TET-A-TET

Both of our TET kiddos from yesterday did fabulous, thanks to the great care by the 2 pediatric nurses we brought from Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center's Women and Children's Hospital. Yvette and Nicole tag-teamed our youngest 12 and 15 year olds, settling and caring for them with swift hands and kind hearts. I have never seen someone so exquisitely tuck in a patient so expediently as Yvette. She truly is a master of her profession. Then our adult cardiac nurses took over for night shift (Katie and Sarah S.) Fortunately, in preparation for our Mission, they had an intensive 2 hour Congenital Pediatric Care Course provided by Barb and Beth, our pediatric education specialists from SHMC. And we could not have done it all without the support of "Dr. Dan," as Rwandans say. Brutacao to us. He recently arrived from the grueling Boston Marathon finish line. The long flights cross country stoved him up a bit but he gimped into the groove like he'd never left. Thanks Peds team for taking the responsibility for our little ones!

DEPARTURES AND ARRIVALS

It's always good to begin and end a journey with some consistency, for us this was the universality of beer. Heffy in the States and Primus in Africa. Especially when the country welcomes you with open arms into it.













Our first group of travelers made it here safely, including all of our personal luggage. Our trunks are having a sleep over in Customs. Sandy, Hal and Dr. Mucumbitsi plan to retrieve them on the morrow.

The rest of us will also be up and at 'em on our way to King Faisal Hospital to unload all of our beautiful shipping boxes. And it will be like Christmas going through all of our belongings we left here last year.

Good luck to the three remaining waves of travelers, we will see you all soon. And you will be just as happy as Brooke to take off your support stockings!!

TACKLING TRUNKS

Ever hear the phrase, "We will never do that again"? Yeah, we could have coined it. After all of the time-consuming work ordering and packing, then unpacking and re-packing, rearranging, weighing and re-weighing ....



It seemed like a never-ending job, we ate, drank and slept it. Labels, numbers, Flight Groups, zip tieing, counting and recounting. Finally! Handling all of these trunks is over.

Sunday, HHNW Mission Volunteers came to SHMC Women and Children's Hospital Entrance to pick up their trunks.

And today we found out that all of the supplies we shipped one month ago have all cleared Customs with flying colors!! What a relief for those of us who put so much effort into shipping and what a relief for our Medical Mission - now we can actually perform the surgeries we have been planning for so long.


After all of this good news, maybe we too can relax on the sofa.

WE HAVE ARRIVED!

Dr. Hal Goldbert, Sandy Goldberg and Jim Dixon relieved to finally be on the plane.

Andrea Daugherty, Katie Bland and Morgan Lonsford entertain themselves while waiting in the San Francisco Airport.

Jane Vantassel at the "Yotel, Motel, Holiday Inn..." at Heathrow's Airport in London.

The first team arrived at noon yesterday. We cleared Customs at Kigali International Airport with no problems and we were greeted by our wonderful colleagues from King Faisal Hospital, there to make sure our Customs experience went smoothly.

It was great to see all of our pallets of supplies unloaded in the CICU and ready for us to unpack tomorrow. We are all looking forward to a quick dinner and a long rest as we plan to start this organizational process.