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.