Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
You Won't Believe The Devastation: Dr. Wright's Sri Lankan Journal (by Wayne Wright, M.D.) by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado
Friday, January 14, 2005
Rated "PG" by the Author.
An anesthiologist shares his feelings about what he is currently experiencing as part of a humanitarian team from Tennessee, to provide medical care to the victims of the recent tsunami/earthquake disaster that struck parts of southeastern Asia and surrounding countries.
Sri Lanka, 2005 January~
You can't imagine what I see as I look about me. Such devastation, such hopelessness in the faces of people who already have very little in the first place (now to be left with virtually nothing but the very clothes on their backs), such carnage...the sight is reminiscient of a nuclear holocaust or a terrorist attack.
This is Dr. Wayne Wright. I am an anesthesiologist at Nashville Memorial Hospital back in my home of Nashville, Tennessee, where I live; and I am here to help people who are truly in a great deal of need. I have been working practically nonstop since our arrival here, and I am emotionally and physically exhausted; yet something inside me prods me to keep going, keep helping these people.
I have seen more death and more heartache here than I have back home; and I have had very little in the way of sleep. I also haven't had much time to eat or take care of my personal needs. (I happen to be physically disabled: I was born with spina bifida that left me a paraplegic and relying on leg braces and two Lofstrand--forearm--crutches for mobility; and to walk among the damage and debris is most challenging at best. I have to change my catheter bag every few hours, or I could be in line to suffer a massive bladder or kidney infection that could lay me up for days if I don't take care of it right away, and I also have to drink lots of fluid and make sure I eat properly so I don't become dehydrated.) I know I am only asking for trouble when I don't care for my needs; but there are people who are truly in a lot of need here, and their needs come first over mine.
There are approximately twenty to thirty of us from Nashville Memorial Hospital who are here helping the victims, and while we are glad, very glad to be here, the hours are long and brutal, and living quarters are quite shoddy at best. We sleep in dirty, stained beds that smell of urine or feces, the rooms are dirty and bugs (or even rats) crawling across the floor are a common sight here, the food is often lousy, and the weather is oppressively hot: our clothes stick to our skin like glue, and by the time we get off our long shift, we stink worse than the garbage littering the countryside, and the only thing we look forward to is a hot bath (and the water is oftentimes cold) or a chance to fall into bed, where we then fall immediately to sleep.
I have seen so many broken bodies, so many broken spirits here: children left without parents or siblings, parents left without kids, lovers left without each other, and friends losing friends. Such devastation, such heartbreak and loss: you can't imagine the pain etched in so many dark or saddened faces, and you can't imagine the grief or sense of loss they must feel. The heaviness of their pain and loss presses down upon us all who are here, and one wonders why we are even here in the first place. It is enough to make me want to cry or wish that I was back home in Tennessee with my wife and my children! I wish they were here, but at the same time, I feel I have a duty to perform for these needy and desolate people who suffered at the hands of a natural disaster that struck them with such little warning.
Not only were people in Sri Lanka affected by this tragedy: the same tsunami hit Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), India, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, and at least four/five other nations. At last count, over a quarter of a million people died in the earthquake and the ensuing tsunamis, and now disease threatens to decimate even more people; there is fear of a malarial outbreak (or some other horrible, contagious disease like cholera, meningitis, typhus, or smallpox). This disaster had worldwide consequences: people of many other nations (including the United States; at least 18 Americans died in the disaster, and quite a few are missing and are now presumed dead) were hit with the disaster, giving this disaster world-wide attention. Nobody--young or old, adults or children, rich or poor, famous or insignificant--was spared in this disaster, and the tsunami had no respect for the victims that was in its deadly path. Once it struck, lives were shattered and changed forever, and now all we can do is offer help, hope, and healing to a battered part of the world and hope that we can, in our small way, make some sort of difference.
Spoken Word
This CD will touch the deepest inner part of your humanness and spirit, you will never be the same after listening to the depths of struggle, the reality of life, the touching voice of truth. It will shock you, move you to tears. It w
Sri Lanka, 2005 January~
