KATY'S STORY
When I arrived to Medishare's Field Hospital in April, I was overwhelmed by the sad stories that brought the children to the pediatric ward where I worked all week. The most unforgettable story was Katy's. She was orphaned in the earthquake and pinned underneath the rubble for several days. She sustained a fractured femur which healed but then refractured and required surgery due to the infection. When I met her, she had an external fixator on her femur, which means she had two metal pins connected by a rod protruding from her thigh. She was by far our most challenging patient of the week. She had significant pain, and a lot of fear. She was afraid of moving her leg, afraid of getting her pin sites cleaned. She couldn't move around easily, and was always alone with no parents to comfort her. This picture shows 'team Katy', all of us who tried so hard all week to get Katy to trust us. You can see she is even wearing a shirt we all signed for her to motivate her. Then suddenly, without any notice, her orphanage came to get her. Before we knew it, she was gone. We never got to teach them how to care for her pin sites or how to transfer her without making her cry. After coming home I woke up many times thinking of Katy and wondering what happened to her.
On my June trip to Haiti I spent a day offsite working at the warehouse. When I returned to Medishare, I hadn't even gotten out of the car when Jimmy, the translator from the above picture began knocking wildly at my door. 'Katy's here!' he said. When I got out of the car, I didn't even recognize the little girl standing in front of me. No tears, no fear, in a pretty little dress, there stood Katy, and she was WALKING! It was amazing to come full circle with this child, knowing all the hard work in April had been worth it.
This experience really helped me realize that we as volunteers may not always reap the success of our efforts, but have to pass the baton and trust that others will finish our work. We are all contributing to a end we will not always get to see and have to trust that when we come home the work continues, and the end result will come. Every once in a while, we might even get to see it.
