A KY adventure

Tonight the fog hung low between the mountains. Going on two weeks in Southeast Kentucky I'm beginning to pick up on a pattern. If there's a break after it rains (even if the water pours again in a few minutes time) the fog falls into the valleys. The moisture hangs, held by the hills. It sits silently, peacefully, dangling until it disappears.

The landscape here is worthy of many passages. I'll try to keep it short this time; I'm sure it's bound to become a recurring theme. It's a wet, warm, moist version of the Colorado mountains that were my home for so many years. The soil is rich and dark. The ground wears a constant coat of green. Water curls around every mountainside. The sky sits high atop the peaks and out of reach of human hands. There are only mountains and valleys. You're either on top of the world or tucked right into it.

I'm here in Leslie County, KY as a "courier" with the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS). FNS was founded in 1925 by Mary Breckenridge as a commitment to the health under-served woman and children in the forgotten, out of reach corners of Appalachia. She studied nurse midwifery abroad and recruited fellow practitioners to tend to the medical needs of the community. The nurses rode out at all times of day and night on horses. With their medical equipment nessled in saddle bags, they forged rivers and raced through tight woods to deliver babies and treat illness.  At the time, Leslie County had one of the highest infant mortality rates in the country. This ratio was dramatically altered in less than 10 years. 

In the 1940's M.B. started the first Nurse Midwifery School in the U.S.

Originally couriers' primary responsibility was to care for the horses - feeding, brushing, shoveling up after them - along with other odds and ends around Wendover. The preface of the program is for young women (and now men) to come experience rural America and rural health care and instill a sense of service and community.

Here I am living at Wendover - M.B.'s original home and administrative site. It's a handful of small buildings from the 1920's on the side of a mountain across a one lane (pot-holed) road from the Middle Fork of the Kentucky River.

Today couriers split there time between community outreach (teaching in the schools, Habitat for Humanity projects, tutoring at the adult learning center, organizing the library, Hospice supporty, anything and everything that arises) and shadowing local medical professionals (Dr.s, PAs, NPs, RNs, CNM, etc.).

I came to get a taste for midwifery as a profession. After knocking the idea around for years, I decided to genuinely check it out. Not to mention, I do love to get a taste for a new community.

There's the introduction. More to come with frequency.