You can read past updates on Serette here and here.

Serette is staying here in the clinic so she can receive medications throughout the day and so that we can monitor her closely. Her mom is staying with her, and she has other family members who visit frequently. She and her family are a big help around the clinic. They assist with counting pills, preparing food, and also do a great job making sure that other patients and families who are staying here feel welcome and encouraged. As I’m writing this now, Serette, her mom, and her sister are sitting with a new patient who just came yesterday. This new patient is a 34 year old woman with heart failure who is just as sick as Serette was (if not moreso) when she first arrived. She currently has no one staying with her, but Serette and her family are sitting next to her bed, keeping a close eye on her for us.

Medically-speaking, Serette is doing well, and has made great improvement since she first arrived four weeks ago. When she first arrived, her face, abdomen, and legs were extremely swollen. She was very short of breath and could not lay down due to her difficulty breathing. We were all worried that she would not survive. Over the first several days, her condition stabilized but she was still very sick. Based on her exam, we suspected she had an undiagnosed cardiac abnormality as the underlying cause of her symptoms, and an echocardiogram performed by a cardiologist in Port au Prince confirmed that her mitral valve is severely damaged (due to rheumatic heart disease) and needs to be replaced. She required IV medications for the first couple weeks she was here, but more recently she has been taking all of her medications by mouth. She currently takes nine different medications, spread out over three different times each day. WIth this regimen, she has lost almost 35 pounds of “water” weight and is looking great! For the first couple weeks she was here, she mostly stayed in her bed all day. Any excursion (even walking about 100 feet to the scale so we could weigh her) caused her to become very tired (“bouke” as they say here) and winded. Now, she is out of her bed most of the day, to the point that it is sometimes difficult to find her when it’s time for her medications!

At this point, Serette has lost almost all of her extra “water” weight, and she actually now needs to gain some “good” weight. Because she’s been sick for so long, she is somewhat malnourished and underweight. She will eat some Medika Mamba, but she doesn’t really like it so we are pursuing other nutritious options for her. She likes eggs and chicken, both of which will provide her with a good source of protein and calories. We can buy a case of chicken for about $45. Each case of chicken would provide her with 2 pieces of chicken per day for a month. We can buy a case of eggs (360 eggs total) for $47. If she eats 4 eggs per day, one case of eggs would last 3 months (of course, we wouldn’t use the same case of eggs for the full 3 months–but her portion could be taken out of the eggs we buy for other purposes).

Outward images are somewhat deceiving. Serette looks great, but her heart is still very sick, and ultimately she will not survive without cardiac surgery, which is not available in Haiti. In the meantime, it is important for her to take her medications and to improve her nutrition as much as possible. With these measures, we hope that she will continue to be medically stable for as long as possible while we pursue various surgical options outside of Haiti. Serette will stay with us until we find a place that will do the surgery that she needs to survive. If you would like to donate money towards buying high-protein, nutritious food for Serette, please click on the Paypal link above and specify that your donation is for Serette. We would like to raise $200 now, which will cover her food needs for the next three months.

Thank you in advance! We will update you when this need is met. Thank you for continuing to pray for all of our patients here!

$225 raised as of 9:45am Friday, Sept. 26.