While all of this played out, Pasteur came to HUM nearly every time I was in Haiti, making the three-hour trip from the port town of Gonaïves to Mirebalais by taptap. When I had first met him, I explained that I would try to advocate on his behalf to get him surgery for free in the US, but I couldn’t promise anything. Each time he came back, he told me he kept praying to God for help, and he knew his prayers would ultimately be answered. I wasn’t so sure. I told him I was trying to help him, but it was a slow process and it wasn’t up to me.
“Apre Bondye se doktè!” Pasteur would exclaim in response with a preacher’s emphatic declamation. (“After God is the doctor!”)
I had serious concerns that I wasn’t going to live up to his expectations.
Once, when François—our first neurology trainee in Haiti—saw Pasteur’s chart in the stack of the day’s consults given to us by one of the HUM clinic nurses, he moved it to the bottom of the pile.
“Why did you do that?” I asked him.
“Because he always takes such a long time and then we fall so far behind!” he replied, slightly irritated. Then he looked away, shook his head, and added somberly, “And because it’s just too depressing to see this poor pastor and not be able to do anything for him.”
I felt ashamed too each time I saw Pasteur. Had I given him false hope in a situation in which I was not the ultimate decision-maker? Had I relied too heavily on our hospital as the only possible solution when I should have tried more broadly with other hospitals? But in a different hospital it would be harder for Michelle, Anne, and me to interface with the care team and advocate for Pasteur as had been so important with Janel. And several hospitals where we didn’t have personal contacts had refused Francky’s case. We decided to persist at Brigham.
“Just keep pushing,” Michelle advised me. “Maybe the administration thinks you’ll forget about it or give up. But just keep at it! In the end, they always do the right thing.”
She was right. One day we finally received notice that we could bring one of our patients to Brigham. We chose to bring Pasteur first, given the size of his tumor and how advanced his visual deficits were. I called François and Martineau in Haiti and asked them to let Pasteur know the news and to carefully review the risks and benefits of brain surgery with him before we proceeded.
Learning from our challenges in Janel’s case, we wanted Pasteur’s wife to come with him to Boston so he would have someone he knew to help take care of him. Fortunately, they both had passports. And Pasteur even had a friend in Boston who offered to house him and his wife.
With housing and hospital approval in place, we got Pasteur and his wife their medical visas and booked their flights. After a long delay, things proceeded quickly.
And so, nearly two years after I’d first met Pasteur at HUM, Anne and I were waiting for him and his wife at the airport.
As dozens upon dozens of Haitian passengers flowed through customs and were received by their friends and family, I started to wonder if I had been overconfident in my promise to Anne that I’d be able to pick him out of a crowd of this size. But then, sure enough, I spotted him.
“There he is!” I called to him, “Pasteur!!”
He heard me and stopped to look around, trying to find me in his one remaining corner of vision. Pasteur kept his head and face cleanly shaven and had plump cheeks and small ears that gave him a boyish appearance. His wife, Dorotie, was taller than him and had her hair pulled back tightly. They were wrestling with two large suitcases each, all four with broken handles. Anne and I each took one as we walked toward the airport exit.
“Kouman ou ye?” I asked Pasteur excitedly. (“How are you?”)
“Avek Jezi!” he declared, smiling broadly. (“With Jesus!”)
“W la!” I said to Pasteur, smiling back at him. (“You’re here!”)
“Bondye fè tou!” he exclaimed. (“God can do anything!”)
I noticed his right eye seemed to be bulging a bit. I didn’t remember seeing that in Haiti a few months prior. The tumor must have grown.
We walked out of the airport into the humid July evening. Anne and I beamed at each other as we loaded their suitcases into her car. Somehow we had done it again! Pasteur and Dorotie got into the back seat, and we drove out of the airport parking lot.
Anne asked Pasteur and Dorotie how they knew Joseph, the man who would be housing them.
“Oh no, we don’t know him,” Dorotie said casually, looking out the window as the Boston skyline came into view.
“So you’ve never met?” Anne asked. We looked at each other, brows furrowed.
“No,” Pasteur replied, “but it’s all the same Haitian church, even in Boston. Our church is a family, so it’s no problem.”
Anne and I looked at each other again and shrugged. We drove on in silence.
When we arrived at Joseph’s apartment building, he ran out to greet them.
“My pastor, my pastor!” he exclaimed exuberantly. “Oh wow! Oh wow!” He hugged them and grabbed their suitcases. “Vini, vini!” (“Come, come!”) “Oh wow! Vini, vini, vini!!” Joseph was of medium height with a thin build and a slight hunch of his shoulders. He was bald on top with gray hair on the sides that connected to a gray beard, all just barely long enough to curl. Although I estimated he was in his early seventies, he had youthful bright eyes and seemed to dart from one place to another with the speed and light step of someone much younger. “Oh wow! Oh wow! Vini, vini, vini, VINI!” he said, laughing, nearly giggling, with excitement.
We entered the apartment building and crammed into its small elevator. We rode up several floors, the smells of various evening meals wafting in from each floor as we ascended.
Joseph lived in a one-bedroom apartment. He had set up his bedroom for Pasteur and Dorotie and put sheets on the couch for himself. Anne and I moved their suitcases into the bedroom and left Pasteur and Dorotie with Joseph to get some rest.
“I will walk the doctors downstairs and then give you something to eat,” Joseph said to them. “You must be so hungry after this long trip!”
Joseph couldn’t stop smiling as he led us back outside. “What a great night!” he said in lilting Creole-accented English. “I feel like I just got a million!!” He laughed.
“What a saint!” Anne said, as we drove away from Joseph’s apartment building.
“I know! Is it some kind of great honor to house a pastor?”
“Who knows? But it’s amazing to know people like him exist.”
* * *
The next morning I went to pick up Pasteur at Joseph’s to take him for his first appointments at Brigham. Dorotie joined him. Pasteur sat with me in the front, Dorotie in the back. As we were driving, I asked Pasteur if he had any questions, hoping my Creole would be good enough to answer him.
“Will I be able to go home after the surgery?” he asked.
“You will have to stay in the hospital for at least a few days, maybe more,” I said. “Then you’ll have to stay in Boston while we wait to find out what type of tumor it is and whether you need other kinds of treatment. It will be at least a few weeks.” I thought of how Janel had ended up spending almost a year in Boston and felt my stomach clench. “It could be longer . . .”