Hope Springs Eternal!

As we try to resume our usual activities at Pine Ridge after a hiatus for COVID in 2020 and then a limited trip in 2021, hope has been the sentiment for 2022—hope for less COVID; hope for continued support for the trip; hope for a full trip; hope for continued acceptance of health promotion efforts there; and hope for the best (whatever that is). Eight students are traveling this year, and with this number, I am know requiring a second person to travel with me to allow for transportation. A fellow faculty member very bravely and selflessly volunteered for this (she really has no idea what she is in for!).
Driving up is a must for us since I have so many supplies and donations; however, the majority of students flew. The adventure started with a rental car fiasco that was finally resolved after several hours and a trip to more than one Enterprise branch. We left to drive up at 5am on Wednesday and made it to the Cedar Pass Lodge in the Badlands by 9:30 pm Mountain Time. During the drive we received texts from several students about flight delays and changing flight schedules for the next day. Three students who were supposed to be on the same flight from Louisville ended up having to fly from Lexington; Indianapolis; and CHICAGO (!). Another student had delays affecting her arrival time with it being moved to 7:10 pm (originally scheduled to arrive at 11am). After a day in Rapid City, picking up travelers, visiting the monuments, shopping at Walmart, and getting dinner, we made it back to the cabins much later than planned but thankful everyone made it.
Our plans are fluid as usual but our first activity is always the pow wow. Having Suzie with IHS as been such a benefit to us. She was able to get permission for us to set up with the IHS Mobile clinic for the first time ever. After a busy morning of sorting and organizing donations, we were ready to head to the pow wow with a quick stop in Kyle to get my health promotion bin from Suzie. We stopped at the clinic in Kyle, and Suzie graciously gave the students a tour. Even though I catch up with Suzie fairly often, I still marvel at her stories of providing urgent/emergent care from the confines of an outpatient clinic that is not set up to do so.
We are much farther from Pine Ridge with our current lodging, so the drive one way is 2 hours. It goes by fairly quickly as there are frequent questions from students about the reservation, and on this trip, a stop to help a person who ran off the road in front of us. The two-lane road to Porcupine is as rural as any of the roads here, and I noticed the car coming toward us whose tire seemed to be wobbling. As I watch her go past, I see that she veers off the road and down the shoulder. My first thought was that she had for sure flipped the car. We did a quick U Turn and got out to check on her. Thankfully there was a fence down the shoulder that kept her from going in a ravine which definitely would have flipped the car. She was shaken up but uninjured. We offered her a ride and use of a cell phone, but she was afraid to leave her car. Family lived closed by so they were going to be there pretty quickly to help her. As we were saying goodbye, she stated that she did not have her seatbelt on—’next time’ was our quick bit of health promotion or this encounter. The rest of the trip was uneventful, and we made it to the pow wow.
We sat up by the IHS Mobile clinic with our canopy and many donations. The challenge for health promotion is always the weather, and this day provided probably the most extreme challenge ever—a temperature of 107 degrees. The cholesterol monitors are very sensitive, so I immediately put them in a Ziploc bag and put them in the cooler (they don’t like heat or direct light). Unfortunately, our ice melted quickly, and our Ziploc bag leaked so the cholesterol monitors are out of commission. Students went out to try to recruit visitors to the canopy and became drawn into the tipi races (contest to see which team of three women could build their tipi the fastest). We had a trickle of visitors, but it remained pretty slow. The first day of health promotion being slow is actually OK though, it gives the students a chance to get the lay of the land as far as the environment and process with screenings. The heat was nearly unbearable, but the students did not complain even one time. Lots of fluids, wet washcloths, fans, and sitting in the SUV in the AC periodically helped everyone make it through.
We made it to grand entrance time at the pow wow-always a much-anticipated event. I am always overwhelmed by this event even though I have attended many times, and this was no different. I teared up and sat feeling grateful to be back in this very special place.
Our trip home was an adventure—a gps guided “shortcut” allowed for a 20-mile drive on a very uneven gravel road in the dark during a storm in an unfamiliar area of the reservation. We made it safely—hope springs eternal!