Days 10 and 11: Village Life

There are a lot of visiting doctors here right now and that is making the work a little bit lighter. This afforded us the opportunity to go out and explore the village life yesterday afternoon. :-) We walked along the road, down to a resevoir, to the well and water pump, and then back to the market and through the prarie back home. Everyone thought it was quite a site to see a Caucasian and an Asian person walking down the road together amidst all the Ghanaian Africans. They were all quite friendly and many wanted to tell us "hello" and talk to us. We even had this boy Daniel walk most of the whole way with us (for about 2.5 hours) and guide us along the way. Very neat!

Thinking of you and appreciating your prayers,

Love you bunches,
The "A" Team :-)
(Albert and Amara)

Many Ghanaians live in mud huts with a central courtyard for community interaction.

Most families own a donkey in order to help them transport barrels of water and other items. They are very friendly.. just look how fuzzy and cute its eyes are!

This is the reservoir from which they draw water for drinking/washing/etc.. no swimming allowed!

This is a water well that is connected to the reservoir.. imagine filling a barrel one bucket at a time.. it takes a while!

Amara's takes her turn to help pump the well water

Every three days is market day in town.. it's like a big flea market that offers everything from produce to clothing

Us with Daniel (our tour guide/interpreter for the day) standing across the street in front of the Baptist Medical Centre

Hiking through the savannah plains near the BMC compound

Days 5, 6, 7, 8, 9: Busyness, Excitement, and "Marked"

Busyness

As you may have guessed, we're really into the swing of things already and are actually quite busy! The hospital has 113 beds and the clinic sees several hundred patients each day. We have been working between 12 and 16 hours a day. We have already seen and helped take care of many patients with interesting medical problems. We usually start morning rounds around 7:30am and work until 1pm at which point we get an hour to walk home and eat lunch. At 2pm we continue our work either in clinic or surgery until about 6 to 8pm, at which point we'll go home for dinner. Then, about every other day we go back to the hospital to finish our work for the evening to end at about 11pm! Kind of like hospital work in the States, kind of not.

Here we are pre-/post-surgery in Dr. Faile's office.


Here is Albert finishing up with another happy customer in clinic... hee hee, I think I caught them by surprise.


We got to take a break to play tennis on Saturday!


Excitement

We have seen some incredible things during our time here so far and we are allowed to do far more than in the USA. The staff call us "Dr. Albert" and "Dr. Amara" or sometimes just "Doctor," which is kind of funny and kind of fun. :-) Here is a patient that I helped perform a C-section surgery on. Her twins are on the bed. . . pretty cute, huh? (Since many women don't get a lot of prenatal care here, she didn't even know she had twins until a couple days ago when we performed an ultrasound on her.)



Last night, Albert and I were on call for the first time and we had another obstetrical emergency. A full-term woman who was not yet fully in labor had begun to bleed quite a bit and was in pain. The ultrasound showed placenta previa, a dangerous complication where the placenta is in the wrong place. We took her to surgery and I got to perform the spinal anesthesia (a task only certain doctors are trained to do in the States)! Dr. Faile was an excellent guide and walked me through it well. Albert has also been a great help in coaching me through things so far. :-) Well, I placed the spinal successfully and the operation began. When we opened her up, we saw that it was even more severe than we expected: the uterus was about to rupture and she had both placenta previa and placenta accreta. She had severe hemorrhage and we almost could not stop the bleeding; she lost a detectable blood pressure twice and probably lost more than half the blood in her body. Albert and I did the best we could in the OR with Dr. Faile but I knew that prayer would be the most helpful thing I could do because it would be only by the grace and power of the Lord that she would live. Amazingly, she was rolled out of the OR and was still breathing, as she was this morning as she finished her blood transfusion and this afternoon as she was up and asking us questions about her adorable baby beside her. This is, without a doubt in my mind, a miracle of God. She has eight other children at home that will now be able to see their mother again, that have hope for their future; praise God!

Also exciting, but in a startling sort of way, is that this not-so-little 2 1/2" bugger happened to jump INTO my skirt somehow! I knew something was wrong when my hip started hopping--literally! I had to hide behind a curtain and throw off my skirt in order to free myself from its critteriness.


"Marked"

Tribes often "mark" their members by cutting on the faces of their children. If you look on someone's cheeks, you'll usually see a design (the same on both sides) sharply imprinted to show with whom they are affiliated.

Traditional healers also leave their mark on our patients. For example, those with sickle cell disease (a disease that turns red blood cells into a "sickle" shape, protecting people against malaria but giving them a whole different set of problems) often have enlarged spleens. The traditional healers make lots of small (1-2 inches) cuts across the skin over the spleen in order to "release the evil" that has affected that part. One of Albert's patient's today likely has a hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) and had a fairly large abdominal mass. We knew we weren't the first ones to find it; there were cuts from the traditional healer marking the spot. I'd like to show you what I mean with some pictures, but I don't have any that display this just yet. You'll have to keep posted by checking later for added pics.

A deeper truth. . . You know all these marks got me to thinking about what "marks" I have on my own body, what marks I have on my life. With my name, I carry the mark of my family; with my physical appearance, my geographical and genetic heritage; with my manners, language and custom, my culture. But what is the mark of Christ on me? With what signs do people know to whom I belong? Will people know that I am the way I am because someone else has found me first? I have joy because my Lord Jesus has given me life everlasting. I have peace because my guilt is forgiven. I have purpose because I have a loving relationship with the very One who has given me breath and He has called me to share His love, compassion, and healing with others. It is my prayer that my life-through my words, thoughts, attitudes, and actions-will be a reflection of His "mark" on me for His glory.

Day 4: Where the Wild Things Are

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!
Okay, so we haven't actually seen any of those things yet, but we would like to share a little bit about our experiences with the animal kingdom here so far. . . :-)

1) First of all (and this is especially written for our friends Jeremy and Vince), there are a handful of friendly turkeys that live right next door to the hospital that we pass by on our walk to work--that's right, Turkeys do live in Africa! And we found them just in time for Thanksgiving!

2) We also have a pet gecko that lives in our dining room and sometimes in the guest bathroom down the hall. He's pretty quick, so we don't have a picture of him just yet. I thought of my sister Heather when I first spotted him because she really likes geckos. She also likes little goats, which there are a lot of around here.

3) SNAKES! Lots of patients come to the hospital with snake bites; the poisonous venom causes anticoagulation (in other words, it makes your blood lose its ability to clot. . . which is pretty dangerous if you get a cut and can't stop bleeding!) Mona, one of the missionary ladies here, taught us on the first day to carry flashlights with us when we're out at night and to stay on the paths and out of the grass. Dr. Hewitt even had to amputate a little girl's finger due to a bad snake bite yesterday!

4) I saw my first case of rabies today in a nice young woman who got bit by a mad dog. In Oregon, rabies mostly comes from bats, and even then we hardly ever see it; in fact, I think there are only 1-2 reported cases per year.

5) Albert learned that roosters don't only crow at sunrise (like in the movies) but they actually crow pretty much whenever they're awake.

6) Scientifically speaking, humans are part of the animal kingdom as well, and this is kind of wild. . . the missionary doctors Drs. Faile and Hewitt saw about 100 patients each on Monday! Today Dr. Faile and I saw 65 patients during our clinic day in addition to all our hospital patients we saw on rounds. . . they are very talented and we are all very busy! I am looking forward to learning more so that I can be more helpful soon. By the end of the day I took care of three patients on my own--> I was even allowed to diagnose them and write them prescriptions on my own!

7) Last, but certainly not least, mosquitos have somehow managed to penetrate my 25% DEET protection as I have 3 bites on my right leg today! With so many cases of malaria, I definitely appreciate your prayers that I will not get it myself. I will continue to spray myself, use the nets at night, and take my doxycycline prophylaxis so I should be in good shape, but I always appreciate your prayers as well.

Much love and many blessings!

Nawun Passi Alafia! (God give you health!)

Day 3: Introduction to the Hospital

Ni Zanoori!
(Good evening! in Mampruli)

Today Albert and I started in the hospital. It was a challenging first day because the degree of disease is so severe here and even though we were sort of expecting it, it was tough to see first-hand little children suffering from horrible malnutrition and malaria. Albert also went to surgery today, he helped deliver a stillborn 6-month-old (gestational age) baby :-( and did an exploratory surgery to find and repair a bowel perforation from Typhoid disease! Albert worked very hard today and I was glad to see him this evening, since I left early with an upset stomach (which is now feeling better.) I look forward to starting clinic tomorrow. (Clinic days = M, W, F; surgery days=T, Th)



This is a picture of me in my bed with mosquito netting around it to protect me from the malaria-ridden mosquitos around here.

Blessings and good night, Friends!

Day 2: To Nalerigu We Go

Here is Albert standing in front of the smaller plane we took from Accra to Tamale:




Here I am in front of the small dirt road airport in Tamale before our 3 hour drive to Nalerigu:

Day 1: Akwaaba!

Akwaaba (welcome) from Ghana!

Amara and I just arrived in Accra, the capital of Ghana a couple of hours ago (11pm GMT local time) and were pleasantly greeted by Jimmy, a missionary worker at the Ghana Baptist Mission. It's cool to be greeted at the airport with a person waiting with your last name on it. Made me feel special.. heh

It's been a long journey so far, but we're almost there! Here's a recap of our travels until now..

Friday - Send off pizza dinner with Chanda, Heather, Heidi & Mike; hit the road at 10pm, leaving from Portland, OR on our way down to Union City, CA.
Saturday - Arrived at Jerki's home in Union City at 8:30am, had breakfast, got cleaned up, had lunch together with Jerm and Vince (our last meal on U.S. soil), and then whisked off to the airport. Departed from SFO at 4:15pm heading towards Heathrow airport in London, UK.
Sunday - Arrived in London at 10:00am, walked around the airport shops, had a yummy lunch at Pret A Manger (I had a Swedish meatball wrap and Amara had a five-bean cassoulet), then departed for Ghana at around 3:00pm (our flight was delayed about an hour). Got here at 11pm, spent a long time going through immigration, but made it through customs, got our luggage, and got a ride to the Accra Guesthouse here.

Tomorrow, we'll be leaving bright and early at 5am to go back to the airport and take a flight to Tamale (in Northern Ghana). Then, we'll be driving a few hours to get to our final destination, the Baptist Medical Centre in Nalerigu.

Please continue to pray for us as we finish our travel, get acclimated/oriented to a new place, meet new people, and begin our work. Thanks!

Day (minus)-7: Packing Up

We started packing up stuff today to see how everything would fit together.

Thanks to our friend Rachel who helps with the REMEDY program (Medical Equipment for the Developing World) here, we were able to collect a large amount of donated medical supplies to bring with us. Our friends Carolyn & Jim from church helped give us some candy, stickers, and ribbons to bring for the kids in Ghana. In addition, since hearing about our trip, we've been receiving packages from various people wanting to send stuff to Nalerigu. We'll be bringing letters from a class of 4th graders in Missouri, art supplies, DVDs, and other small gift items.


Amara's mom brought us a very cool and expandable piece of luggage (tall, shiny black piece in the middle) that was able to fit most of the medical supplies.


At an Adidas warehouse sale, we were able to pick up matching caps to protect our noggins from the blistering sun for only $3 each!

Welcome!

We will be posting pictures and stories from our trip here. Thanks for visiting!