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You feel that? Like someone is blowing up a water balloon in my chest. I learned years ago from a doctor that that feeling in my chest is not my heart. I thought I was dying or at least suffering with some type of heart problem. I went to my aunt's doctor because at the time, I didn’t have one. She hooked me up to the EKG machine and then she broke the news to me. I had already finished explaining to her that I was short of breath and that nothing I did could relieve the tightness in my chest. She said to me...I'm sorry to tell you this but that feeling is not your heart...Its anxiety.

I can honestly say that in all my time in Haiti, en route on a sometimes turbulent plane, surrounded by strangers on a mountain sprinkled with voodoo paraphernalia on walls and trees, riding in a beat up truck, sucking down fumes and exhaust, sleeping outside in a tent right next to a gas run generator with boards of wood propped up as my gate, with a group of 21 people depending on me and my husband to make critical decisions, in the heat and relentless schedule...I never ONCE felt this feeling in my chest. Back in the states 3 days and my rib cages is propped up on the imaginary shelf above my diaphragm. It won’t ease down or soften. The anxiety is back.Leaving Haiti I realized that I was completely in my element when I was with the people in hills and by the beach. There was no question I was doing what I loved and enjoying every aching, tiring minute of it.

In the next couple of days and weeks, I will do my best to once again dig into my soul and paint the picture for you. It is literally a physical task for me. It is the reason I haven’t written in so long. I am working on being more consistent. Sometimes I just psych myself out and don’t want to "go there". I know it’s the going there that brings awareness and eventually interest and eventually help and more support and it is why I have returned. Notebook full of notes and points and topics to remember. Stories to remember to tell. I will try to ignore the water balloon in my chest and hopefully take many deep breaths as I put to paper the pain, the joys, the victories and heartaches of my personal experience in Haiti. I can’t and won’t speak of anyone else's personal moments good or bad so please don’t be offended if you don’t find your story here. These excerpts are from my eyes. I hope you will subscribe to this blog and help bring awareness to what is going on in Haiti. I know in the end we are all but a mist and truthfully you may ask, will any of it matter? I find great joy in using my 50-70 stretch on this earth to do what I am doing and when it’s over...well...it’s over and after that...only God Knows. I believe it matters to Him and to that end...I labor.