Yesterday I had a productive morning at work, then in the afternoon we went to Operation Blessing's warehouse and got to bring back a huge truckload of supplies for our hospitals and some little things for the children at FWAL. It was a lot of work, especially for a Friday afternoon, when we usually take it easy. I was super exhausted by the time I made it home, but of course I turned right around and went to the grocery store because you never pass up a trip to the grocery store. You can't be sure when the next offer will come around and then you're stuck eating nothing but bread rolls for three days straight. While we were at the store, we decided to get cupcakes for the kids in oncology... a little Friday evening celebration. The cupcakes had blue frosting so of course it was all over the floor, their hands and little faces. It was super cute and they were tons of fun to play with as usual.

cupcakes!

Paul

with Max and Didine

One of the little girls in oncology hasn't had her parents with her for a few months now. Her mom was pregnant with another child, and after she had her second baby at St. Damien's, she took the child home, saying that she would come back for her daughter in oncology in a week or two. After a few weeks passed with no one able to contact the mother, it became a social services case and they have been working to get her mother on the phone for some time now. It's becoming crucial to have the mother, because the child needs to go to the Dominican Republic to receive radiation. We need her birth certificate to get her a visa, the mother needs to fill out release paperwork and of course there is a little four year old girl living in a hospital without any family. One of our volunteers decided to see what she could do, and anticipating the mothers feelings, sent her an SMS saying that no one is angry with her and that if she needs it, we will send her money to get transportation to the hospital. And what do you know, shortly afterwards the volunteer got a phone call from the girl's parents, explaining their situation and that they will be down on Monday. It's amazing what $25 and a little compassion can accomplish. To me her parent's actions are a testament to what an incredibly powerful emotion guilt is. Of course no one at the hospital truly knows what the parents situation is like, but its too easy to look at the situation and call it negligent behavior. Its too easy to say that the parents couldn't deal with their daughters difficult treatment or that they gave up on her. Because when you put daddy on the phone with his little girl that he hasn't seen in months, he is in tears because he is so thankful to hear his daughters voice. He tells her that they're coming to see her next week and you hope more than anything that that's true. It's just a step, but it's a big step, in getting this hilarious, outgoing, sweet, talkative, boisterous, adorable girl the life that she deserves.

As we're leaving the oncology room, Ivy gets a call from a mother who is down in the ICU. Ivy spent a lot of time with this family when she took their little boy to the US to have heart surgery. I don't know the details, but NPFS flew him to a hospital in the US to patch up a hole that was in his heart. We went into the ICU and walked all the way back to the last bed where he was sitting with his mother. The eight year old boy is small-- too small, for an eight year old. His mother lays him down on the bed and points to his chest. His heart is beating so hard underneath his little white wife beater. You can see it pounding in his chest and it is going much too fast. You don't have to be a doctor to figure out that the surgery didn't take. As I make this realization, it's hard to look at the boy and his mother, so I look up... and see 15 other children with their mothers, all of whom must be in similar situations. It's not that seeing sick Haitian children is any more devestating than sick children anywhere, but to know and truly understand the circumstances here--that already by receiving treatment, especially a surgery in the US, the family has gotten more help than they probably dared hope for--you realize that there are so few options here. Our organization has already done a lot, provided great level of care for free, but second tries are extremely rare here, there is no Children's or St. Jude's, or even Make a Wish Foundation. So what do you do? You grab a package of silly putty from your bag and you bring some leftovers from lunch and promise to come by tomorrow. Because that's all you can do.