# 2 My visit to Haiti - Christmas Celebration at Holy Angels Hospice Home

Since I am home sick, I figured that I continue writing about my visit to Haiti. In #1, I talked about arriving at the airport....well, right after I arrived and met my daughter for the first time, Barbara and Mirland took me to Holy Angels Hospice Home, run by an Eastern Orthodox gentleman named Tony. It was January 6th and that is the day the Eastern Orthodox celebrate Christmas.

I have photos of Holy Angels Hospice Home, but I have to upload them as they are in paper format. Once I do, you will understand why this orphanage is dear to my heart.

Tony cares of dying children in the orphanage. The children have varying degrees of physical and medical conditions and they are dying. His focus is to give them good loving care and to ensure they last days on this earth are as nice as possible. Tony is from New Orleans and has been in Haiti for some time. He only has one sponsor, a 90-year-old retired priest. I told Tony that he needs to be looking for some more sponsors! For example, this month, they ran out of latex gloves and did not have money to buy anymore. I will make sure to get the photos uploaded soon.

When we got to Tony's orphanage, I had a difficult time not to tear up seeing the children. Many of them cannot walk and are in wheelchairs or bed-ridden. Some children are very deformed and physically handicapped. Others look "normal" but are dying of AIDS or other diseases. I could not get myself to take photos of the children and I felt as if my heart was breaking.

Everybody was excited to receive a small gift, a toy, a teddy bear, a doll, a car... The children were happy, some did not seem to know what was going on as they are in a vegetative state. I felt bad that I was so taken aback by the handicaps that I observed and by the knowledge that almost every child in the small yard is dying. I felt ashamed that I was not stronger. Tony was so cheerful, I could see that he loves these children. He was so happy to make them happy and to give them some joy.

During my stay in Haiti, I had several interactions with Tony on different occasions. He is an eternal optimist with the faith of a rock! He has a great sense of humor and sees the positive. I decided that I would try to find Tony some sponsors and to sponsor him as much as possible myself.

(Fast forward... I need to tell this story here, even though this did not happen until several weeks later...On my last day in Haiti, January 12th, I started to get really ill. My stomach felt terribly upset, I felt nauseated and I started to have diarrhea... I was leaving the 13th to go back to California. I also had a fever. I took some antibiotics that I had brought with me on the trip and some stomach meds. I felt a little better the next day, but upon my return to the U.S. I continued to feel really ill. To make a long story shorter... I continued to feel very ill for three weeks. Being a person who hates going to the doctor, I kept holding off. Finally, last week I went. They took my blood and my doctor called me later on to have me admitted to the hospital immediately! My liver levels where out of control. There are certain levels that are normal at 0-46 and mine were at 3,000+! I was in law school class when my doctor called me. I was so scared! --- Once I was hospitalized and was poked, IVs given, etc. I was diagnosed with Hepatitis A! --- Guess what?! I did not catch Hep A in Haiti, I somehow contracted it mid-December here in the U.S. (We live close to the Mexican border and our county has a lot of Hep A, so I am learning now.) .... Okay, on with my story. You are probably wondering what this all has to do with Tony and Holy Angels Hospice Home.

When I got released from the hospital, I went on line to research Hep A and to see if there are any herbal remedies, etc. While doing the search, up pops a website from a medical company that pays $500 per donated quart of Hep A "infected" plasma. So, I entered my information and a rep from the company calls me the next morning. After faxing him my lab reports which for some reason I had asked to have copies of when I got released from the hospital, he said that I would be a great donor. Luck would have it that their donating lab is right in the same town that I live in, 4 miles from my house. So, last Thursday I went and donated a quart of plasma and got $500 for it. What did I do with the $500? I sent a bank check via a friend who is flying back to Haiti on Monday (tomorrow) to give to Tony.

I am supposed to go back on Monday and on Thursday to donate another quart of plasma each time, $500 each. Hopefully my blood levels are acceptable for donations on those days because that will raise another $1,000 for Tony's orphanage.

Plasma donation is quite safe. They hook you up to a machine, a lot like giving blood. The machine separates the red blood cells from the plasma, takes the plasma and returns the red blood cells back to the donor. At the end of the donation, the donor gets some IV fluids to help replenish the fluids taken. Sounds gross? Maybe...but I had been praying for a way to help Tony and this is like a present that fell into my lap.

Okay, I have to admit, having Hepatitis A is not fun...at all! Aside from getting $500 per plasma donation...LOL.... I will tell more about my Hep A experience later.)

Back to my experience at Holy Angels Hospice Home.... the need hit me deep, as you can see from my plasma donation...lol... I could not do what Tony does. I admire him so much for the work and his faith. The orphanage is in a home that has a small garden and a high wall and metal gate. It is located in a bad area of Port au Prince. They hear gunshots during the night and sometimes during the day. To move would be the answer, but that takes money.

In Haiti, you normally pay one year's rent in advance, not like in the U.S. where you pay monthly. In order to move to a better location, Tony would have to come up with one year's rent by moving date. For a decent place, it costs about $6,000 per year.

After Tony's Christmas celebration, we drove back to the airport because Johny was flying in from the States on an afternoon flight. We did not go to the "village" as Barbara's orphanage compound is known, until we picked up Johny.