Helping Herself by Helping Others

As a nurse in the Comfort’s post-op ward, Peggy Holt specializes in giving her patients new beginnings. What they don’t realize is that they’re giving her one right back.

Peggy lost her husband, Chuck, to cancer last year, and his death threw Peggy’s future into turmoil. They were nearing retirement, and Peggy looked forward to traveling the world with Chuck. His passing left Peggy in need of a new direction. All she knew was that she “wanted to do something that made a difference.”

Peggy quit her job as a clinical research coordinator in South Carolina and began looking for volunteer nursing opportunities. “I had heard of the big white ship with the big red cross,” Peggy explained, and before long she’d submitted an application to join Continuing Promise 2009 as a Project HOPE volunteer.

Life at sea appealed to Peggy. Her husband had served in the Navy, her father in the Merchant Marine, and her son in the Coast Guard. She figured that in addition to helping people in need, working aboard the Comfort would give her a better understanding of their lives.

It’s done that, and more. Peggy boarded the Comfort in Miami on April 5, expecting to spend six weeks aboard. She is now nearing ten. She has visited Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Antigua, Panama, and Colombia with the Comfort, and has cared for the hundreds of patients—as of this writing, Continuing Promise 2009 has provided 829 surgeries—who have passed through her ward.

Together with her fellow “aft ward” nurses, Peggy plays a critical role in patients’ progress towards healthier, happier lives. During the 24-hours that patients are under her care, Peggy monitors their vital signs, checks for complications, and restores their strength. More than that, she makes sure patients can manage as well as possible without follow-up care. Most patients lack access to medical care in their own countries, and the Comfort’s sailing schedule makes follow-up visits impossible.

“Things that Americans take for granted are big deals to the people we’re helping,” Peggy said. To make those big deals manageable, Peggy teaches patients how to care for their sutures, how to avoid infection, and what side effects to watch for.

Peggy loves working with post-operative patients. With the surgeries behind them, their “anxiety is down,” Peggy explained, and the volunteers are treated to “smiles, hugs, handshakes, and ‘muchas gracias,’ and that’s always the best part.”

Several patients have indelibly marked Peggy’s experience. The baby in Haiti who had congenital cataracts removed and was able to see her mother for the first time. The 34-year-old Dominican man with a cleft-lip repair who beamed as he saw his new face in the mirror. The five-year-old Dominican girl who, after surgery to repair a femur infection, danced for the first time only hours after coming out of anesthesia.

There’s no doubt that Peggy leaves an impression on her patients as well. During the first few days of each port call, when surgeries haven’t yet begun and the aft ward beds are empty, Peggy goes ashore to assist with gynecological surgical screenings. In this way, Peggy bookends many patients’ experience with Continuing Promise 2009, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It’s nice to see patients before, during, and after surgeries...It builds bonds of trust and lets them know how much you care.”

With all that Peggy’s given to the mission, it’s heartwarming to know that she’s gotten something invaluable in return. Serving aboard the USNS Comfort, alongside dedicated military doctors and nurses, has given Peggy the direction for her life that she came aboard to find.
Peggy feels the tremendous gratitude for the opportunities the Navy gave her husband and her when they were a young, struggling couple.

“The Navy provided us with a stepping stone, and I feel like it’s time to pay that back,” Peggy said.

Consider Peggy’s ten weeks with Continuing Promise 2009 only a down-payment. Inspired by her time on the Comfort, Peggy plans to inaugurate a new chapter of her life when she returns home.

Look for her the next time you visit a Veterans Hospital in Charleston, South Carolina. If all goes well, she’ll be working there, caring for men and women who, like her husband, proudly served their country.

-Daniel

Hasta Luego, Tumaco

Today is our final day in Tumaco, Colombia. Any moment, the Comfort will pull up anchor and depart for for our next location, bringing an amazing chapter of Continuing Promise 2009 to a close. A motto on the mission is that it’s not about the numbers but about the individuals we’re helping. And that’s true. It is individual patients who have defined the experiences of all aboard, who have stamped our memories with their smiles, their warmth, and their gratitude.

I’ve had the honor to write about some of those patients, like Johnny, the 7-year-old arthritic boy whose life was changed by the gift of a wheelchair. But there are many others. The fact is that it would be impossible to record every individual who has touched a HOPE volunteer. What’s important is that those connections exist regardless of whether they’re written about, and the goodwill they represent—both between people and between nations—will live on.

So it’s not about the numbers. But the numbers do tell a story of their own, and that story is inspiring as well: over 11,000 patients treated; over 50,000 healthcare encounters provided; and over 247 surgeries performed. These record numbers tell the story of men and women who are working ever harder and ever smarter to deliver the best possible care to the most possible people. They tell the story of a dream team of dedicated HOPE volunteers, NGO partners, and military counterparts who get up before dawn every day to begin treating people in need. They tell the story of success.

Over the past three days many HOPE volunteers have had to bid Continuing Promise farewell as they returned home. But it was a great consolation to them, and to all of us who remain aboard, to know that their extraordinary efforts over the past four (and in some cases, six or 10) weeks helped write the wonderful story of Continuing Promise 2009.

-Daniel

Distinquished Guests Visit Volunteers

On Saturday (June 13), Colombian president Alvaro Uribe visited the Comfort.

Ambassadors from the United States and from Continuing Promise 2009 partner nations Canada, Chile and the Netherlands joined him for a tour of the Comfort's medical facilities. Along the way, President Uribe took time to stop and thank HOPE volunteers Tracy Kunkel, Tauna Ainslie and Kristen Wilson for their efforts to help his countrymen. He was visibly touched, when visiting patients in the post-op wards, by the good work they and all the Comfort's medical personnel are doing.


President Uribe is the latest in a long line of distinguished visitors to the Comfort that includes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Panamanian President Martin Torrijos, and Latin rock star Juanes. The Comfort's dedicated doctors, nurses, technicians, and support staff would do what they do regardless of whether they received recognition and praise, but these high-level visits underscore for all of us aboard that Continuing Promise 2009 is making a huge difference in the lives of people throughout the Americas, and that the Comfort--the big white ship visible from miles away--is a powerful symbol of American friendship.

-Daniel

Wheels for Johnny

The job of a Project HOPE Public Affairs Officer is not always easy.

Our medical volunteers work long hours in emotionally draining jobs, often in blazing heat and sopping humidity. Prying stories out of them at the end of a hard day’s work can be a challenge.

But every now and then they have an experience that is so moving, so inspiring, and so memorable that not one, but two or three volunteers approach me to share it. This post is about one of those experiences, and about the life-changing difference Project HOPE volunteers made in the life of Johnny, a 7-year-old Tumaco resident.

HOPE volunteer Carolyn Springman, a nurse at the University of California, San Francisco, was working at the Max Seidel clinic when she passed by a group of patients in line for pediatric care and noticed a strange sight: a woman carrying a boy almost as large as she was, straining under the weight but never setting him down. From the pain on the boy’s face, Carolyn could see that something was wrong.

She took them out of line and brought them to Dr. Ken Iserson, Project HOPE’s medical director.
It didn’t take long for Dr. Iserson to diagnose the problem: the boy, Johnny, suffers from diffuse juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. His joints ache so much that he cannot walk, and his mother must carry him around wherever they go. At only 7 years old, Johnny is already almost as big as his mother. He’ll soon be too big for her to carry.

Johnny and his mother are also homeless. They rarely stay anywhere longer than a few nights. It’s a sad twist that two people so ill-equipped should have to spend their lives on the move.

Johnny’s arthritis made a wheelchair the only option. But by then, the fourth day of the clinic, the Physical Therapy Department had already given away all the wheelchairs it had brought ashore. So working with the U.S. Navy, Carolyn, Dr. Iserson, and HOPE volunteer Kendra Dilcher arranged to have a Navy helicopter bring Johnny a wheelchair from the Comfort.

A short time later, Johnny had his new wheels. His beaming smile overwhelmed his mother. Through tears of joy, she hugged and thanked Carolyn, Kendra, and the Navy physical therapy team for changing both of their lives with one act of kindness.

-Daniel

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Photos of Volunteers at Work

Volunteers Continue Work in Colombia

Health Education and medical clinics continue at the Max Seidel Escuela site in Colombia. On board the Comfort, 41 surgeries were performed on June 10. Here is an update from Project HOPE's onboard volunteer medical director, Dr. Ken Iserson:

Neither heat, nor rain, nor thunderstorms slowed our clinical efforts ashore. More than 1,000 patients treated each day means that a large proportion of the area’s poor are receiving care; some for the first time in years. Surgery, of course, proceeded, with the Hopie surgical team contributing mightily to the effort.



-Ken

Volunteers Begin Work in Colombia

On Sunday, Continuing Promise 2009 opened the doors of a clinic in Tumaco, Colombia, and a parade of distinguished guests visited the site to mark the occasion, including Tumaco’s mayor, the governor of Colombia’s Nariño state (where Tumaco is located), U.S. Ambassador to Colombia William Brownfield, and Colombian rock-star Juanes. It was impossible for them not to be impressed by what they saw.

Personnel from all four branches of the military, two government agencies, and three NGOs toiling away in equatorial heat. An entire school campus—more than a dozen buildings—transformed overnight into a medical super-site offering care in more than a dozen different medical specialties. And most importantly, over a thousand patients—some of whom had come from hours away, and some of whom had been sick or injured for months or even years—receiving care from world-class providers.

Among those providers were more than a dozen Project HOPE volunteers triaging patients, performing surgical screenings, managing patient flow, and providing primary care. Project HOPE’s nurse educators, whose training program hadn’t yet begun, used their skills to teach waiting patients important health skills, such as infant CPR and basic hygiene.


While working in the optometry center, returning HOPE volunteer Barbara Perdikakis showed what a difference dedication and know-how can make. She noticed that one of the patients there for eye-care was missing his right leg and was getting around with the help of a giant stick. Through a translator, Barbara asked the man whether he’d like to get fitted for crutches. He enthusiastically said yes. So after ensuring that his eyes had been taken care of, Barbara arranged for the man to see the Navy’s physical therapist, who did the man one better, giving him a brand-new wheelchair that had been donated by the Wheelchair Foundation. If Barbara had any doubts that her patient was ecstatic, the high-five he gave her on the way out put them to rest.

-Daniel

Saturday, June 6

We arrived in Tumaco today after a three-day voyage from Panama. To the frustration of everybody on board, travelling from country to country involves unavoidable pauses in the mission’s humanitarian work. Everyone is looking forward to tomorrow, when the mission resumes in full swing.

Still, the last several days have been memorable for all aboard, and no HOPE volunteers will forget the inspiring example we witnessed of how the Navy honors a departed colleague.
We awoke Tuesday morning, our last day in Panama, to the tragic news that Chief Petty Officer Pamela Branum, one of the senior enlisted Navy personnel aboard, had passed away the previous night in her sleep. Her sudden death caused an appropriately somber mood to come over the ship. Sailors who had known, worked with, and loved Chief Branum for years comforted one another and shared her memory with those of us not fortunate to have known her well.

Those of us who have not had to deal with as much death as our military counterparts also learned a powerful lesson about their fortitude. At the nightly brief that evening, and then again at a memorial ceremony the following day, several of Chief Branum’s close friends spoke about her death. They movingly shared how much Chief Branum meant to them and how much they would feel her loss, and then each concluded with the same thought: that there is no greater way to honor Chief Branum’s memory than to dedicate this mission to her and, in that spirit, to redouble our efforts to help as many people as possible.

-Daniel

Saving Vacation Time to Volunteer, Project HOPE's Megan Rohm Brings Smiles to Patients on the USNS Comfort

Three years ago, as a nursing student at Johns Hopkins University, Megan Rohm first learned of Project HOPE from a friend who had volunteered on a mission. "When I heard of Project HOPE, I felt like the mission aligned with my personal goal of providing care to underserved populations who lack access to basic hygience, care, and health education. Project HOPE offered the opportunity to use my nursing skills to benefit such people," Megan said.

After graduating, Megan moved to Seattle and began working as a telemetry nurse. For two years, she patiently gained the nursing experience that would allow her to serve with Project HOPE. It's not that Megan couldn't have applied to volunteer earlier. She just wanted to make sure that when she volunteered, her skills were strong enough to really help. So she worked, and she waited. And she worked, and she worked.


Megan's sights were set on volunteering with Project HOPE, so for those two years she didn't take vacation. Day-by-day she accumulated vacation hours until finally she had enough for six weeks off. Now she's spending every hour of vacation she'd earned serving with Project HOPE. Megan joined Continuing Promise 2009 one month ago in Antigua, and is serving on the mission's Antigua, Panama, and Colombia legs. She works in the USNS Comfort's "hotel"--the ward where patients and their families stay before surgeries. More than anything, people in the hotel need to be put at ease. "We try to lift their spirits before surgery," Megan said, "and to make the process more relaxed and fun."

Megan lights up when talking about her patients, especially the kids. The truth is, the kids are more than patients. They're fellow fans while watching movies. They're dance partners during the hotel's nightly dance parties. They're teammates during soccer games in the hallway. Megan says that her military counterparts are especially great with the kids. Different military branches have donated toys to the hotel, and the hotel's guests recently were treated to a visit and performance by the Air Force Band.

One patient in particular stands out for Megan. Eight-year-old Roberto was aboard the Comfort to have surgery to fix a hernia that he'd had for a year. Even though he was nervous about the surgery, and even when he was having blood drawn, he was "all smiles." When Megan went to visit him after the surgery, she could see that he was in a lot of pain. She brought him some toys. He thanked her with a huge hug. She's sure she got the better half of the trade.

-Daniel Feith

HOPE Volunteers Razzle-Dazzle 'Em

The dedication of HOPE volunteers knows no bounds. At a training session in Panama, HOPE volunteers Elise Chamberlain, Iilene Smith, and Jane Bower added some razzle-dazzle to the lesson plan. Ably assisted by Navy nurses, Elise, Iilene, and Jane performed the "EKG Dance," a YouTube sensation meant to help students visualize arrythmic cardiac conditions. With their arms representing atria and their legs, ventricles, the chorus line of educators wiggled, kicked, dipped, shimmied, and generally boogied to the beat of cardiac rhythms. The rhythms may have been irregular, and the dance, frankly, bizarre, but by the end of the session, every student had joined in. Learning lifesaving skills and a new dance isn't bad for a day's work.

The number of lives Continuing Promise 2009 touches is simply staggering. At the mission's halfway point, Project HOPE volunteers and their military and civilian partners have seen 40,000 patients, performed 112 surgeries and had 170,745 medical encounters. Amazingly, the treatment pace is only accelerating.

But Continuing Promise 2009 is leaving another, equally important legacy in its ports of call, thanks in great part to HOPE volunteers' efforts. Every day, HOPE volunteers and their military counterparts are training local doctors, nurses, paramedics, and students in important lifesaving techniques, including Basic Life Support, Advanced Cardiac Life Support, and Pediatric Advanced Life Support.

One student, a paramedic-in-training, said that she and several friends attended the class on their own time to gain and hone skills that they will use in their jobs every day. And that's precisely the hope. In the parlance of our Navy hosts, these students are force multipliers for Continuing Promise's efforts. By learning and then applying lifesaving skills, they advance the mission's goal: bringing quality health care to as many people in the Americas as possible.

-Daniel