experience was another thing to add to the list of things i can understand for when i am a nurse. i will know how it feels, the singns and symptoms, where not to push or touch etc. i probably wont even need anymore formal school training., at the rate im going, i could have these sicknesess down in a couple years... (just kidding - no more hospitals or clinics for me - unless im the one working in it)

pollota - big chicken

i'm putting this up a couple days late - i ended up falling asleep in the middle of writing this and ofcourse never finished posting it...
yikes, its been another little while eh? but hero holiday is a great excuse, although they leave tomorrow morning at 7 so i figured i should get on this whole blog business before i forget.
so anyways, i never ended up going back to the emergency room yet but then i bumped into the two guys that work in the ER just the other day and they both were asking why i never showed up and they were asking what i know how to do and what i want to learn.
besides trying to get myself a job in 'emerge', i was in charge of bringing a different group of about 20 high school students to the hospital for the last two weeks. as i mentioned last time, we are working with a group that is focused on improving the children's ward. they have done a lot of work on improving care for premature babies by getting them a proper room with air conditioning, real heat lamps (rather than the old reading lamps they used) and new incubators.
every day i brought a different group of teenagers to help with different cleaning and painting projects, and they also would bring along bubbles, or colouring books for the kids. despite all the chaos of trying to organize teenagers, leaders, staff and patients, we managed to clean and repaint the entire children’s ward, made up of 4 large pavilions, a nurse’s station, a future ‘playcare’ area as well as a small courtyard just behind the ward.
after hero holiday leaves i will be moving in with my friend gabi who i have known for a couple years now and the cutest baby in the world.
i'll write again soon-ish.
rana comes in sunday the 2nd. wooohoooo.

OMEGA me tocó

since the last medical team left we have been even busier, so for all you people that are angry i havent written (mom and rana), callese por favor.

so one fun thing we have done is go to a concert for this dominican guy called OMEGA (el fuerte) haha. i had seen signs on the road for weeks about him coming (of course they dont say when or how much so i had to do some investigating) but amy, natalie, erin and kara all decided they wanted to come and it was one of the greatest days. we just ran around for a couple hours playing on the slides and in the pool with some of the friends i knew that we bumped into and finally Omega showed up (2 hours late - so dominican). he played for an hour maybe and we got right up to the stage and he even touched my hand - everyone was staring at me like i was a ridiculous white girl singing along too close to the stage - they just dont know what's what... and kyle (a roomate from last year) also arrived on the same day.

we also had a couple days re-organizing the clinic after the team was here and resorting a ton of pills they left.

on canada day a couple people at the williams' house were sick so we stayed away and had lardwin, sadrak and franklin over for dinner and a game of president (well, franklin cooked) but it was a fun canada day celebration - they even let me put canada flag stickers on their motorcycles.

thursday july 2nd we had another successful garbage day in nazaret. we filled all the bags again without even straying far off the road - we need to buy bigger ones again for the next time. and we had the kids talking about why garbage is bad for our health and such.

that weekend i went with amy and natalia on an adventure to santo domingo, the capital of the dominican republic. it worked out so well because as we were crossing the road we bumped into amy's long lost friend so we stayed at her house with her and her husband for the weekend. we got to tour around a bit for free because last summer amy ran tours for university students all over the island so she showed us around. right off the bat we got kicked out of church (i know, i know but we were wearing shorts and "we should know better") - we were just looking around amazed by the 'first cathedral of the new world' when this man came out of nowhere and dragged us to the door where we also saw him not let another lady in for having a 'scandalous' shirt. (i know, i know but we were wearing shorts and "we should know better")

on sunday the 5th we got back around 4 and hero holiday had arrived. woohooo. so i moved into the hotel for the month and am the 'project manager' at the public hospital in puerto plata (that i wrote about in may when we helped with eye surgeries). we are working with an organization that is trying to fix up the childrens ward so we are helping to paint and clean and then also get to interact with the staff and patients. it is a fantastic place for me to be. today i had to take a participant to the emergency room (he had a cut that was pussing and noone else could help) so after we went across the street to buy gauze (thats right, you have to buy the supplies they need) another friend told the nurse/volunteers that i want to work there one day and they invited me back tomorrow to help. i said maybe next week but i think i will go back tomorrow so they dont forget ... SO EXCITED!

ok i better go find sadrak before he gets surrounded by too many hero holiday girls.

love you guys.

medical teams and roadtrips

last Saturday a medical team arrived from jefferson city, missouri and we have been working with them all week in different communities. their first full day here we were out in nazaret at the clinic, sorting drugs, writing labels and a couple artists on the team were painting an incredible mural on the main wall in the clinic. later that afternoon we had the 1 year anniversary of “Centro de Salud Danica”. it was an awesome party with balloon hats, a million homemade desserts (from momma d), homemade, freshly squeezed and chopped fruit juice and a ton of people.
on monday we were out sorting drugs again in nazaret and i took groups of people around down to meet some families and invite the kids to a grande fiesta (big party) we were having up at the school in the afternoon. the strangest thing happened that day though – the kids showed up half an hour EARLY for the fiesta, they just couldn’t handle the anticipation. so we ended up doing face paint, playing different beach ball and “little kid birthday party” games, telling stories, having a colouring station for the younger kids, and all the kids got a cup of dirt and planted a tomato seed in it to take home. it was awesomely chaotic – like most things end up being when you are talking about over 100 kids in the same place at the same time.
for the next three days we had mobile medical clinics in a couple different locations (one in la monteada where we went to the infamous SPORTS DAY - at this particular clinic a local barber decided to come out with us and give free haircuts, which was the coolest thing). in the clinics it was fantastic because i got to sit with and help translate for one of the nurses, in between two fantastic doctors, so i learned so much and got to help with a lot of cool things like ‘lancing’ an abscess on a poor little boy’s leg (he didn’t love us after that), but the team has seen and treated so many people and not only helped them with medical issues but also in taking the time to sit and talk and play with them and their kids is worth more.
yesterday i ended up getting the day off because i had been up at 730 every day all week working with the team, so i went with some friends and people from sadrak’s church on a roadtrip to samana, a city about 4ish hours away (that i happen to be flying out of on august 16th L). we were supposed to leave at 5am but one particular person made us all wait an hour in the bus as he slept in, showered and wandered over – oh the Dominican. on the drive there the guys were all singing and playing their guitars, and we picked up random tourists and Dominicans as if we were a real guagua (so funny) and when we finally got to samana we did a little bit of walking around and then went to a natural water spring? (i don’t know what it really was) but it was so nice, and we were the only people there. after lunch though it had filled up and i was apparently the only white person they had seen in awhile because as Sadrak, lardwin and i walked in, every person stopped talking and stared – it even made them feel awkward next to me haha – so that was fun as i quickly jumped in the water. but then as i was swimming i felt someone grab my feet and up comes a boy who was obviously dared by his friends to grab the white girl as they all stood laughing in the corner... anyways around 330 we were leaving but of course the bus decided not to change into gear. we ended up driving so slowly for an hour until we reached a city called nagua, where we found a mechanic. so then we sat in the bus and hung out for about an hour while he tried to fix it until finally we climbed off and they decided we should probably get a guagua back because the bus wouldn’t go anywhere. so after a little sing-a-long a guagua came for all 18 of us, plus the two guitars and other baggage – wasn’t the most comfortable ride of my life as i shared one fold down seat with someone else and we were squeezed beside the two biggest people in the bus, i had a buckle up my butt and my knees were too long to fit behind the seat infront haha. but that only lasted for an hour or so when we unloaded and hopped in another one. everything was going well until we get taken on a back, dirt road detour past a cow farm in the pitch black. but finally we made it back after about 6+ hours of adventure and i can happily say this was one of the funnest adventures i’ve been on.
anyways, the medical team is leaving today so we will be spending some time with them and then tomorrow KYLE comes and then this week we will be starting to prepare for hero holiday, who come the first week of july. crazy crazy!

p.s thanks again for all of your love and support. please keep praying for the dominican and the things i am being called to do here and also for health because i have recently developed some strange ‘boil’ issues that the doctor things i might need surgery on when i get home, and my wisdom teeth are coming in – uh oh!!!

Love you all!!!

junio is coolio

ay ay ay. it has been rather busy this last little bit – a medical team from missouri arrived last saturday so i never got a chance to write about the week before. anyways here we go back to the week beginning june 14th...
i don’t know if i have been talking much about it but scott (oldest son of momma d and p daddy) and now josh (my roommate from last year) have been playing beisbol on team nazaret, the village we spend the majority of our time in. incase you were unaware, i kind of LOVE watching /playing beisbol so i have gone to every game/tournament – sometimes they say one game and it turns into 5 with a trophy, lasting until 1am – i’m die hard... so most sundays they actually have tournaments and scott was told to be there for 8am but there was nobody there... so we thought maybe they were just staying true to their culture and started playing in the field a little bit ourselves and then around 9 a couple men showed up and started cleaning up the diamond a little bit and then around 10:30 teams started arriving. turns out they were going to start thinking of getting ready at 8 and scott just didn’t get the secret code. luckily my 3 year old best friend, nano, came with his dad who is on the team, so we swam in the river and went on adventures all day, since beisbol lasted until 6. beisbol has been such an amazing addition to this year because i am getting to know some dad’s of the kids i spend so much time with (usually they are working), and i think it shows them that we aren’t just going “to work” for an hour or a couple hours but are wanting more than that and care more about them than that. and i am learning so much about the dominican culture, and falling more in love with it. everyone is just so friendly and relaxed – sometimes a little too much though when someone in the field pulls out their bottle of rum in the middle of the game but it makes it more entertaining.
a couple days later when i was walking through town with amy, we bumped into snotball’s (widline’s) 15 year old sister who had promised to get me a phone number so i could reach their grandma that snotball is living with in haiti. so jean-wisline (jon-wisleen) took us back to her 18 year old sisters apartment. we wandered down a back alley where a man was making a fire to cook his dinner, past some ladies getting their hair “did”, past some naked kids laying on the cement to stay cool – it was like a whole different world just a block away from the centre of the tourist hub in sosua. they invited us in and it turns out that their older sister has the cutest baby boy ever. amy and i quickly made ourselves at home on their bed while we just hung out with 5 girls that we have seen around town working as prostitutes with a baby almost as light as us, making it rather obvious that he was the son of a foreigner – but none of that mattered as we were all just talking and joking like we were old friends in an apartment only big enough for a double bed and a toilet. we eventually started talking about widline (snotball) and how she is doing in haiti. they told me that their grandma is struggling to take care of them both but they both went back there because here the dominican government won’t offer any support since apparently haitians aren’t people...? but the way she told me wasn’t as if they were just looking at me as a bank. money never even came up except that she said she was trying to send them support in haiti. one of the coolest things about this was that they were calling me widline’s godmother and were saying how they appreciate that i would come look for her year after year. this was by far one of my favourite times, ever – we didn’t want to leave but figured the girls might need to start getting ready for their night.this week we also started doing a garbage program up in nazaret. it was our first attempt so amy and i decided not to do a lesson but just see how many kids would actually come join us. we set out with a pocket full of grocery bags and a box of fun blue gloves, and in less than 10 minutes we had a crowd of about 20 kids and had filled up and run out of bags. we had to start using rice sacks that we found in the ‘gutters’ but then couldn’t go too much further. basically garbage day was a SUCCESS and we are going to start doing it every week and talking about why it’s bad for your health etc.

A message from Sadrak

The other day I spent a little while helping Sadrak write a letter to send to different people and groups about his father and I thought I would post it here because it gives some updates.

Hi, it’s Sadrak Jeremy. How are you doing? I hope you are doing well. I just wanted to let you know that my father was in a motoconcho accident two weeks ago and he broke his knee and femur, two ribs and dislocated his jaw. He was on his way to visit his mother when a truck came out of a side street without looking both ways. It ended up driving right into his bike and a jeep from behind also collided with them. The driver of the motoconcho was taken to a clinic in Santiago. My father was taken to a private clinic in Puerto Plata and was expected to die but by a miracle he is alive after 4 different operations – they had to put pins in his leg. My family and I are taking care of him now that he is back home. We have already paid $250,000 pesos (around $7400.00 USD) with the help of people from our church and other friends from all over but we still owe the clinic $92,000 pesos ($2700 USD). My father’s name is Victor Vasquez. He is a pastor here in Sosua, Dominican Republic but will be without work for 6 or more months. I would like to ask you to pray for a speedy recovery and also for my family, and if you are able to make a financial contribution we would also really appreciate it. We are praying and trusting that God will provide.
If you are able to make a donation you can do it in the Popular Bank to the name of Sadrak Vasquez Cabrera, account # 743 769 432.
Muchas Gracias y Dios Te Bendiga
(thank you very much and God Bless)