A Really Tough Week....

As I've said in previous posts, each week here seems to bring its own adventure and despite having a pretty set routine from day to day we're often surprised by what unfolds around us.  Last week it starting to really sink in that the ship will not be here for too many more weeks.  Each week new people arrive by plane but it seems that even more folks, some that have been here for many months head back home.  Given the 30 years Peter and I spent in the military all these hellos and good-byes are not as new or shocking to us as they are to alot of the crew members.  In addition, since we have each other here we've not formed the really tight connections that many of the single people have formed with each other that makes many of the partings so difficult each week.  There have been alot of tears. 

For Peter and I, as well as Fiona, another difficult aspect of this week was finally going thru the large file folder of goiter patients we had evaluated early on in February.  Since I've been outside the hospital working with the eye team I hadn't really noticed whether or not these folks were getting their surgeries or not.  On occasion Peter would tell me that they were seeing some of the very toxic hyperthyroid cases back in follow up but other than that I didn't hear much.  So, I was quite amazed that so few of them had had their surgeries.  If you recall I mentioned months ago that we had three - yes THREE surgeons cancel their trips to Togo to work with us in rapid succession.  We then heard that soon thereafter three new surgeons answered the call and signed on to take their place.  What I didn't know until last week was that these new guys did not do goiter surgery!  They were just going to whittle away at the massive backlog of hernia cases that we'd seen on that first screening day. 

I found this news to be extremely distressing since we had the added information of ultrasound that helped us triage the patients into those that were worrisome for cancer and those that had a low likelihood of malignancy. 

I've shown pictures of patients with huge goiters before but this lady, in particular on the left is one of the poor unfortunates that was sadly found to be not only with cancer but that her cancer had spread very far and wide and that it would be futile to do her surgery with such a poor prognosis.  Knowing that this is the fate of some of the ladies in the pile of papers we were sifting through made our job even more distressing.  We hope that as the Human Resources folks start filling slots for work to be done in Guinea you will add this outreach to your prayer lists that those that feel lead to be here make every effort to come so that those that do make their way to the ship do not suffer the type of disappointment that I'm sure the majority of people we screened are now feeling when informed that we will not be able to do their surgery.  We screened over 100 goiter patients in Feb.  Since then possibly 6 have been done and we were told we had space for between 4 to 6 additional goiter patients beyond the 20 some thyrotoxic goiter patients that must be done.  I just hope and pray that we were able to pick out the people that God wanted to bring to the ship. 

The other very, very difficult episode this week has been hanging over us for many weeks.  Soon after we arrived in Togo a young lady came to the ship that had undergone a large burn graft surgery by Mercy Ships in the '90s.  Her graft did very well until about three years ago when it started to break down and by the time we saw her she had an open wound encompassing her right chest and nearly her entire right arm!  It was amazing that she could live for so long with such a huge, open wound!  She was admitted for future surgery as our plastic surgeon would be arriving in two weeks. 

Chantal and her nurse after her surgery

This gave us awhile to work on cleaning up her wound and getting her ready for an enormous surgery.  The surgery went well and she was one of the first cases he did during the five weeks he was here.  She did have some complications with wound abscesses that just didn't seem to respond to any of the antibiotics we gave her.  This sort of fit the picture that we'd discovered after she came to us and we found out she was HIV positive.  A fact she did not know at the time.  She had lots of nutrition issues and other problems that took their toll on her as time wore on.  With each passing month on the ship her graft looked worse and worse to the point that she had very little coverage and alot of infected areas that were not improving.  It became clear that she was not going to survive and efforts were made to find some sort of hospice care for her. 

One of the positive things that has come from our time in Togo is the training of some of our workers in the art of hospice nursing.  Currently, Togo is one of the very few countries in the world that does not offer any sort of hospice care to aid the dying and terminally ill.  If nothing else, we are hopeful that Mercy Ships has pointed this out to the local health ministry as an area needing immediate attention. 

Plans were made to help Chantal go to her uncle's home in nearby Togoville where she wanted to die.  Her dying wish was to see the ocean one last time so on Thursday afternoon the pilots room - where the harbor pilot boards and leaves a ship as it enters and exits a harbor -was opened up so she could look outside at the harbor, the boats and the palm trees.  The nurses and day workers gathered to sing hymns and comfort her.  There was not a dry eye on the ship. 

Not surprisingly, after receiving this lovely dying wish she peacefully closed her eyes and breathed her last breath a few short hours later.  Although everyone on the ship had a rough time letting go we were all very grateful to know that during her stay with us she not only learned about Jesus but she accepted Him as her Lord and Savior!  We all look forward to seeing our Chantal again in her new, perfect body when we are together in paradise.  Hallelujah! 

OK - so, we did have some positive stuff happen this week that I'll tell you about so that I'm not responsible for world wide sniffles after I post this missive. 

First - on Saturday we went with one of the eye team day workers to meet her tailor.  Since she is easily one of the best dressed Africans I see on a daily basis I thought that possibly her tailor could work a miracle and make something for me with the lovely material we bought last weekend.  It was quite the adventure since she lives 45 minutes on the other side of Lome'.  I am continually impressed with the wonderful local people we have working with us.  In order to get to the ship she has to take a series of cabs - like shuttle buses that take her well over 90 minutes to 2 hours to get to the ship each day. Since we start our days at 7 am or earlier it is no wonder they try to take naps whenever they can sneak them in during the day.  That - and the fact that due to the heat they typically take siesta every afternoon but we make them work.  It's amazing they put up with us!  Anyway - since I brought her the material my dress with matching jacket will cost me $8 to make and will be ready in a week!  Stunning! 

The other positive thing on the horizon is our upcoming pediatric eye surgeries.  For months we've been scheduling all the little kids with eye problems to come back to the ship the end of April when the founder of the Mercy Vision program - Dr. Glenn Strauss will be here for a few weeks to train our local eye surgeon in pediatric eye surgeries.  All the kids will come in on the 30th and the 1st of May to be evaluated and hopefully he will be able to operate on most of them.  This is also something I'd love for you all to pray about as it is heartbreaking to turn people away.  Especially little kids.  To let you know more about how the kids surgeries go I'm attaching - I hope -a video about a little girl's cataract surgery that they did in Sierra Leone.  You may be crying by the end of it but hopefully not the sad tears that we had from earlier in the week. 

Well - no big surprise - I'm having a heck of a time getting this video loaded since we can't access You Tube from the ship and it won't let me cut and paste into blogger.  So - hopefully this link will work or if you go to www.mercyships.org and find Christina's story you can see the video.  Here goes - say a prayer: 

Have a wonderful week thanking the Lord for all your blessings - especially access to health care.