tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47433391029334858622023-11-16T12:40:09.214-05:00when i grow up...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger85125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-49192462703362470542011-12-13T09:08:00.003-05:002011-12-13T09:50:27.041-05:00Sailing<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">Saturday morning, I woke up before my alarm. Unlike most days, I didn't need to lay around for 20 minutes willing myself to get out of bed and embrace the day. Before 10:00 I had already gone to the gym, showered, eaten breakfast, spent a few last precious moments on the dock, watched the crane lift the remaining items onto the ship, mulled with the rest of the crew about when we might actually leave, and secured every mobile object in our cabin to the floor. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Saturday was sailing day.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Now, for all the time I have spent on this ship, I have never accompanied it onto the open water. I have known this ship in three different countries, through various stages of my life, but I have only ever known it to be stationary. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Which was why I was so excited on Saturday morning. Excitement - a sentiment I seemed to share with the other 275<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">ish</span> crew that are currently sailing somewhere off the coast of West Africa - was the overall vibe of the morning. It really felt like we were a family, all getting ready to set out on some big adventure together.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">And, it seems that all of the anticipation was well-deserved. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">This whole sailing thing has been incredible for me thus far. Highlights are as follows:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">- We saw dolphins yesterday. Hundreds of them. Apparently there is something about swimming alongside the ship that makes life easier for them so they seem to hang around us a lot. Which is fine by me. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">- It really IS like we are a tight-knit family on a vacation together. Sure, people are working and getting the essentials done, but everything just feels a little bit more laid back. That, combined with the uniqueness of a smaller crew <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">on-board</span>, with <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">no one</span> coming or going, makes for a very cozy-like atmosphere. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">- The air is AMAZING! I tried to think of the last time I breathed air so clean and pure, and my conclusion was clearly.....never! </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">- Sunsets and full orange moons and stars. How anyone can experience such things and not be blown away by the magnificence of creation is beyond me!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">I am sure there are more. However sailing does have it's downfalls and sitting in front of a computer screen for too long and causing seasickness is one of them, so this session of counting my blessings shall conclude for now. But, I am left feeling overwhelmingly blessed and romanced by a very powerful God. </span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-17546709928421579072011-12-04T09:55:00.002-05:002011-12-04T10:01:54.228-05:00Hospital Ship<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">It’s a fairly common debate around here:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Are we a ship that happens to have a hospital on it?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or are we a hospital that happens to be located on a ship?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">The majority of the time, my answer would be “B”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It generally feels like a hospital to me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Despite the added bonuses of fire drills, overhead announcements about fuel bunkering, the constant white noise of generators, the lack of candles, and the pleasure of trying to explain to people that “yes, in fact, I do live on a boat”, my life here typically revolves around the fact that I am a nurse...in a hospital...doing typical nurse activities.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Therefore, I have grown a strong affinity for the hospital-located-on-a-ship philosophy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Every so often – this week being one of those times - I get swayed to the other side.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Surgeries are over, all the patients (and a large proportion of the nurses) have gone home, and now all that is left to do is bleach and pack up every supply and piece of equipment that is required for a hospital to function and get the place ready for the sail.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sounds simple enough<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Now, I have never sailed on the Africa Mercy, but, thanks to <span style="font-style: italic;">Discovery Channel Canada</span>, I have seen a computer animation of what happens to our vessel when out on the open sea.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It rocks.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That being said, everything we store away in the hospital also has to be packed tightly and well secured to some sort of stable structure in order to prevent damage when we head out into the ocean.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">These are the times when I am starkly aware of our <span style="font-style: italic;">shipness</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Late Tuesday afternoon, I was standing in the middle of B ward with a fellow nurse.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A nurse who is incredibly competent at reading a cardiac rhythm, giving IV antibiotics, drawing venous bloodwork, doing an assessment or suctioning an intubated patient.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Those skills proved to be highly useless to us when faced with a ward full of benches that needed to be secured to the ground with some strappy-clippy-tie-things that we couldn’t even begin to figure out how to use.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We threw the straps around the ward for a couple minutes, with no particular aim, but hoping that upon manipulation of said ties, we might be inspired as to how the integrity of the benches might be preserved by them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">The answer never came.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">We really are a ship, and such tasks are best left undone by folk such as us.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Thank goodness for Maike, the one member of our nursing team who knows what she is doing and had the place whipped into shape in about a quarter of the time it would have taken us to pretend to do it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I guess we all have our strengths.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The rest of us spent the week scrubbing and waxing floors.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Again, a trade not particularly within in our scope of nursing practice, but one that is at least straight forward enough for us to master within a try or two.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">This week, we are definitely a ship.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-14419890421872487172011-11-25T03:31:00.001-05:002011-11-25T03:35:07.568-05:00The end<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">It’s almost done.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">The last lips were repaired last Thursday.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Tuesday morning at 5:30am, six of the last pikins (“children” in krio) and their respective caregivers and siblings got on a bus that will start their journeys back to villages all over West Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We repeated that potential gong show nearly glitch-free again yesterday morning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>By 11:00 this morning, the wards will be empty.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">For the first time in over nine months, the wards will be completely still and silent.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All the joy and pain and tears and laughter that have flooded those wards will be scattered throughout this country that we have been so blessed to serve this year.</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">And, I got to catch a glimpse of it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I walked into this outreach as it was already on its last legs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When the crew of the Africa Mercy had already been stretched and tried.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I walked in and got to be a part of it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And, I walked in and got to experience something that I have never been a part of here...<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"></span>the end.</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">The other night, we rounded the wards, sorting out medications, dressing supplies, transport money, personal possessions, border letters, nutritional supplements, and photos for the remaining fourteen patients.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was obvious: This was all coming to a close.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I couldn’t help but notice that <span style="font-style: italic;">last night of camp</span> feeling in my heart.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I started thinking about endings.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve experienced a couple of beginnings here.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They are exciting and everyone has boundless energy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But, this is my first conclusion.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And, I think I might like it even more.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Yesterday morning, as I did my last charge shift of the outreach, we had an amazing time of worship on the ward.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Everyone was cognizant that this would be our last one, and as a result, it was no “check it off the list” worship session.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We sang and danced and beat on drums and I am pretty sure the phone rang a couple of times but no one could have heard it even if they wanted to.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I looked over at <a href="http://alirae.net/blog/archives/570-padi-padi-business.html">Grandma Groundnut</a> at one point and saw tears streaming down her face.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She knows she will leave the ward that has been her home for the last number of months and she is sad “to see her family go to another country while she stays here” (in her words).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Grandma Groundnut and I spent the rest of yesterday’s worship time with our arms wrapped around eachother - singing, praying, crying a little.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Aware that this was goodbye.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But, for me at least, aware that saying goodbye means that a good work is complete.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That finality only has its bittersweet sting because of the highs and lows that were encountered along the way.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Coming in for the last leg of the race has been a blessing to me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We care when something ends because of the significance it had throughout its course.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And, as it turns out, experiencing the end of something significant can be just as moving as being part of its beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-77766986603321871172011-11-15T15:38:00.003-05:002011-11-15T16:05:38.759-05:00My Ami<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvsnrAXYDuj4z_Sh9r1bt7VzvCDQ7MbfFAkX6Qqg_JC336uCa51ZA_XWjLPIM68QtHa1z0i_dAeU_ECuMikPfbM6lqp7oFuIxkwcv5zL6zoxb6MJ8qVa87yjXy7yCdF3ZYjHeBZIp1_w/s1600/ami+%2526+jenn.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvsnrAXYDuj4z_Sh9r1bt7VzvCDQ7MbfFAkX6Qqg_JC336uCa51ZA_XWjLPIM68QtHa1z0i_dAeU_ECuMikPfbM6lqp7oFuIxkwcv5zL6zoxb6MJ8qVa87yjXy7yCdF3ZYjHeBZIp1_w/s400/ami+%2526+jenn.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675327643812674722" border="0" /></a><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">It seems that every outreach, one individual child steals my heart.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This time, Aminata has, hands down, taken the cake.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Oh, there have been other children, of course.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Like Bed 11 from last week:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>the 4-month old whose name I can’t even remember because his mother referred to him exclusively as <span style="font-style: italic;">Duck</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Duck had an incomplete cleft lip, on the left side that Dr. Gary repaired.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Conveniently, this is the same diagnosis and location of my own infantile malformation – which, to Duck’s mama, clearly meant that we were to be married.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And thus, Duck & I are in love.</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">And then there is Kadia, who you have to tickle fight to the bed, in order to get her situated and stationary enough to start her NG feed.</span><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span><span style="font-family:courier new;">At which point she screams at you for a couple of minutes.</span><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span><span style="font-family:courier new;">Then chatters on about what I can only assume is a consideration of how many stickers she currently has plastered to her forehead and what strategy she should adopt to get more out of us.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">And, of course there is <a href="http://rekaonafricamercy.blogspot.com/2011/11/saving-life-with-camera.html">Sia</a> – our “almost too late in the outreach, but God seems to always provide the way” Burkitt’s Lymphoma kid who is literally a walking wonder.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She and I were on a little walk the other day, hand-in-hand, her chatting away, again in some unknown language about who knows what, and I was struck by how blessed I am to get to participate in something that, in any other context, would be a once in a lifetime kind of miracle.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And it happens here every day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">But, when all is said and done, it’s Aminata who I hold most near and dear to my heart.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When we get up to deck 7 at the end of day shift to allow the patients some “fresh” air time, it’s Ami that I look for.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s Ami that I will do any amount of running up and down the deck in Sub-Saharan African heat to make giggle.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s Ami who brings me exceeding joy, watching her take little baby steps when she used to be barely able to sit up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s Ami who reminds me of God’s work in all of our lives when I watch her play with toys, not just stare at them, and know that her brain is now nourished enough to allow for close to developmentally appropriate mental processing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">The story for Aminata is far from over.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She has a long way to go.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>More surgery needed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Money needing to be raised to get her to wherever that surgery will need to happen.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Her body needs to clear itself of the infection that seems to stick around regardless of the assorted cocktails of antibiotics we have pumped into her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Her mama needs to learn how to treat whatever related mild ailments may surface, as they seem to be having the habit of doing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She actually has a lot to figure out in the next week, before the hospital gets packed up and the ship sails away.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">She is by no means home free.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;"> </span><span style="font-family: courier new;">But now she has a host of people praying and wholeheartedly invested in her ultimate well-being.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;"> </span><span style="font-family: courier new;">That should serve her as well as anything else could</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-41205218667237725492011-10-18T04:20:00.003-04:002011-10-18T04:26:50.139-04:00When your driver hands you a screwdriver...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I don’t know that the <span style="font-style: italic;">why I love Africa</span> post will ever grow old for me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Last weekend, we had the opportunity to spend the night as part of an Eco-Tourist Community at John Obey beach, which is located about 80km outside of Freetown, where the ship is located. (<a href="http://sierraleone.tribewanted.com/">http://sierraleone.tribewanted.com/</a>). While we didn’t take part in the whole <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribewanted</span> week-long experience as community members, it was an interesting concept to catch a glimpse of, and it provided us with a lovely way to spend the Saturday night of our long weekend.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A small group of friends and I ate 3 tasty meals of African food, had a campfire, spent the night in tents, woke up to the sound of crashing waves, played beach volleyball, swam in the ocean, lazed around in hammocks, and enjoyed the serenity of not being on the ship for 24 hours.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>However none of these things provided my true why I love Africa moment.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">It didn’t happen until we were on our way home.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Six of us were packed into our second taxi of the trip (which, to be fair, is actually a comparatively decent occupancy).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The rains started to come down.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It seems to still be rainy season here, which I had always assumed would finish itself up somewhere in the middle of September.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Apparently basing all of your big life decisions on what Wikipedia tells you can be misleading.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But anyways, back to the point…</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">We’re in the taxi.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The rain starts, and naturally starts coming in the windows.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The driver hands us a screwdriver.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">There is no explanation provided.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not a person in the vehicle bats an eyelash.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Jeff, who had the honour of the “aisleseat”, so-to-speak, just went about the business of jamming the screwdriver into the hunk of metal on the door where the window crank must have lived at some point in the taxi’s life, and starting the process of doing up the window.<span style=""><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes">Perhaps the thing that truly made this moment for me was the fact that the taxi driver felt no need to tell us what to do with the screwdriver. That he didn't think to apologize for the fact that a screwdriver would be necessary to keep the rain from pouring in the window. That the whole thing happened just so seamlessly and naturally.<br /></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">We looked around at one another.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;"> </span><span style="font-family: courier new;">Smiled.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;"> </span><span style="font-family: courier new;">Loved it.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;"> </span><span style="font-family: courier new;">Knew without saying any words that it is moments like this one that keep life interesting and keep us coming back for more.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-16410020144705111342011-10-11T16:00:00.002-04:002011-10-11T16:06:40.879-04:00Having lived it<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Dr. Gary said something to me a couple of weeks ago that I have had a hard time erasing from my mind.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">He came into D ward on my evening charge shift and we started talking about how <span style="font-style: italic;">appropriate</span> it is for me to be taking care of all these people having cleft lip repairs because, in his words, I have “lived it”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I guess I feel like I havn’t earned the right to say I have lived it though.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>From what my long-term-memory-challenged mother tells me, I never really had any issues.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I had my cleft-lip repaired when I was 12 weeks old and carried on to live a relatively lovely life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I ate, spoke, and for the most part looked like anyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Never once did a teacher tell me I wasn’t the same as the other kids.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Never once was I cut from a team because of the way I looked.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Never once was I denied a job because someone thought that having a congenital deformity would affect my work performance.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">I had the opportunity to be who I was created to be</span> --- that’s how Dr. Gary worded it anyways.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">The unique qualities that I was designed to share with the world didn’t have to be suppressed as a result of a society that told me I was undeserving.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We see people here every day who don’t have that same luxury.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Lack of access to healthcare means that people go their entire lives without a surgery that takes little more than an hour.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Lack of awareness about the physiological basis of congenital disorders, and sometimes just disease in general, means that people are ostracized from sources of income and socialization.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Something so minute can literally have the ability to take a person’s life away on so many levels.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Something that is also a part of me but never had the chance to define or dominate me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">This morning, I was going through my 10-yr-old patient’s chart, making sure she was ready for surgery.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I quickly scanned the admission assessment, looking for anything pertinent.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I found something that was more significant to me that I would have been hoping for.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Under “occupation” was the following response</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">“<span style="font-style: italic;">Quit school three years ago due to teasing</span>”</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Her whole life, education, and future, defined by the split tissue on one side of her upper lip.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>An entire nightmare that she has been living that I never had to experience.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A soul that has been denied the opportunity to be shared with the world, because of a socially constructed hierarchy of value.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To say “it doesn’t seem fair” is an understatement.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Dr. Gary told me that he loves when – within weeks after a person’s repair – you start to see <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">them</span> coming through.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The parts of them that were always there, but that they felt ashamed or unable to show.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">It gives me hope, for the ones who are here, having surgery - being given the opportunity to look more like the world expects them to look.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;"> </span><span style="font-family: courier new;">But it leaves me asking that age-old question, yet again, of how is it fair that where you are born determines so much about whether you live or die.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-59466628041952460532011-10-07T17:56:00.002-04:002011-10-07T18:07:26.785-04:00It matters to this one<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I remember reading the well-known story of one man's humble attempt to rescue thousands of beached starfish back into the ocean, one by one.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Mama Sue had it posted on our fridge for years.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I remember not really grasping the significance of the punch line.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">“<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">It matters to this one</span>”</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">At the time, it didn’t even occur to me that some would have considered the man’s efforts futile.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wholeheartedly sided with the labourer, not the skeptic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I guess then I grew up a little.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Went to University.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Took “Statistics for Nurses” (aka, <span style="font-style: italic;">we’re only going to teach you what you absolutely need to get by, cause it’s just that hard and we don’t believe you have it in you to pass an actual stats course</span>).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Learned about upstream healthcare interventions.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Started thinking about the world of limited resources that we live in.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Adopted a “greatest good for the most amount of people” line of thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Came to Africa for the first time and stood face to face with thousands of people needing help.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Somewhere along the line, I started thinking about numbers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">It’s easy to focus on the numbers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Numbers indicate the significance of an issue.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Numbers can prove that an intervention is effective and valuable.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Numbers provide evidence.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We hear that 22,500,000 people in Sub Saharan Africa are HIV positive and we are shocked by the magnitude of the statistic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But, unless we choose to go beyond the initial shock value of the number, then for me at least, the effect of the number ends there.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Maybe it is because I am, and forever will be a frontline person.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I am invigorated when I am connecting or caring for another person.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I relate to others – I find it natural to feel someone else’s pain.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So a couple of weeks ago, when we were handed the lab slip for one of our patients, indicating in permanent ink that she is HIV positive, it didn’t matter to me at all that she now joins the 2% of people in her country with the same diagnosis.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I know the numbers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I give socially responsible gifts for Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve got the GAP t-shirt.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But I havn’t spent so much time thinking and reading about HIV in my life as I have these past few weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>For me, it takes knowing the one.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">She has, what will most likely prove to be for her, a terminal diagnosis.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And, that news will shatter her world in the same way that it would shatter mine.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She isn’t a number.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s not easier for her to have HIV because so many others around her do too.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She will experience it fully.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The fact that she is one of millions doesn’t make her any less significant</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">It absolutely matters to her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-66764699379444625202011-10-06T06:46:00.002-04:002011-10-06T06:57:58.446-04:00There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">The day was already going well.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As opposed to doing charge, which is how I spend a good seventy percent of my shifts, I got to be a <span style="font-style: italic;">real nurse</span> yesterday.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Don’t get me wrong, the opportunity to put my borderline OCD organizational skills to use in coordinating patients, caregivers, and a constantly fluctuating surgical schedule is one that I am grateful for; However, it also turns out that as a charge nurse, you can accidentally go an entire shift without ever cuddling a baby, if you don’t go out of your way to do so.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">So, there I was, being a nurse.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Doing my thing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Waiting for Aminata to come back from the OR, where she was having her trach tube removed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">And Natalie, our team leader, asks us what music we wanted to listen to / subject our patients to.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She rhymed off the options.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Came to the end of her ipod <span style="font-style: italic;">genres</span> and offered “Christmas Music?” with a laugh.</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">We didn’t miss a beat.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Christmas was the obvious choice.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Regular Christmas fanatics use November 1<sup>st</sup> as the beginning of permissible Christmas celebration time. Always just a little bit more extreme and unreasonable – I prefer to use October 1<sup>st</sup>.</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">And this is the story of how on October 5<sup>th</sup> at one o’clock in the afternoon, on the max-fax ward of the Africa Mercy, docked off the coast of Freetown, Sierra Leone; four questionably stable nurses belted out “Baby it’s Cold Outside” as our patients looked on in wonder.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I have always wondered what people with very opposite lifestyles & traditions would make of our highly culturally-specific representation of the birth of Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have multiple distinct memories of my brother Dave, belting out with Bono, wondering “Do the Africans even know it’s Christmas?????”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(in the overdramatized, sarcastic way that only Dave can achieve).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have known since that first year my brother serenaded me with Band-aid’s hit that there would never be snow in Africa at Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Turns out there are a few other things that don’t translate either.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I guess I can only be left with the thankfulness that acknowledging the arrival of my King to earth has next to nothing to do with the weather or pageants or songs about eggnog.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I will probably continue to wholeheartedly embrace these endearing symbols, simply because of the memories they hold in my heart – but if it so happens that this Christmas, I find myself in Africa, without any snow, things will be alright. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-63198728425978176232011-09-30T05:37:00.003-04:002011-09-30T05:53:29.845-04:00Wrestling with an Alligator<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I started my nursing career six years ago as a neonatal nurse.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Most seasoned nurses would probably advise a new grad to start out as a nurse in a much more general field and then move on to something specialized like the NICU.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I guess I just knew that it was the place for me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“My unit” has become a second home for me – my coworkers, like a family to me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s where I learned to be a nurse.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s where I struggled through feeling incompetent and learning to thrive.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In this past year, it has become the one of the places where I feel most comfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In the times when I don’t find myself in West Africa, I know it is where I belong.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All that to say, I am a neonatal nurse – through and through.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Give me a 600gram baby and I know what to do.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">This week, in the Africa Mercy ICU, I have been taking care of Aminata who weighs a whopping 9 kg - which, incidentally, is double what she weighed when she stepped into the world of Mercy Ships about three months ago.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Aminata is two years old.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As far as taking care of ventilated ICU patients go, two is my maximum, so she made the cut.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Her diagnosis, on the hand – <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001203/">cystic hygroma</a> – made me slightly more uneasy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The only patient I have ever taken care of with a cystic hygroma was <a href="http://jenninafrica.blogspot.com/2008/06/feels-like-home.html">Baby Greg</a> from Liberia.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He was the first African baby to steal my heart and take it to heaven with him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I knew that Aminata’s diagnosis was by no means a life threatening condition, but it’s funny the effect that one significant experience can have on a person.</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Aminata spent about a week after her surgery intubated and ventilated.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As children tend to do, she lost her ET tube on Monday and bought herself a trach, which will serve as a temporary solution to her <span style="font-style: italic;">lack of airway due to excessive swelling</span> dilemma.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>By Tuesday, it seemed that keeping her ventilated was causing her more distress than it was worth, so, the decision was made that it was time to <span style="font-style: italic;">wake her up</span> (as it is referred to in the ICU) and give her a shot at breathing on her own.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">At this point, it is important to keep in mind that my ideal patient size<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>= 1/10<sup>th</sup> of Aminata’s.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Tuesday morning, we stopped the Ketamine and Midazolam infusions.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We cut the Fentanyl by half.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And we waited for it to happen.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">And that is when the term “wrestling with an alligator” bounced around in my head for quite a few hours.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Aminata went a little bit squirrelly.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We tried different combinations and doses of drugs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We watched her closely.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We sang, and held her head and rubbed her back and turned the lights down.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We wrapped our arms around her and told her that she was safe.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And she squirmed all over the bed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We finally won, but she didn’t go down without a fight. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >(I am fully aware that any nurse who has any experience with larger children, let alone adults will consider my sentiments to be somewhat exaggerated, perhaps even humorous…but keep in mind that I am usually able to contain my patients with one hand and use the other one to chart<span style="mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-"></span>)<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">By yesterday evening, in just the way that makes me ever so happy to be part of this whole thing – she had come around.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When her night nurse came to get report, Aminata was sitting up on the lap of one of our day volunteers, breathing room air, and maybe, possibly, even trying to force a smile through her impossibly swollen neck, tongue, and lips.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When I leaned over to tell her goodnight, she reached both of her arms up at me in a purposeful motion and grabbed at my neck.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She didn’t seem so much like an alligator anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She seemed a lot closer to a healthy, on-her-way-to-happy two-year-old; whose life I was blessed to be a part of for a short season. </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">Still, I hope that a 9kg alligator is the largest I ever have to face.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-15975277682870740052011-09-12T19:43:00.003-04:002011-09-12T20:00:32.797-04:00Sugarloaf Mountain<span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" >Yesterday, we climbed Sugarloaf Mountain – the 17<sup>th</sup> highest mountain in Sierra Leone.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Well, to be correct, we set out to climb Su</span><span style="font-size:100%;">garloaf Mountain.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But first we accidentally climbed the mountain a little bit to the right of Sugarloaf.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Upon arriving at its peak, we realized that our intended destination was over to the left, which meant that we would have to climb halfway down Mountain Peak #1 and proceed the rest of the way up correct mountain.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span></span><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">No problem.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span></span><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Despite it bordering on “sports” – it turns out that I actually really enjoy hiking.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Especially this type of hiking.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No real trail.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Continuously assessing various options for routes to see which is more manageable.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Hanging off vines.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Climbing up and then sliding down granite rock faces.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I find it sort of exciting.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span></span><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Whilst climbing a mountain (which I should clarify, is an activity that I have experienced exclusively in West Africa), I waiver back and forth between images of Maria and the Von trapp children in the last scene of <span style="font-style: italic;">"The Sound of Music</span>" and singing “<span style="font-style: italic;">The Climb</span>” in my head.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Yesterday, we threw some Pocahontas <span style="font-style: italic;">"Colours of the Wind"</span> in there, just for variety’s sake.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Needless to say, I was really enjoying myself.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span></span><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">For the first two and a half hours.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span></span><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Then the climb got a little bit ridiculous.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>By this point, we were well off the so-called trail.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We had been drenched from the rain for about three hours now.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was dark, and the path seemed to be less and less present.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My legs were starting to hurt, and everyone’s breathing was getting faster and heavier.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It seemed like a really good time for the relief of reaching the summit.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span></span><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">That’s when we arrived at the top of Mountain #2.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Which unfortunately, turned out again, to not be the peak of Sugarloaf.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was at this point that I was wholeheartedly ready to bail on our adventure.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We had reached the top of two mountains – neither of which had a particularly impressive view - and I was done.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span></span><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Thank goodness for the rest of the group who remained committed to the goal.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If I had been the decision maker for the group, we would have turned around at this point.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I knew that however far we had gone up, we still had to climb down, and I just didn’t think I had it in me to keep going.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But they didn’t waiver.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They wanted to reach our destination, and there was no doubt in their minds that we were going to persevere until we found it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span></span><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I think that’s the only reason we ever did make it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It wasn’t physical endurance, because I definitely was feeling it in every muscle and wanted to quit.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It wasn’t our navigational skills; because they failed us multiple times.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The only thing that really got us there was the perseverance of my friends.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span></span><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">So, we made it to the top of Mountain #3.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And it really was amazing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We spent 45 of the best minutes overlooking Sierra Leone, eating packed lunches, and listening to birds and the wind.</span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span></span><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">And, if it had been left to me – I would have never made it.</span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span></span><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Thus, I am left concluding yet again, that life is all about the lessons we learn through it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Yesterday reminded me why it is so important that we live life together, and not alone.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Why we need to function in teams.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Why two heads are better than one.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" >Because if not for my “others”, I would still be sitting at the top of Mountain #2, wondering what I ever was thinking!</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxJB63C9HHpxoJ9RU9kxq6rbigWHe-DObM6lMtKucxukXjYPljwJ9TWvHnhdL5KNSoAfvYP2W30yzl2KI6PnutBj6B3WSP7c78tIsVZ8ZlV2PFutlIVzYmhFjSP_aHZ1p_FeAjY5q2JlQ/s1600/IMG_1342.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" 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border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaUcH_UEtO7dJcnIvJq8SRzgc7jdS308h0oj5uPO_7aBw2eDzxOkWTKWx5olsakz8X63QL58ibhLc_7_RWpp7zicvEuVO888Q_sHtInkvLeFMS6vUOBALVag6lM2oqcgiG__aJEf_g0ek/s1600/IMG_1363.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaUcH_UEtO7dJcnIvJq8SRzgc7jdS308h0oj5uPO_7aBw2eDzxOkWTKWx5olsakz8X63QL58ibhLc_7_RWpp7zicvEuVO888Q_sHtInkvLeFMS6vUOBALVag6lM2oqcgiG__aJEf_g0ek/s400/IMG_1363.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651625657892645538" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgALnHAm1aT7NZx4rGOsmTT_OSUO1He302oHelNxnVH5VkOKs4gyyP5WFkuHCaHn3u3TkhWX1B1I94O7j8OlsohE6APanYNsDW836h1x6UhZFC4mEFTnjDmbuAq64x3B5a7l7KR0ukbsCc/s1600/IMG_1321.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgALnHAm1aT7NZx4rGOsmTT_OSUO1He302oHelNxnVH5VkOKs4gyyP5WFkuHCaHn3u3TkhWX1B1I94O7j8OlsohE6APanYNsDW836h1x6UhZFC4mEFTnjDmbuAq64x3B5a7l7KR0ukbsCc/s400/IMG_1321.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651625688352015058" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBXjcojGIgj9k67wItsbUTa-t1tyM4Qkxk4Jf5laJsO5r2OaZuvKUIXKaAi5wHtPViuLgwLqyvsFa05npNNDcWpF708QqS-neiccoYP-eZp9CamC0W1KNDEjgmlxOb2DQCdM3DmrHrimg/s1600/IMG_1331.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBXjcojGIgj9k67wItsbUTa-t1tyM4Qkxk4Jf5laJsO5r2OaZuvKUIXKaAi5wHtPViuLgwLqyvsFa05npNNDcWpF708QqS-neiccoYP-eZp9CamC0W1KNDEjgmlxOb2DQCdM3DmrHrimg/s400/IMG_1331.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651626950092408578" border="0" /></a><br /><p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""></span></span></p><p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-30920937497193119142011-09-02T13:03:00.001-04:002011-09-02T13:13:03.529-04:00Again<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Once again, I find myself here.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Everything is exactly as it used to be, and completely new, all at the same time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Familiar and comfortable yet foreign and challenging – if that is even possible.</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">A new city in a new country.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>New friends and coworkers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>New ways of doing things.</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">For starters, there is this ship – a 500ft vessel which has set the stage for some of my life’s most significant moments.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I walked on board early last Thursday morning and breathed an immediate sigh of peace.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Joy filled my heart.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was greeted by loving, familiar faces and had that wonderful sense of coming home to a place where you “fit”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I know where I belong for this time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I know what to do and how to go about things.</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">And then there is the city.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I spent Friday exploring Freetown.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I had been warned that excursions into town were fairly dramatic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Freetown” and “traffic” are essentially synonymous terms here on the ship.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I should have been prepared – I guess I thought I was.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But, calling Freetown busy is the understatement of the century.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s hard to truly describe the chaos of the heart of town.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Between the open sewers and the vendors and the trucks and the “it’s here then its gone” excuse for a sidewalk, even getting from point A to point B on foot is a challenge.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It sort of feels like you are in a videogame but there is more pressure because,<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>if you fall in the gutter or get run over by a truck, you don’t get another life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe I just don’t deal well with being over stimulated in every way simultaneously, from every direction.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Either way, I found Friday overwhelming.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">But then I did it again today.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I went into Freetown - just myself and one friend, with a specific purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And, all of a sudden, it didn’t seem near as overwhelming.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I would go so far as to say it was enjoyable.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Relaxed even.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I guess it doesn’t really matter how many times you come to Africa – every time you come back again, it takes a while to sink in.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s just starting to sink for me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My being is ready, but I guess it takes time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style=""> </span></span><span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class=" down" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_CreateLink" title="Link" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 8);ButtonMouseDown(this);"><img src="img/blank.gif" alt="Link" class="gl_link" border="0" /></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">By Saturday, I was doing my first shift on the ward.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>D Ward.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Where last year, we set up the summer camp craft corner for <a href="http://jenninafrica.blogspot.com/2010/06/beauty.html">Tani</a> and Gafar.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Where O’Brien was healed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Where <a href="http://jenninafrica.blogspot.com/2010/05/more-than-nurse.html">O’Brien</a> died.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Where there are now new faces:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>some repaired and ready to face the world and some still waiting.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Two o’clock Saturday afternoon, I jumped in.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As a result of our Gambian detour, our group left the wards a little short staffed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So, instead of having orientation shifts, I just went for it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I took care of patients in a world that I know incredibly well, and yet felt so unaccustomed to at first.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Where do we keep this now? Do we still do it this way? How does this work now? </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">And again, just like riding a bike, as my friend Deb reminded me before my first shift, it has come back.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It all feels as normal and natural as it possibly could.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Half the time, I still don’t have the answers to the questions that arise in my own head or from others’ – but, I do know that I am doing it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Adapting.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Coping.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Caring for those that I have been sent to serve.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe not perfectly.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Probably still with a lot of assistance for the time being.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But, doing it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US; mso-bidi-language:AR-SA"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">We probably don’t ever figure it all out. Perhaps we don’t ever need to. If we ever think we have all the answers, we probably need to start again at the beginning and figure out what it was we missed. No matter how much experience we have, I doubt we ever have the ability to adapt to every situation seamlessly. I am thinking that I would never want to. Because these places that I find myself in are the ones where I learn the truths that I didn’t know I was missing. </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> </span></span>
<br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-84414515730216387372011-08-30T07:57:00.002-04:002011-08-30T18:54:01.146-04:00How I spent my 29th birthday<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" >I was excited about my birthday this year.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" >Something about being so close to 30 makes me feel like I have almost, maybe, come to verge of “arriving”.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" >Arriving to true adulthood or maturity or something.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" >When you are 23 and you present your wild and crazy ideas to the world, people smile sympathetically, pat you on your head, and tell you that it is simply your naivety that makes you think the way you do.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" >But when you tell someone you are 30, they are suddenly a little less justified in assuming that “life” will eventually jade your rose coloured glasses.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" >I am not for a second suggesting that I know all there is to know or have seen even a fraction of all there is to see in my 29 years on this earth – but it is nice to be given a little bit of the credit that living life grants you.</span> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Back to the point – I was ready to turn 29.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">And thanks to a small rock on a particularly long runway at Banjul International Airport, I rang in the beginning of my 30<sup>th</sup> year of life with an experience that I can now add to my list of ways I have lived.</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" face="courier new" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">So, it all started with a bird.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Or what we thought was a bird and turned out to be a rock.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">We had stopped in Banjul – capital city of the Gambia – to drop off about half of our flightmates and would have been carrying on and arriving in Freetown, Sierra Leone, approximately an hour later.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" face="courier new" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" face="courier new" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Except that we never took off.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">The plane sped down the runway and just as we would have been about to take off …</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">“THUNK” ….. followed by a smooth deceleration….. followed by a screeching stop (when the runway, which ironically and thankfully is significantly longer than the average runway, ended).</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">The captain came on the overhead to announce that a bird had flown into the engine and we would have to taxi back to the airport to check the plane and make sure it was safe to fly.</span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">At which point, I decided that I wasn’t going to see the Africa Mercy any time soon.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Because you see folks, this was not my first time in West Africa.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Within a few minutes, a crowd of people had gathered around the plane – some of whom appeared official with uniforms or fluorescent vests; others of whom seemed to just have shown up because there seemed to be some commotion.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Some people started crawling inside the engine.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">One dude shone his pen light into the cavity in an apparent effort to help identify the problem.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Cameras were out and everyone seemed to have an opinion about what was wrong and how to fix it.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Our stewardess even ended up out there having a look.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Just didn’t seem like an effective recipe for “airplane repair following bird damage”.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">To no surprise, three hours later, after having checked in to a lovely Gambian hotel courtesy of Brussels Airlines, I was sitting down to my first African dinner in over a year with all 150 of my flight 0225 mates, under a blanket of palm trees, minilights, and stars.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">And two days later, I turned 29 and found myself still stranded in the Gambia – which turned out to be about the loveliest place on earth to be stranded on one’s birthday.</span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" >Between pina colodas, a trip to a treetop café, a cherrycheesecake – esque dessert that the hotel chef made for me (which ironically tasted terribly, considering how beautiful it was) , and pretty much lying by the pool for the entire day…..I really couldn’t have asked for anything more.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: courier new;" face="courier new" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">That, plus the fact that after traveling the entire next night, I finally did arrive, safely and soundly on the ship, made me a fairly happy, legitimate almost 30-year-old.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:courier new;">
<br /></p><p face="courier new" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p> <p face="courier new" class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoMT8BTeTHNXrlHSeSLACxrzXDdfSWuCq2DT19HMrWN2Jma8jwN4KghPSaAJ-f-Q6mnm_EgU6hQfIqz28DtVfZ6_f42oZ9RvFdz-o9lKVUN_5B9EVGGbibLHRBe8RL9pbkiIhGL681HaM/s1600/Gambia+-+poolside.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoMT8BTeTHNXrlHSeSLACxrzXDdfSWuCq2DT19HMrWN2Jma8jwN4KghPSaAJ-f-Q6mnm_EgU6hQfIqz28DtVfZ6_f42oZ9RvFdz-o9lKVUN_5B9EVGGbibLHRBe8RL9pbkiIhGL681HaM/s400/Gambia+-+poolside.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646784732867521474" border="0" /></a></p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ipuIcfXkPLGOO2GWxpwxwVEVHPxesSirQ2T7VdM2IS0Pp3gmo_3yIjufs8Edn1IKHrGN-2fexoNvhnHSIKCrxQA3UQWochE2dhFkXH0jmCOziMMCusZbt8l1ihESVvkXfCfYhnjzI3c/s1600/Birthday+Cake.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ipuIcfXkPLGOO2GWxpwxwVEVHPxesSirQ2T7VdM2IS0Pp3gmo_3yIjufs8Edn1IKHrGN-2fexoNvhnHSIKCrxQA3UQWochE2dhFkXH0jmCOziMMCusZbt8l1ihESVvkXfCfYhnjzI3c/s400/Birthday+Cake.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646784735894966834" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwb2t1NiAau-M-2ijO3Jv9_5KKMDNf4uPwo9KZmsTn8dhEm7tLJrsC_oz2XxqoESaOd4zMLuhqr_gteXdbzCET9gGzxMon25GCi-vD4G7cvhKbv0O-91DrKlM7hxKH5-f48SSGAWM37Lg/s1600/Birthday+in+Gambia.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwb2t1NiAau-M-2ijO3Jv9_5KKMDNf4uPwo9KZmsTn8dhEm7tLJrsC_oz2XxqoESaOd4zMLuhqr_gteXdbzCET9gGzxMon25GCi-vD4G7cvhKbv0O-91DrKlM7hxKH5-f48SSGAWM37Lg/s400/Birthday+in+Gambia.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646784733479073394" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-16390168383603192902011-07-19T00:36:00.006-04:002011-07-19T01:21:06.087-04:00Prepared<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;"></span><span style="font-family:courier new;">It's happening again. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Last weekend, it all sort of clicked in my head. It's time to start getting excited again. It's time to start feeling the things again that only Africa can stir up in me. It's time to start thinking about the things that, despite having experienced before, I know I can't truly prepare for. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">It's happening in my head and the excitement is quickly working it's way towards my heart. As desperately as I try to avoid romanticizing the whole thing, I can't help but find life a little bit sweeter, just knowing I get to spend the next 4 months on a floating white hospital. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">I don't have my plane ticket. My apartment looks like it has been attacked by a group of college kids. I still don't know what to do with my car when I go. I work about 452hrs/week up until the day I leave. Never in my life have I felt so strikingly aware of my personal flaws & weaknesses. My to-do list is rubbish. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">And yet, I have never been more ready. Because I think I finally get that we are never really "prepared" for these things, the way we think we should be. I might find the time to clean and organize my room. I might make and cross off every item on a highly structured list. I might finally take the time to figure out how to overcome the things in my life that hold me back. I might even figure out a sleep routine amidst flipping back and forth between day & night shifts and actually land on the other side of the world not already jet-lagged. The funny thing is that these things always come together. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Despite it all, I feel prepared. I think that preparation really has very little to do with lists and finances and plans. The reality is, I am ready to be used for the purpose my maker designed me for. Ready, once again, to learn and to teach, to laugh and to cry, to be challenged and broken and to fail and succeed - in a place where I know my heart beats a little bit stronger. </span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-33250406789046745942010-06-23T08:05:00.007-04:002011-07-18T23:25:04.270-04:00Challenges<p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The other day a friend, who had recently left our floating home sent me an instant message asking how ship life was going for me. The tricky thing about instant messaging is that it forces you to summarize oceans of emotions together into brief, cohesive sentences. I had no problem.<br /></span></p><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“<em>You know…..the same….amazingly wonderful and horribly challenging all at the same time</em>” </span></p><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It’s just how it is. The wonderful side tips the scales, obviously. I can think of nothing that I would rather be doing than living this life, doing what I am doing. It is overwhelmingly rewarding and downright incredible to spend the better part of all of my wakeful hours contributing to something in which I believe so strongly.<br /><br />But, the challenge part of it all is just as existent, and I am beginning to think, just as important as the rest of it.<br /><br />We are taught from such a young age that through trial, strength is developed. The preacher at church last Sunday morning reminded us that <em><span style="color:#cc0000;">“…when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing</span></em>” </span><span style="font-size:100%;">(James 1:2-3). His words came as an insightful conclusion to a challenging, yet entertaining morning. Rainy season has arrived in Togo. When we woke up and saw the massive amounts of water streaming from the sky with intense determination, we briefly considered bailing on our plans to go to church. But that would have meant we missed the important part – the part where our group, plus about 25 of the members of the congregation bailed a foot of water out of the church, so that church could happen. As I looked around at the group, in probably what is their only set of <em>church clothes</em>, soaked head to toe, using buckets and serving bowls and towels to defend their church home from water damage, I couldn’t help but be touched by the devotion and determination displayed.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;color:#cc0000;">When you care about something, you work for it….sacrifice for it….put your heart into it. And if you have to work, sacrifice, and put your heart into something, you can’t help but end up caring deeply about it.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br />Our approach to adversity is peculiar really: despite the fact that it is entirely inevitable and most often, completely out of our control, we dread its presence. And because we are in the habit of convincing ourselves to believe in a standard of utopia, we feel slighted when it shows its unfortunate face. The thing is - there is not a single one among us who has been promised a life free of trouble. The Bible doesn’t say <em>if</em> you face troubles, but <em>when</em>.<br /><br />As I reflect on these last couple of months, I wonder what has changed me the most…where I learned the most….what will stick with me and define who I become. O’brien, Aissa, Tani, Abel, O’brien’s mama, fat baby Marius, bartering for hours with vendors in markets, being squished in taxis with seven others, working in areas that aren’t my comfort zone, having to make “bunk beds” in the wards to fit all the patients in, eating foods that I didn’t think I would like, trying and failing at walking across Togo, failing miserably at communicating in French – small trials that forced me to grow and learning from people who have encountered much greater trials than I have yet to face.<br /><br />As much as the anticipation of adversity can be overwhelming, I would argue that we are completely dependant on it. A life of perfection on this earth is, at best, a falsehood. Trials will come. They will hurt. They might leave scars. But they will make us people of substance who are intensely purpose-driven in their passions. </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-17995796308794564112010-06-15T05:27:00.018-04:002011-07-18T23:01:01.887-04:00Beauty<span style="font-family: courier new;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >Two years ago, Africa changed me. It changed the way I thought about what it means to be human. Perhaps at the time, I thought the change was like a one-time graduation from naivety to enlightenment. It seems however, that as so many before me have cautioned, learning really is a never-ending journey.<br /><br />These last couple of weeks, one of our patients - an absolutely delightful little girl named Tani - has completely changed the way I think about beauty.<br /><br />Physical beauty is one of those forces whose power over us we hate to admit. When you stop and think about it, basing our opinions of one another on a somewhat arbitrary criterion such as beauty seems not only superficial, but also simplistic and downright cruel. However, the unfortunate reality is that it does have a very significant impact on our interpersonal relations. <span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong>We are innately attracted to beauty.</strong></span> It’s one of the reasons we do what we do here on the Africa Mercy….Because eliminating a feature that is grossly deforming means that a person can go from living a life of disgrace to living a life of acceptance.<br /><br />Tani came to stay with us around the same time as Aissa was on the ward. I distinctly remember my first day with her. I came on for my charge shift and one of the first things Ali said to me was “</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><em>Check out bed 8. She’s beautiful. You’re gonna love her!”<br /></em><br />I turned my attention to the new little girl in bed 8. Tani didn’t look beautiful to me. Having been in West Africa for a little while now, and seeing what I hope are some of the most disfiguring cases out there, I credit myself with having some degree of tolerance for the worst of it. I would like to think it takes a lot to shock me at this point. But, Tani did.<br /><br /></span><div><div><span style="font-family: courier new;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5482954727676884882" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 439px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 281px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGmWH0jYG5DmewGgT7rQe6LiLRvI0p4NplrlN1NYJiVQbGDVTDLRullYeqORHd9bN74ti6GKPyTACv1DMLNqo5amkvctlksKzuZolEas_ffJ_lhzdLsQ0rD9fxMXginD5zjobFn9S5y1k/s400/Tani.jpg" border="0" />Though nobody really knows the story of when or how, at some point in her 9-years of life, Tani’s face was burned off. She was left with bits of a mouth, and one eye. Though most of her little body was spared, one of her hands, which she probably used to catch herself when she fell into the fire, was left mangled. To be completely brutal, at first glance, Tani was hard to look at.<br /><br />Until my experiences with this little one, I don’t know if I ever truly believed that beauty comes from within. It always sounded nice, and makes us all feel better about our imperfections, but then again, we make stuff up all the time to make ourselves feel better. But, Tani made it real for me, because my friend was right. Within 5 minutes of encountering Tani, I absolutely loved her. I like kids, as a rule, but Tani has a special quality within her that is unmatched. <span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong>She makes it absolutely impossible to see anything but her inner beauty.</strong></span> Every day I spend with Tani, she grows more and more radiant. Her loving, joyful spirit can almost not be contained within her tiny little body.<br /><br />Looking at her, you would expect that she would repulse others, but Tani cannot help but do exactly the opposite. Her presence is actually magnetic on the ship. Our head chef came up from the ward last night and announced:<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><strong>“<em>I just spent 10 minutes playing with Tani. It changed my life.</em>”<br /></strong><br />It probably did. And it defies everything I used to think about beauty. Because Tani has a beauty that is legitimate, undeniable, and worth so much more than I could have ever realized without her.</span><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-75988859819532768742010-06-14T06:34:00.014-04:002011-07-18T23:02:48.606-04:00Road trip<p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">In order for a weekend trip away from the ship to truly qualify as typical, there are several criteria that must be met. They are as follows*:</span></p><ul style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;"><li><span style="font-size:100%;">Just minutes after your departure, the driver will need to stop at </span><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic;font-size:100%;" >the station,</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> where you will have to... </span></li></ul><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;">a) Renegotiate the fare (which will have inevitably gone up from what you originally agreed upon)<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;">b) Pick up a wingman</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;">c) Sit around in the vehicle with all the doors open while the driver and the wingman exchange pleasantries with everyone else at the station. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:100%;">d) Get gas – which, as a side note, cannot be done in combination with any of the above tasks. </span></p><ul style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;"><li><span style="font-size:100%;">You will begin the trip in a mildly uncomfortable seat, sitting relatively close to one of your friends, with some degree of leg / breathing room. You will conclude the road trip sitting on someone’s lap (in the most ideal scenario, this someone is a wet stranger that you picked up along the road), unable to feel your legs, and with your arms either directly out in front of you, straight up in the air, or wrapped around one of your other twenty travel-mates.</span></li></ul><ul style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;"><li><span style="font-size:100%;">Numerous times along the way, the driver will pull over to the side of the road. The wingman will hop out of his seat (which is always conveniently located next to the one sliding door) and disappear under the vehicle for about 20 seconds with a bottle of discoloured water. Immediately after he resurfaces, the vehicle starts in motion and he hops back in. Nobody has ever been able to come up with an explanation for this one.</span></li></ul><ul style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;"><li><span style="font-size:100%;">When you arrive at the hotel, the first staff member you encounter at the desk will respond to your attempts to explain who you are with complete bewilderment. After a couple of confused minutes, someone else (usually of higher power) emerges and provides you with some reassurance that you did, in fact, make reservations. These reservations will most likely not resemble what you intended them to, but they do usually exist. </span></li></ul><ul style="font-family: courier new;font-family:webdings;"><li><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold;font-size:100%;" >You will then carry on to have a fantastically entertaining, re-energizing weekend with your friends in a setting that makes you consider throwing it all away and living in the jungle, under a waterfall for the rest of your life.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></li></ul><p class="MsoNormal" style="FONT-FAMILY: courier new"><!--?xml:namespace prefix = o /--><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Thankfully for us this weekend, every single one of these criteria was met. Although it is always nice when things play by the rules, it was of particular importance this weekend, since </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://alirae.net/blog/">Ali’s</a></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> parents are on the ship right now, and she was committed to giving them a truly African experience. We had an incredible weekend marketing, swimming, eating, hiking, and playing in the waterfall. And, it truly did represent all of the things we love about <!--?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /--><st1:place>Africa</st1:place>. <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">TIA baby!</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: courier new;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >*this list is not exhaustive. </span><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-84382999405229854372010-06-09T13:18:00.003-04:002011-07-18T23:03:38.718-04:00Turkey Dinner<span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" >Life on the Africa Mercy is different than life at home.<br /><br />We sleep, eat, work, and play on the same 500-foot floating box – having very little contact with what many people consider the “real world”. This combination of factors, as you might imagine, leads to a wide variety of highly improbable and somewhat bizarre scenarios. Often times, I find it amusing to laugh at the prospect of a similar situation occurring at home. Like last week, we thought one of our friends might have a maggot infestation in his foot, so we all gathered in one of the hospital wards to hack at it in hopes of witnessing a live creature crawling out. (Disappointingly, it turned out to just be a regular old infection, so our efforts were in vain).<br /><br />But then other times, things happen here that make you feel just like a regular person, with regular relationships, pastimes, family, and social habits. Sunday night gave me that special sort of feeling. I don’t remember where the idea came from, but somewhere along the line, our little group of friends - who, in all honesty feel much more like family at this point - decided that, in honour of either Christmas or Thanksgiving (it never really became clear to me which of the two we were trying to imitate), we would cook ourselves a proper dinner. It took about 2 weeks of gathering ingredients and the creativity displayed in the process was creative to say the least (we even considered having a day volunteer buy, kill, and pluck a turkey from the market for us) but, in the end, we were able to prepare for ourselves a full-course turkey dinner with everything that a turkey dinner should have, pumpkin pie and ice cream included. The boys transformed our Queen’s Lounge (aka, the one fancy room on the ship – reserved mostly for the important people that come to visit) into a beautiful dining area, set the mood with Frank Sinatra, and served us fluorescent blue mock wine. We ate until we couldn’t anymore, washed dishes together, and played cranium until 11:00 at night. And I walked away feeling less like a girl a million miles away from her family, friends, and the life she used to know, and more like a part of something that feels a lot like home.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-32453198307655031492010-05-24T12:01:00.010-04:002011-07-18T23:04:07.001-04:00VVF<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">The </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.physiciansforpeace.org/vvf.html">VVF</a><span style="font-family: courier new;"> ladies arrived today. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">I can't speak for anyone else, but I can say that, from the B-ward charge nurse perspective, things were a little bit chaotic. As we set about the task of discharging half the ward full of max-fax and plastics patients before 9:00am and playing the ever intriguing game of "crack the gridlock" with the hospitality center to find beds for all of our new clientele, the VVF team screened four weeks worth of surgical patients. By 10:00, half of our ward had been taken over by more women than we had beds for, beating drums, and the smell of urine. And, regardless of the fact that we are all working with the same goal, purpose, and hopefully the same selfless motives, there were times when it seemed to be taking some extra effort for us all to see eye to eye. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">To be completely honest, I found today to be challenging. I am a peds nurse - an NICU nurse more specifically - and that whole "region" isn't necessarily my forte. Add that to the fact that this whole charge situation is still relatively new to me and every once in a while, the 42 point running to-do list in my brain becomes overwhelming, and I was left wondering if today was going to be the day I cracked. . </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">I got to lunch and started to cry. One of those emotional breakdowns that happens for no particular reason and I realized that somewhere along the way I had lost my joy. I think my mom used to say that to me, when I was being a drama queen about something that didn't really matter. I remember her telling me not to let the wrong people or situations "steal my joy".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Because the reality is, that there was nothing that happened today that had the right to steal my joy. A couple of extra phone calls, a noisy ward, and a mildly elevated blood pressure for a couple of hours are very little price to pay for what is really happening down in B-ward right now. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">By the end of the next four weeks, hopefully dozens of women will be going home with a future that could have never been possible without surgery. And, yes, if day one is any measure of how it's all going to happen, it is going to be a challenge. It will be busy, and exhausting and potentially quite messy. But, I am gonna remember Mama Sue's words, because the minor sacrifices we are all going to make in order to give some incredible women an immeasurable gift are more than worth it.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-80789295698255854152010-05-18T15:23:00.013-04:002011-07-18T23:04:36.396-04:00Aissa<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">I’m a pretty firm believer that the most valuable thing we can do with our life is to positively invest in someone else’s. Show them love. Take them in. Care for them. Prove to them that they matter.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">I think I try to do that. Most of the time I feel like what I really do is bounce around, doing mildly good works somewhat haphazardly and wishing that I was making more of a legitimate difference. I guess that requires focus, commitment, and a level of sacrifice that tests how much we truly care and how important the cause is. A level of commitment that is rare, but that I have seen displayed over the last couple of weeks in a beautiful love story.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">When Sarah first encountered </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Aissa</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">, she was nearly dead. Having survived a disease that kills 90% of its victims, her body had literally wasted away to just skin and bones. </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" ><a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001342.htm"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Noma</span></a></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> had eaten away a large portion of </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Aissa</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">’s facial tissue, and she was left with a gaping cavity directly into her mouth, where her cheek should have been. The first time Sarah saw </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Aissa</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">, she was lying on the ground outside a local pharmacy, too weak to sit, let alone stand, with an insect-covered cloth covering her face. Her immediate thought was that the child in front of her was about to die.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">I have to assume that everything inside of her was telling her to run. After having been in Africa for a little while, I am starting to understand the brutal, but essential mentality of “help the ones you can – don’t beat yourself up over the ones you can’t”. But, God specifically told Sarah to help this one – and she listened.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Sarah took </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Aissa</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> back to the mission’s hospital in Cameroon, where she was working as a physician’s assistant. </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Aissa</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> was treated and began the long road back to life. Through the use of </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">nasogastric</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> feeds, she started to gain some weight. But with </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Noma</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> being such a rare condition – and one unique to West Africa, there are next to no facilities with experience in repairing </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Noma</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> wounds. Truly by the grace of God, Sarah happened to be working with a doctor in Cameroon that conveniently had spent time on the Africa Mercy the previous year, learning about these exact types of patients. And thus began a great journey that seems to be coming to a glorious end.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Over a month ago now, </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Aissa</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> arrived on the Africa Mercy, in Sarah’s tender care. I distinctly remember my first encounter with the </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">parentless</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> 8-year-old and thinking how obnoxiously misbehaved she was. Some children are easy to love – and some, by no fault of their own – take an extra bit of grace. It was obvious to me from the beginning that she was going to be one of the extra grace required types. But then </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Aissa</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> had her surgery by two of the few surgeons in the world who actually have experience in this type of thing</span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO1AaO_8b2ASEjk7P-s6hB2EGW2D6Yv28wPrGZyTjCE_oy9Jv7WyCURHZRRUljfhY8O9CCNyBgETJopnTvncAngKWWGiQUJYZ3mCM-20YbqGyH9okmEQuDLf1EsIOb9bwnoNzTSMA8IoA/s1600/TGD0410_PAT30166M_WALDATALA_DB57_LO.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472694377484463346" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 269px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 198px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO1AaO_8b2ASEjk7P-s6hB2EGW2D6Yv28wPrGZyTjCE_oy9Jv7WyCURHZRRUljfhY8O9CCNyBgETJopnTvncAngKWWGiQUJYZ3mCM-20YbqGyH9okmEQuDLf1EsIOb9bwnoNzTSMA8IoA/s400/TGD0410_PAT30166M_WALDATALA_DB57_LO.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: courier new;">. A few days later she started to feel better and became the self-appointed ward assistant; shredding paper, sticking </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">pre</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">-op photos in charts, helping make assignments, and choosing the music for the ward from the charge nurse’s </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" ><em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">ipod</span></em></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">. Then she started to learn English and would readily declare to her favourite nurses “I LOVE YOU!!!” (which, ironically, sounded like it was coming from an old Italian man every time she said it). Then, she started this habit of falling asleep on your lap while you were working on the computer. Then she figured out the game of memory to a level that very few humans have achieved and was able to whoop us all at any given time. And it </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKdSDaikx0sso_wQpoKt0Exk3x-efXsJQw0wC5PGYaZp9tf9VyU6HqR1_EcJgteZ2rYriDvRClxu5p0lOVimj9bC8QQqGfNp85fw9HdmYMbW6W0aaxn00VPxHAzdnMiTSxnYBOtPUITXo/s1600/Aissa+glasses.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472694010976922802" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 265px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKdSDaikx0sso_wQpoKt0Exk3x-efXsJQw0wC5PGYaZp9tf9VyU6HqR1_EcJgteZ2rYriDvRClxu5p0lOVimj9bC8QQqGfNp85fw9HdmYMbW6W0aaxn00VPxHAzdnMiTSxnYBOtPUITXo/s400/Aissa+glasses.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: courier new;">seems, that somewhere in between all of these happenings, </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Aissa</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> ended up being one of those patients that touches your heart just a little bit more than the rest and I found that it required very little grace on my part to love her. It turned out that an outpouring of unconditional love from all directions, transformed Aissa into exactly who Jesus always meant her to be.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">In a few short days, Sarah will have the privilege of travelling back to Cameroon with a beautiful, brilliant little girl who is full of life and potential. I have no doubt that this life will continue to present </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Aissa</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> with challenges. But </span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Aissa</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> has proven to be one of the strongest, feistiest, most ahead-of-her-time children I have ever met, which leads me to believe that she will conquer whatever life throws at her with a huge amount of gusto. I believe that she will live life with passion, with purpose, and with determination. And, most importantly, I know that she will live. All because Sarah chose to say yes -which makes me think that when I grow up, I would like to be a little bit more like Sarah.</span></span><br /><br /><br /><div><div><div><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZPczeCkMjv_y462MTrkcQl7df5ztP23QoZOA_BfXfEd-DobMEgGN7E_VGt4a7YHqJ_wxnFNGdEX56wQOvreP_4wV2BwMA1NhTD7wkW4JaQY95tJgQAC0fFY3uXdmgs9GHIdCaRoNFSI/s1600/Aissa+after+1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472693485299861794" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 266px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZPczeCkMjv_y462MTrkcQl7df5ztP23QoZOA_BfXfEd-DobMEgGN7E_VGt4a7YHqJ_wxnFNGdEX56wQOvreP_4wV2BwMA1NhTD7wkW4JaQY95tJgQAC0fFY3uXdmgs9GHIdCaRoNFSI/s400/Aissa+after+1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-39850934266324799252010-05-14T09:37:00.008-04:002011-07-18T23:05:05.229-04:00I'm lovin it....<div><span style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;font-size:100%;" >Between typhoid fever, pseudomonas x "</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;font-size:100%;" >too many</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;font-size:100%;" >", MRSA, an absolutely gridlocked hospital, malaria x "</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;font-size:100%;" >i forget</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;font-size:100%;" >", a visiting surgeon that refused to wear (or maybe it was just </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-family:courier new;font-size:100%;" >answer</span><span style="font-family:courier new;font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;"> his pager) and too many ICU patients....last week/weekend felt like much longer than seven days! Ali & her husband went on holiday to Ghana last week for their one year wedding anniversary, and, in her absence, Togo exploded onto the Africa Mercy. (I think she is tired of hearing that she chose the right week to go away). I think the good news is that somehow, after it all, I still love being a nurse here more than I could have imagined I would ever love anything. Yesterday morning, amidst wondering if I had Jeannie's powers to blink and make magical beds appear, I joined in with the rest of the ward for church. As Liz & I got our groove on with the patients, in the middle of the jam-packed ward, nothing else really seemed that important.</span><br /><br />And today is Monday....so, here's to more moments like this!</span> </span><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD__FHSKySxz8pB7Yq_DgD2E24W5JPZS5eiSmKNJt0AFluNv01CpSXvASLiTZ9rqQd0TzW_yj6TkwQxRuXG6G4TswJIrAFfim4l6AyUrFLS57KPTHt_B7AaKO5JjDH7NJuUUvt-vo_f3w/s1600/TGD0510_WARDDONORCRAFTS_DB03_LO.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5471120476995983474" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 400px; height: 268px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD__FHSKySxz8pB7Yq_DgD2E24W5JPZS5eiSmKNJt0AFluNv01CpSXvASLiTZ9rqQd0TzW_yj6TkwQxRuXG6G4TswJIrAFfim4l6AyUrFLS57KPTHt_B7AaKO5JjDH7NJuUUvt-vo_f3w/s400/TGD0510_WARDDONORCRAFTS_DB03_LO.JPG" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBoFSH7TyPQPnKjMIbyRoU33FbKjCQLlF5ROPl9n_Lzw8b7jf8kFSsMhbbSaoZ-ybHIWUEKgwNu0GYxA5mEfoQn9F4rFijMALycK_7gDZjOZ9xvPW2AfJDQdARDOqGxVGZoyXdAVfqD9A/s1600/TGD0510_WARDDONORCRAFTS_DB14_LO.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5471120275681902434" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 400px; height: 268px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBoFSH7TyPQPnKjMIbyRoU33FbKjCQLlF5ROPl9n_Lzw8b7jf8kFSsMhbbSaoZ-ybHIWUEKgwNu0GYxA5mEfoQn9F4rFijMALycK_7gDZjOZ9xvPW2AfJDQdARDOqGxVGZoyXdAVfqD9A/s400/TGD0510_WARDDONORCRAFTS_DB14_LO.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7c1UPBp4MMBiGPWVegg-6cysmcMfbKTN_RAogme38e99QLZybJMWSir0Lb0ew9qKnVE-ZJnVTrNhlzQXGlPrV7i7T23aM9eO5u8FYVKC9wBcsZCwSPcOD4A8jvXCfM6u8rPwDnXuhyphenhyphenxk/s1600/TGD0510_WARDDONORCRAFTS_DB60_LO.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5471119851770522754" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 400px; height: 268px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7c1UPBp4MMBiGPWVegg-6cysmcMfbKTN_RAogme38e99QLZybJMWSir0Lb0ew9qKnVE-ZJnVTrNhlzQXGlPrV7i7T23aM9eO5u8FYVKC9wBcsZCwSPcOD4A8jvXCfM6u8rPwDnXuhyphenhyphenxk/s400/TGD0510_WARDDONORCRAFTS_DB60_LO.JPG" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK179IGt7uiE63pCCgLy_7I7tS_kV_0ULxAMkP3ap3Urwyl-pYBcJMPVg6FQmzAbkFKKgaOZuvn7kntRdmWCaMJPnmrm3cYE_ZN-RdJkIiJsM9Z-DE5CV9vSjSJsVkgDdWRlfgLziQwGc/s1600/TGD0510_WARDDONORCRAFTS_DB30_LO.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5471120126610003874" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 400px; height: 268px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK179IGt7uiE63pCCgLy_7I7tS_kV_0ULxAMkP3ap3Urwyl-pYBcJMPVg6FQmzAbkFKKgaOZuvn7kntRdmWCaMJPnmrm3cYE_ZN-RdJkIiJsM9Z-DE5CV9vSjSJsVkgDdWRlfgLziQwGc/s400/TGD0510_WARDDONORCRAFTS_DB30_LO.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-73407440993242606592010-05-11T16:47:00.010-04:002011-07-18T23:05:32.820-04:00Independence Day<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">A couple of weeks ago was the 50</span><sup style="font-family: courier new;">th</sup><span style="font-family: courier new;"> Anniversary of Togo’s </span><st1:city style="font-family: courier new;"><st1:place>Independence</st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: courier new;"> from </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: courier new;"><st1:place>France</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: courier new;">.</span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">As good missionaries do, we decided to go out and celebrate Togolese style.</span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">This excursion proved to become by far, my most favourite experience in </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: courier new;"><st1:place>Togo</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: courier new;"> thus far (Easter trip to </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: courier new;"><st1:place>Ghana</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: courier new;"> excluded – since that occurred in </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: courier new;"><st1:place>Ghana</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: courier new;">).</span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">In order to effectively document said excursion, I have been planning to blog about it for the past two weeks…but alas, I am highly distractible and sitting at my computer is never high on my priority list.</span></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">At this point, I have given up the dream of a clever, informative, entertaining report of the details of my first Togolese Independence Day, but decided that it would still be worth it to post some photos – courtesy of the day volunteers who served as our tour guides for the day.</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKEv8u682KFRQFCzoC22AIOZEgwOMPDulP1ufMJ32kYpWeOYcC1Xt1-Vse7wf2-4fESeDvhckMbW6IhlXsp3yAnp45MWv0UlhmGgwKvgAE_I8i_iwGq4fh5WKeJ55sMRW-j6-f7Au710A/s1600/Independance+day+1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKEv8u682KFRQFCzoC22AIOZEgwOMPDulP1ufMJ32kYpWeOYcC1Xt1-Vse7wf2-4fESeDvhckMbW6IhlXsp3yAnp45MWv0UlhmGgwKvgAE_I8i_iwGq4fh5WKeJ55sMRW-j6-f7Au710A/s320/Independance+day+1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470119266929480322" border="0" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-fNhTFHgtHdFSDP3Lf5Vf61R6mLRykoU9JYO-F7D41kIlqNY02PFQ87X1hdgU0wDOh86GeG825YMoj-dor1Gk6t_7HcWK6n0I5FtikJFDfbvHfSRXlVfWPfTUQeiNVN9b80V-KO1RHfI/s1600/Independance+Day+2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-fNhTFHgtHdFSDP3Lf5Vf61R6mLRykoU9JYO-F7D41kIlqNY02PFQ87X1hdgU0wDOh86GeG825YMoj-dor1Gk6t_7HcWK6n0I5FtikJFDfbvHfSRXlVfWPfTUQeiNVN9b80V-KO1RHfI/s320/Independance+Day+2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470120032740008642" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfsQ6zVGNkAcXKkL0Wky5_Op0u2nXVS5xxk9xc3GuoeK4Fd5hO-PpnuSOdzYJChrttZwROr3s8yiPv6UTuiR2E6hEw0S4sm6KX_tgT-hMcTePwc6OJeNE803UvV6l_RASlYhUT35orW0/s1600/Independance+day+6.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfsQ6zVGNkAcXKkL0Wky5_Op0u2nXVS5xxk9xc3GuoeK4Fd5hO-PpnuSOdzYJChrttZwROr3s8yiPv6UTuiR2E6hEw0S4sm6KX_tgT-hMcTePwc6OJeNE803UvV6l_RASlYhUT35orW0/s320/Independance+day+6.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470120662382708386" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2uky32i54f3Qt0Jzi16GDy4ebGOq4Q7h4yxyY2QNbJd3V2flYMl_EAazGCFGAP7jdtQm51sLKhCWdvJCcG-RMIToKdesod2hpttjkwac2D303_xSu7adTqaX4SdzHaCXmCTbjIAxEivY/s1600/Independance+day+8.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2uky32i54f3Qt0Jzi16GDy4ebGOq4Q7h4yxyY2QNbJd3V2flYMl_EAazGCFGAP7jdtQm51sLKhCWdvJCcG-RMIToKdesod2hpttjkwac2D303_xSu7adTqaX4SdzHaCXmCTbjIAxEivY/s320/Independance+day+8.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470121035512558946" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeu0gcOvhCvGL2TG_NkxEgKTEUXxbZxGcKc5B43GtPDkcmI6l9elIhh9_WkYXIApPoGHKliBO34WllB2DcHQ2-I6qQRBSFDNEDYJ1tGWbONPeZWfk4erY2DYe8mQ6V5apeOu-yhLewbhc/s1600/Independence+day+10.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeu0gcOvhCvGL2TG_NkxEgKTEUXxbZxGcKc5B43GtPDkcmI6l9elIhh9_WkYXIApPoGHKliBO34WllB2DcHQ2-I6qQRBSFDNEDYJ1tGWbONPeZWfk4erY2DYe8mQ6V5apeOu-yhLewbhc/s320/Independence+day+10.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470122060355326370" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC8NGENyCABGcB-FJwqp6cmDo8Do3Hv3VDWl3dQEPw2IGxhCB_UwMffszUgtLvKvDUIxZEJP_YEnjMOAvxRZLqjxbgODWovd1N43cS6XD0Cu1RRm45XE5inu-Qx6KngjxwINbwtpxsWb8/s1600/Independence+Day+12.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC8NGENyCABGcB-FJwqp6cmDo8Do3Hv3VDWl3dQEPw2IGxhCB_UwMffszUgtLvKvDUIxZEJP_YEnjMOAvxRZLqjxbgODWovd1N43cS6XD0Cu1RRm45XE5inu-Qx6KngjxwINbwtpxsWb8/s320/Independence+Day+12.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470159058029223010" border="0" /></a><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-55206858912003336132010-05-06T06:01:00.003-04:002011-07-18T23:06:02.324-04:00More than a nurse<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">I embraced my patient assignment last Friday morning with all the gumption I could muster up at the end of a long work week. Conveniently enough, </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.alirae.net/blog/archives/382-love-in-a-box.html">Ali’s box of special crafts </a><span style="font-family: courier new;">and a Lion King itunes playlist also found their way to A ward on Friday morning. </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.alirae.net/blog/archives/389-healing.html">Aissa</a><span style="font-family: courier new;">, Lovelace, Akoh, Gloria, and two children I stole from B ward for the festivities set about putting together the most counter-culture tribe of sock puppets I have ever seen. (Marius tried too, but apparently breathing, eating, laughing, and pooping are about the extent of his skill set at this point.) Amidst a production line of sparkles, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, giggling children, and nurses singing </span><em style="font-family: courier new;">Hakuna Matada</em><span style="font-family: courier new;">, I met Ali’s eyes. I can’t remember which one of us actually said the words: </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;"> “This is why we pay to work”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">I started to feel just a little bit smug. After the emotional rollercoaster of the previous couple of weeks, I couldn’t have been more grateful for a shift like Friday morning’s. I had spent the previous day bent over a little baby in an oversized ICU bed, trying for IV’s, building an oxygen hood out of a coat hanger and plastic bag, attempting to build compatible CPAP tubing out of NG tubes, wishing that we could do so much more, and strangely at the same time, wishing we were doing so much less. O’brien had taken another turn for the worse, and he spent Thursday morning yet again, struggling to breath. After 4 hours of fighting crappy saturations that everyone knew could have probably only been resolved with an ET tube that would have then had little chance of ever being removed, I was - to put it plainly - absolutely spent. By 1:00, my comrade in crime and I finally flopped down into chairs and pronounced that we couldn’t do anymore. Not for now anyways. We decided to give our little man a break and, as so very often is the case, less turned out to be more. He settled a little bit - just enough to allow us to report off to the next nurse who would hopefully have some novel idea about how to help him. Needless to say, when I arrived on Friday morning to realize that I had an assignment in the ward, a small part of me was relieved. As selfish as I felt, I didn’t know if I had it in me to be the one there with him again. I didn’t want to be the one who held O’brien’s mama as she held him in his last hours. And, it actually seemed that things had maybe turned around a little. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">But, at shift change on Friday afternoon, we got the call</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;"> “O’brien just passed away. His mama wants to be alone right now”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">I swallowed the words. I chose to be numb for a moment rather than feel it. I carried on as nurses do….administered my last couple of meds, gave report, put away a couple of lingering boxes of supplies. I left the ward and went to meet the tailor who was meeting me to make adjustments on the skirt I had him make. I made plans for the evening.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Then, I did it. I set my own desires aside and I went back. I walked into the tiny little room where she was sitting. Barely through the door, she cried my name. I fell to my knees to receive her desperate embrace. We stayed like that, crying and rocking, until I couldn’t feel the bottom half of my legs. We cried until I felt it. Not in the therapeutic empathy kind of way that you learn about in nursing school, but in the </span><em style="font-family: courier new;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">my heart is breaking not only for you, but also for me</span></em><span style="font-family: courier new;"> kind of way. Other nurses who had played an instrumental role in his life came in and joined in our mourning and kissed his head and commented how peaceful he looked. We talked about how hard he had struggled and how he was now with Jesus. When mama was ready, we started to pray. And we sang.</span><br /><br /><em style="font-family: courier new;">God will make a way<br /> When there seems to be no way<br /> He works in ways we cannot see<br /> He will make a way for me<br /><br /> He will be my guide<br /> Hold me closely to his side<br /> With love and strength for each new day <br /> He will make a way, He will make a way</em></span> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">We held her and cried and prayed and sang because we were her people. We had become O’brien’s people, and for the time being, we had become her people. And, I couldn’t help but think that this was something special and unique that I might not get to be a part of anywhere else. That here, I get to be so much more than a nurse. That </span><strong style="font-family: courier new;">this</strong><span style="font-family: courier new;"> was why I pay to work.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-68543677642892440012010-04-27T10:42:00.002-04:002011-07-18T23:06:26.075-04:00Miracles<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">Over the past couple of weeks, I have seen God work in ways that I have only ever in the past prayed for. As a healthcare professional, I have always had a hard time trying to pray for healing. I always get hung up on the fact that all too often, it seems that we pray for healing and fail to see it come to pass – at least in the ways that we expect or want. I have watched families of dying children pray for revival, and then suffer through the exact thing they were hoping to overpower. Overtime, these types of experiences had turned a little part of me skeptical. Don’t get me wrong, I have never for a second seriously doubted that my God has the power to heal, restore, and even overcome death…..but, I had started to wonder, why He didn’t always do just that. And, more importantly, why we needed to bother bargaining for such interventions if the decision had already been made and He had the power to do so regardless of us. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">I had been wondering, for quite some number of years now. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Then, just a couple of weeks ago, Baby O’Brien remembered how to breathe before our eyes. Uncle Gary prayed and within minutes, his entire respiratory status was transformed. Like an </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://http//www.alirae.net/blog/archives/376-sparrow-baby.html">actual miracle</a><span style="font-family: courier new;"> that has absolutely no medical explanation (I would go into detail about this particular incident, but my friend Ali does it more than justice). When I came in for my day shift the morning after and saw what had happened, I made the night nurse explain it to me three times before I would believe. (It’s funny how shocked we can be when things we pray for actually happen) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Just days later, I was taking care of Marius, our other in-and-out-of-the-ICU-baby, on trial number two of what seemed to be at the time, “the case of the trach that refused to be removed”. Forty-five minutes into the decanulation trial and the little baby in front of us continued to breathe at about 80/minute (for those non-NICU types….that is too fast), wheezing and indrawing like a champ. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Maybe it was because we had done everything we could think of and we had no other nursing tricks up our sleeves. Maybe it was because Marius has the most beautiful, huge, dark eyes that pierce your soul and compel you to do something more supernatural than you are capable of in your own humanness. Or maybe it was because my faith in praying for miraculous healing had just recently been restored. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Whatever the reason, I decided I should pray. Normally, I would have said “God already knows our desire in this situation, what difference does it make if I say it?” Or I might have thought “There are too many more important things to get done right now”. But instead, in this case, I layed my hands on his chest, closed my eyes to the monitor flashing much less-than-impressive numbers, and I prayed to my Saviour. I thanked him for allowing me the opportunity to care for His child. I told him that I believed that He was the only one who had the power to heal Marius. And, I told him that we would accept His will for Marius’ life in this situation. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">That morning, the miracle didn’t happen instantly. Marius lasted 12 hours without his trach, and then needed it for a couple more days before he was able to be decanulated for good. But, within a couple more days, he stopped requiring any oxygen whatsoever. And, just a few days after that, a repaired-lip, fat-cheeked, beautiful baby Marius returned to the ward in a triumphant celebration of hope and healing. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">And, I think I am starting to understand why our faith and outward expression of faith is so crucial. Because I know God could have healed Marius without me. He didn’t need me to stand there and pray. But, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had tears in my eyes when I saw him become whole again. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be a part of it. And, if that were the case, then I would have denied Him the opportunity to change my life through changing Marius’.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-78969136755490974032010-04-01T08:01:00.001-04:002011-07-18T23:06:46.896-04:00The tickle<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">I realize it has been a while and I don’t have a real excuse. Being a nurse these days honestly feels like all I could have ever imagined it could be and then some. Life on the ship is as lovely as ever. And Africa remains….Africa. (Nuff said). </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">So, “why the prolonged silence???” I had to ask myself. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">And the best I can come up with is that my blogging silence may be directly related to the relative silence I have embraced as of late in my professional role. As far as verbal communication goes….things are harder here. Although I never even came close to achieving the fluency with Liberian English of my friend Ali, I might have come in a very distant second….or maybe fifth. Regardless, I made do. But, like I said – things are harder here. It seems that skipping out on French class in elementary school to write plays for extra credit was a poor decision. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">So I have been left figuring out other ways to communicate with the children placed in my charge. Lucky for them, I seem to remember someone teaching me at some point that only 9.3% of communication is verbal. Or maybe it is 14.6% (it would be fair at this point to question whether I actually attended school at all). What I do know is that it is possible, if not completely necessary, to learn to connect with another person without the use of words.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Which brings me to the point of this mostly-senseless-thus-far rambling: I have recently discovered the significance of “the tickle”.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">It started with Junior. It happened three weeks ago, which, in case you are keeping track, is quite a number of weeks into this outreach. I might have been starting to question whether or not I would be able to ever connect with these kids the way I wanted. But I quickly found that, at any given time, day or night, I could produce the most glorious 7-yr-old belly laugh just by tickling / tackling him to the ground. Chalking it up to coincidence and the uniqueness of the child, I refused to give myself too much credit.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">However, a double-fisted handful of 2 – 10yr olds later and I am willing to make a very bold assertion: Communication really IS 91.2% non-verbal. Through balloons, bubbles, online crayola colouring pages, and most importantly, embracing the tickle monster that lives inside me (and I would be willing to argue – all of us), I have some new very sweet friends. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Perhaps, I could have learned this lesson (or French) at some point in school. I am pretty sure I would chose to learn it this way.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743339102933485862.post-33112979726807646522010-03-11T06:54:00.006-05:002011-07-18T23:10:55.638-04:00Bobo<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">This weekend, I did my first two shifts as a charge nurse. Fortunately for me, things were relatively slow. I am wholeheartedly appreciative for a weekend void of social drama or medical crises – because anything less might have made me pack my bags and head home. The one minor “situation” in B ward involved a little guy who has now become my most memorable patient of Togo 2010 – thus far.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Nobody is completely sure what Bobo’s deal was. It may be the fact that his name is Bobo. It may be that Bobo is innately a drama queen. Or possibly, as </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://alirae.net/blog/">Ali </a><span style="font-family:courier new;">has proposed, it may be that Bobo is mildly autistic (Given my extensive knowledge of autism - the result of an entire year of ever purposeful graduate studies – I was inclined to concur). Regardless of the reason, Bobo spent last week less than impressed with his bilateral casts. For somewhere between 3 – 243 days (the timeline is blurry….I had a stressful weekend), Bobo moaned. In Ewe.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Most of the time, it sounded something like “</span><em style="font-family: courier new;">why-eeeeeee……..why-eeeeeee……….why-eeeeeee……</em><span style="font-family:courier new;">”. Every once in a while, he would change things up and cry “</span><em style="font-family: courier new;">owwwwwww………..owwwwwww………..owwwwwww</em><span style="font-family:courier new;">”, just for variety’s sake, from what I could tell. Extensive efforts on our part to medicate, entertain, and distract the tormented child were essentially futile. I even went in on a couple of my nights off, after shifts to sit with him and play, but nothing seemed to touch this kid.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Finally, after quite a bit of discussion, the decision was made that regardless of whether or not Bobo was just a kid being a kid and expressing his lack of appreciation for his two new plaster companions, the risk that something legitimate was wrong inside them warranted a cast change under general anesthetic.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">And on Monday afternoon, the recovery room brought us back this:</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5447344641410660130" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 400px; height: 266px; text-align: center; font-family: courier new;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5yBjvXCoKRASX5c-uL9YXhwSqwS-VfteUcQKifqoNMlUlVasqF8bcqw5mLBywq6YRQuD_1EpeQeAlnY1Euf1wtDq370UX4cznF7s5pBEuporTLgKt837ucGpX1B6IcfDRHFpsEF81WvI/s400/Bobo.jpg" border="0" /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">The debate still stands about what truly made the difference. Maybe he was bored of his old casts. Maybe when the entire nursing staff prays every morning, evening, and night for “Bobo to have peace”, God listens. Or maybe when Clementine (our Togolese counselor) threatened him in the recovery room that “</span><em style="font-family: courier new;">if you don’t stop crying, you will never get to go home</em><span style="font-family:courier new;">”, he finally listened.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Either way, I witnessed a miracle.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com