Come Thou Fount of Many Blessings

Come Thou Fount of Many Blessings

Sunday evening, Feb. 28, 2010
As Beth and I treated patients in the hospital this morning, we listened to the sounds of a large group of people wandering from one area to another singing hymns and then praying for the patients in the room. Patients and visitors joined in and added to the joyful noise. The one hymn that I recognized was Come Thou Fount of Many Blessings, one of my favorites. If ever there was a time and place that needed a fount of blessings, it is now in Haiti.

BethEllsworth, my PT colleague at Parkland, arrived safely last night after a gut wrenching ride over the mountain road in the dark and pouring rain. The drivers here think nothing of passing on a blind mountain curve, honking their horn and flashing their lights as they go. Two goats may have been sacrificed along the way; the driver did not stop to check. Travel here is not for the faint hearted! We celebrated the end of the journey with some good Haitian rum.

Tomorrow I begin teaching in the Rehabilitation Technician Training Program, as I did last summer. I will, once again, teach the unit on Skin, Wounds, and Burns. Thank goodness for Parkland! It is a very appropriate unit to be teaching now, as the hospital is loaded with trauma victims with terrible wounds, many requiring repeat surgeries, skin grafts, and muscle flaps. And, as they have often noted in the news, MOST of the amputees will need at least 2 surgeries, as the first was so often done under terrible conditions leaving an open wound that must be treated before a prosthesis becomes an option.

As Beth and I went through the wards today and worked with the patients, I told her that she could have my favorite today--a small boy with multiple fractures, wounds, and nerve injuries who has a smile that lights up the room. Exercise is often painful, but he never complains beyond twisting his face into a terrible grimace of pain. I know that many of you warned me not to bring home any children, but he is a temptation! He has only his sister here caring for him, so I am not sure what home situation he has to go back to.

Hope you are all doing well. All the donations that you made for the hospital will be well used.

A deman, Judy