What to Title This Post?

            I struggled with what to title this post.  Hypocrite.  Despairing.  Despair to Hope.  Hypocrite.  No matter what idea crossed my mind, I kept coming back to hypocrite.  For those of you who are also Facebook friends, you know that I’ve not been feeling good this past week.  Last Saturday (June 13), I noticed what I thought was a small in-grown hair on my stomach.  Didn’t think much of it.  Sunday morning, the bump had grown and quite a patch of red had developed.  I thought it was a boil.  Fortunately, a person in a group that was leaving the next day had a Z-pack with here and was willing to give it to me.  I started that and thought I was on the road to recovery.  Not so much.

            The redness and hardness continued to grow.  The left side of my stomach was fairly swollen, and it hurt.  A lot.  I started sleeping a lot, but I wanted to give the Z-pack time to work.  Well, by Wednesday night it was just getting worse.  Antibiotics weren’t helping.  Hot compresses weren’t helping.  Sleeping wasn’t helping.  Thursday morning I decided to go to PID, a free health clinic not far from the orphanage.  I arrived about 7:30 and waited outside the gate with a group of others.  After waiting a few minutes I saw this sign: Avi empotan.  Jedi se pou fanm yo ansent.  Great.  Pregnant women only on Thursdays.  I decided to wait anyway.

            While I waited, Marci walked by.  Marci is Haitian and works at PID.  She noticed me and invited me in.  I showed her my stomach, and she said that the doctor would probably be willing to see me before starting with the expectant mothers.  I walked past all the Haitian women waiting, went inside, and sat in the waiting room.  And the tears started.  I had traded on my white skin to get help for myself, knowing that others would have to wait.  At that point Sondra, whom I had just met the day before when she came to the guesthouse to visit Lauren, came in and asked what was up.  I explained and showed her my stomach.  Lo and behold, an American medical team that was to leave in two hours was still there.  She would ask them to take a look at me before they left.  More tears. 

            I hated that my white skin was bringing me privileges denied to others.  I hated even more that I was taking advantage of white skin to get what I needed/wanted.  Hence, the title hypocrite. 

            The doctors did a great job and sent me home with antibiotics, materials to change my bandages, and their personal e-mails in case I had questions.  Last night, Friday, I decided to fly to Miami and go to a hospital to have the abscess checked out.  It’s draining, which is good.  The redness has receded some, which is good.  The swelling is going down, which is good.  But, I worry about having an open, infected wound on my stomach in a country such as Haiti.

            This time I traded on my American citizenship to get things that aren’t available to Haitians and many others.  Gertrude asked whether I had insurance, and I said yes kinda matter of factly, like of course I do.  But it’s not a matter of course.  Not everyone has insurance.  I cried again because it’s not fair, it’s not right that some have so many more advantages than others.  And I have them simply through place of birth and color of skin, neither of which I have control over.  When push came to shove, I put my needs ahead of others simply because I could.  Not too proud of that.

            But, what kind of fool has those options and chooses not to exercise them?  Is that person any better than the one who takes advantage of those options?  How does one determine when to wait patiently for one’s turn like everyone else or when to take advantage of white skin or nationality?  Can one only sometimes take advantage of skin color and/or nationality and not be a hypocrite? 

            I have no good answers.  What I know is that there has to be a way so that we all have access to adequate health care regardless of skin color, socio-economic status, nationality, anything.  I don’t know what that way is, but I will continue to pray that God show us how to make that part of His “kingdom come, on Earth as in Heaven.” 

            So what to title this post?  I settled on conflicted.