Unexpected Illness; Privileged Life

I didn’t want this to be the next blog, but it is. I had so many other experiences to write about over the last week that I hate to post this. So, I will make this one long post, covering the Kanaval weekend and my trip to the States that is happening tomorrow.

So this week is Kanaval in Port-au-Prince. It’s quite a scene. Starting Sunday night they party Sun night, Mon night, and Tues night. Then everything is closed down Wed as well (kind of a national recovery day). We had a friend we work with give us T-shirts and bracelets for the “Rika” stand. So we went and had a great time. One interesting story – we ended up getting on a float (Sweet Micky) and dancing on it for awhile. As it rolled through town (it’s like a big crowded parade of dancing), we passed under power lines that we continually had to lift over our heads. Since I am tall I used my maraca that I was dancing with to lift the lines. It was a blast. I did make one critical mistake – I drank an energy drink at 11 or 12 at night as we were dancing, simply because I was thirsty! Well, I had a bit of trouble sleeping later on…
At any rate, as we pushed our way through the crowds, you constantly ran into people peeing in bottles or just on the road. In fact, I stopped to pee at one point and the group I was with told me NOT to go into the porty john because it would be unbearable – just pee on the outside on the street. So when in Rome…

Well, we had plans to be up on the stand each of the nights, but during the day on Monday, after presumably being dehydrated and eating some pizza, I began to develop severe abdominal pain. For the next 6-8 hours it had me on the couch. It would come every 10 minutes or so. It felt like something in my gallbladder area was contracting painfully. It would last for about 2-3 minutes, then it would subside. It was awful pain. We were a bit worried because I was unable to eat and it was very hard even to walk. Luckily I never developed a fever.
Today I feel a bit better, although all I have had to eat is 2 pieces of jelly bread. But I had no “attacks” today; although that area of my abdomen still hurts. After being examined and taken care of by my roommates and speaking with a Cornell faculty member, I was instructed to leave. Basically, Haiti is no place to have to have a gallbladder taken out if that is the case. The Cornell faculty member I emailed with was extremely helpful and told me not to worry about price; they would reimburse me, just get to the states and have a GI guy and surgeon consult. Thankfully, a good friend of ours, Dr. David Junker, spoke with my dad tonight about setting up some tests to figure out the problem. I will be in Atlanta tomorrow night, then at my parents’ house on Thursday morning and on to see Dr. Junker. Also, I have been very fortunate to have the internet and parents in the states that were able to set all of this up for me!

The thing about this is the symptoms have subsided since yesterday. Of course, I haven’t been eating today so maybe it is the gallbladder. At any rate, I am hoping my trip to the states is short and productive and I can get this taken care of. I am a bit nervous though- my running career ended because of pain in this area and despite elevated bilirubin levels we ultimately left the gallbladder in.

At any rate, the real reason I am writing this is because of the profound impact it had on me today. I had to call some of our Haitian co-workers to arrive for a ride to the airport, and ultimately I felt some shame in being here working at a clinic, yet fleeing for my own personal health care. And perhaps I shouldn’t feel that shame, and perhaps I did the right thing to go where the equipment can quickly and accurately diagnose what is going on; but that didn’t stop me from being saddened by what a privileged life I lead. Here I am, here for one month to try and help, try to do the right thing, I get sick, and I’m on a flight home to see specialists. It’s sad because people work their whole lives to get a flight to the states, and I get one just because I have eight hours of abdominal pain which may or may not lead to some correctional procedure in the states. If I were one of the masses here, there is nothing I could do. In fact, even if I were one of the “better off” here, what would I do? Go to hospitals here for surgery?

So tomorrow I will be in the states. I’m not bleeding, I have no fever. Yet I get to go to my privileged health care. Eight million people are not coming with me.