Travel Adventures

     I slept in a little Thursday morning (6:15am instead of 6am) and took a nice warm shower, but tried to keep it short. I think we had better water pressure there than I do at home in Indy. Breakfast consisted of eggs over hard, fruit, and toast. After a short delay waiting for the key again, which we expected, we got to work. The biomeds brought us a few defibrillators and we made that our priority expecting they would be returned to service as soon as possible, but they explained that the hospital staff don’t have training and won’t usually use them if there is an emergency. Needless to say, we were “shocked” to hear this. I don’t even know if they have conductive gel for the paddles used to deliver the shock. It’s hard for them to get parts for the equipment down here and often it’s something as simple as the replacing the battery like for the AEDs. Similar to the defibs, but completely battery powered, these AEDs were no use with dead batteries.     ...

     Wednesday began very similar to Tuesday: woke, dressed, Lumarc offered us coffee, went to breakfast, met the biomeds upstairs at the hospital. I don’t mean to discount those things at all, but if you've read my previous posts I'll spare you the details. I should mention that one of the first thoughts I had was gratefulness for the many things God has and continues to provide for me.      The work we had to do seemed easier. I heard back from Kevin, my coworker in Indy, and his advice helped point us in the right direction. Soon we found the problem with the settings on the test that had caused my frustration the day before. We reviewed the PM procedure with the biomeds and had them do most of it with some instruction. One of them doesn’t speak English as well and I had to keep that in mind as I gave him direction. It helped to point to the values in the service manual. Can you imagine having to translate all those numbers?      Some...

     Compared to my first full day, Tuesday seemed much shorter. This tends to happen when I don't experience as many new things and my perception of time changes. However I started the day off with a shower and was extra thankful for the hot water. How often do you take  for granted  hot water? I spent some time reading through Psalms which is a great way to start any day and had some coffee again brewed by Lumarc. I know he's had a lot of experience working with the volunteers in the past, but I appreciate how considerate he was of us foreigners.      David and I went to breakfast which consisted of fresh papaya juice, fruit, hard bioled egg and toast. From there we went across the street to the biomed shop and waited for the biomeds because we needed a key in order to access the room we were working in. While I showed the preventative maintenance procedure again to one of the biomeds, David was able to fix some leaks we had encountered on a co...

     I slept well the first night and as I lay in bed I noticed the day brightening. Then there came a knock on my door and David asked if I was up yet. I thought to myself “What time is it?” as I glanced down at my phone and realized my alarm had gone off 40 minutes ago but made almost no sound. I mumbled something about being awake to David and promptly got out of bed. Fortunately, we had plenty of time since my alarm was set for 6am and breakfast wasn’t until 7:30am. We were allowed to use the scrubs stocked in the residence building so I tried to find a matching set that fit well. Maybe it was because I woke up too quickly, but I realized I was taking a long time to decide what scrubs to choose so I grabbed a medium set and tried it on. In the meantime Lumarc stopped by, greeted us and offered us some coffee which he had prepared in his office next door. Coffee sounded great even though I wasn’t tired. I had feared my body would complain if I didn’t get coffee and di...

     Once we touched down we went down a ramp directly onto the runway.  The gravity of that first step onto Haiti didn't occur to me until later when I had some time to reflect on the day.  With nowhere else to go I simply followed the crowd to a nearby building. There our passports were stamped and I realized I should have cashed the check that the Trimedx Foundation gave me while I was still in the U.S. - my first mistake. David graciously paid for us both and informed me “you can’t cash checks here!” which he continued to remind me of throughout the week. We waited a while for our luggage and when it finally appeared I snagged it from the rollers which would spill unclaimed luggage onto the floor. After that we just had to take a few steps to enter the customs inspection line. Once it was my turn I was directed to one of the two tables and the larger of my two bags was opened. The man didn’t speak English and had to call over another man as I tried to expla...

     My day started very early because I needed to wake at 3:30am to drive myself to the airport. I was worried about the forecasted freezing rain and the potential for delays. I realized after parking in the economy lot just how slippery it was. Fortunately, I didn’t have far to go to the shuttle and timing was just about perfect. That left me time to find some breakfast after checking in my two bags – which by the way I somehow got the larger of the two at exactly 50.0 pounds. Security took a little while but the Indianapolis airport isn’t too big. There was a woman, not much older than me, in front of me and an older couple from the TSA precheck merged into our line at that point. I let them go in front of me but they must have thought we were together and once I quickly explained that we weren't the gentlemen said "oh... that's too bad" implying that she was attractive. I think the woman appreciated the compliment. Nothing more came of the conversation, but it ma...

     If you're reading this then you've probably heard that I recently traveled to Haiti. Before I start to share about my experience there I feel I need to mention a few things first. For starters, I work as a biomedical equipment technician at a hospital in Indy for a company called Trimedx. I like to tell people "the doctors and nurses fix the people, but I fix the medical equipment." I enjoy serving the patients in this way and have quite a variety of things to fill my days at work.      The Trimedx Foundation is a non-profit that came out of Trimedx and they help connect and send us technicians to hospitals around the world that need their equipment fixed or tested. I had the opportunity to volunteer last year at a warehouse in Illinois where donated medical equipment needed to be fixed or tested before sending overseas. Sadly, parts and supplies are much harder to obtain in the hospitals overseas and it's more cost effective to do this work in the U....