The floods came up and the rain came down....

Have that song in my head because Doctor Pete and Ryan were singing in in honor of our 6 am downpour. Rainy season came early last night, well, this morning. Ryan, another nurse (jess), and I were working 7p-7a at the temporary hospital last night. It was a good shift: people seemed to be doing fine, spent most of it organizing the rooms, jamming to MIA’s Paper Planes, and watching Dexter on a laptop (need to see more of this show to know if it’s one I’d keep watching). Then, a little before 6 in the morning, it decided to rain. And by rain, I mean it felt like standing under a waterfall.

Normally this isn’t a bad thing: watch rain from the inside of a hospital window and grumble about how I hate Ohio...but here, all 26 of our patients are sleeping outside on cots, under big blue tarps tied to the trees. The force of the water and how fast it kept coming started to weigh down our tarps and water began pouring in. Things turned chaotic. A lot of our patients have external fixators which means they have open wounds at risk for infection, many others have casts, almost all have wounds--a horrible combination for dirty rain water.

The three of us began running to clear a space to get as many patients inside as we could. Family members of the patients that are staying at the hospital also began helping us lift people. We were picking up our patients-cots and all- and trying to run them inside. Everyone kept trying to dump the water off the tarps because they kept dropping low to the ground with the weight and one of them seemed to start ripping. About half an hour later, with our most critical patients safely in dry areas and dripping wet head to toe, the rains stopped and shift change happened.

It was definitely a good adrenaline kick, but the reality is scary. I don’t know what these clinics are going to do once March and rainy season hits. I’m so worried about these tent cities as I’ve said some are really just sticks tied together and a sheet. I’ve been into some of these camps and I can’t even describe the living conditions to you in words because words have yet to be invented to depict how 500 families can survive on top of each other with one bathroom and only 3 sources of water.

Please pray for these families as rainy season approaches. It’s going to get much worse here before it gets any better.......

OK..off to do my 2nd of 4 night shifts in a row. Miss you all! :)
Alisha