Lights, Camera, ACTION!!

Amy, Drs. Strauss and Wodome with family of 4 kids w/ cataracts

Yikes!  What a crazy week!  Well, as a review - I did mention that the week before was the really the calm before the storm.  And no, we did not get any more rain!  The storm was of the media variety.  Sunday night the founder of the Mercy Vision project and his wife showed up for two jam packed weeks of surgery.  So, bright and early Monday morning we headed out to ye olde eye tent on the dock and did our best to sort out all the kids that we'd seen in ones and twos during the entire field service starting last January.  We had over 40 kids show up, everyone had a parent or guardian and some had some extra siblings along for the ride.  It was a bit nutty.  Henry Ford would have been proud of our assembly line as the patients were lined up on long benches and the famous Dr. Strauss wheeled along on his little doctor stool examining their eyes and letting us know which kids were good surgical candidates and which he didn't think he'd be able to help.  Dr. Strauss knows that getting the story of these kids out to charitable groups that can help makes a huge difference so he actually travels with his own PR team.  To make matters even more crazy, Amy - the morning DJ from my favorite Christian music radio station - K-love were also here last week along with her entourage, visiting the patients, observing surgery, etc...  Their first stop was with us last Monday morning.  So, it was an incredibly crazy, chaotic but fun kind of day. 

Amy was completely taken with our little Angel Akou who I've posted about before.  She's the darling little baby with bilateral cataracts that we found at a screening a couple of months ago.  Amy's picture with Akou has appeared on the K-love site and on her morning show blog.  I've shared these links with those of you that read my blog via my Face Book site but for the rest of you, here is the link to her blog so you can read about all that she did while she and her marketing friend were here with us last week.  http://www.klove.com/blog/post/2012/04/30/Arrived!.aspx

In addition to Akou, Amy got involved with a family of four brothers and sisters as well as a cousin who all have congenital cataracts.  Very unusual story.  The four sibs also had malaria which we treated prior to their surgery.  Peter saw the kids when they were admitted to the hospital and then during their two days on the ward.  He mentioned that their poor mother was at her wit's end since up until that time she had four kids feeling a bit puny with malaria that couldn't see.  Now all four of them have a normal blood count and can see the whole world for the first time in their lives.  Watch out Togo!  I guess it's a good thing that they rely on their whole village to raise their kids. 

So, back to darling Akou.  She was seen by Dr. Strauss who agreed that she was not too young to have her surgery.  I was relieved since earlier in the field service we'd heard that they didn't want to operate on the very young babies but I thought that didn't make sense so I had them see her.  You can see the white in the middle of her eye.  Poor baby has never been able to see anything, which affects how her brain develops.  After too many years like this their brain can no longer learn how to process the information and the opportunity to fix their vision is lost. 

So, after Dr.Strauss saw the kids it was my turn to determine if they were medically fit for surgery.  This entailed more intensive evaluation than we normally do because the adults are usually done with just a local anesthetic and go home later in the day.  The little kids they have to be put to sleep so their general health is more of an issue. 

Sadly, the very first boy I saw sounded like his heart was very abnormal.  Fortunately for me I had a world famous Cardiologist at my beck and call (sort of) and was able to get my suspicions confirmed that this poor boy had a very bad heart defect so we couldn't do his surgery.  As you can imagine.  After the parents see that I've sent their child away after already being OK'd for surgery I became the one to not tell the truth to when it came time to ask about medical history.  From then on every child I saw was in perfect health, never had a fever in their entire life, yadda, yadda, yadda.  It was a challenge. But obviously little Akou made it thru the gaunlet and she and her mother are sitting at the scheduling table to get their long awaited appointment card!

Even the baby looks quite excited by the new card in her mom's hand. 

The next morning Akou was on the operating table with quite an audience.  We not only

have a modern operating microscope to perform these delicate surgeries but you can see the screens in the room there so that others can see what the surgeon sees as he's operating. 

Her surgery went without a hitch and she did beautifully.  They spend the night in the hospital so that they can be observed as the anesthesia wears off and also so that they have nursing care while both eyes are bandaged.  In the morning the surgeon makes rounds and takes the dressing off the kid's eyes and we see whether they can see or not. 

As we see here - our little cutie pie is enjoying her first view of balloons!  She was able to go home later that morning to enjoy a long life with perfect vision.  Just really a wonderful feeling to be part of something so awesome. 



The women in their dresses holding their gifts

Another great event on the ship this past week was the first graduation or Dress ceremony for our VVF patients.  VVF stands for Vesico-Vaginal Fistula.  This is a nasty condition that is very, very prevalent in Africa and other third world countries and is 100% due to the lack of good obstetrical care in this part of the world.  These poor moms, some only teenagers at the time, will labor for days and even weeks on end.  The baby dies in over 90% of the cases.  The pressure of the baby as it is trying to be born ends up causing so much damage to the soft tissues in the pelvic area that these tissues die and slough off.  When this happens there can be holes formed between the bladder and the vagina or the rectum and the vagina.  And yeah - these poor ladies are left with a mess for the rest of their lives.  Since this part of the world believes that medical problems are a curse they not only don't feel compelled to help very often but usually shun the person from society.  So, these poor little ladies lose their babies, their family, usually their husbands and everything else they hold dear.  Since being here for just a short time I've learned that this culture is nothing if not completely relationship based.  No matter what you've got going on, job, meeting, meal, appointment of any kind - if you run into a friend or hear of some gathering that people are headed off to all bets are off as far as whether you'll make any of the other obligations since being with your peeps is number one.  It's sort of the "Surf's Up" mentality that we've encountered since moving to So. Cal but on steroids, I think.  






It is hard to find medical help for VVF but the wonderful Dr. Romanzi, a gyn urological surgeon from New York City does this sort of work all over the world.  We only have her for a few short weeks but we were able to do surgery on about 50 women, I think.  After they have healed up Mercy Ships presents them with a new outfit as well as multiple other gifts to represent their new lives and their re-entry into their society.  There is much dancing and singing and the women give their testimonies.  It is so awe inspiring to hear of women who have lived as outcasts for more than a decade and how thrilled and thankful they are to be able to just go to the market again. 



Graduates with translator on left, charge nurse in scrubs and the wonderful Clementine top row blue shirt





Well, that's about enough for one week I think.  It is hard to believe that exactly one month from today we'll be getting back on a plane heading for home!  In some ways it feels like these past four months have gone quickly but in other ways I am really ready to come home.  More and more people are referring to the work that needs to be done to get ready for the ship to go to Guinea and since we won't be making the sail to dry dock in Tenerife in June or the new mission in August it's hard to feel the connection.  Each week a few new people come to the ship but it seems that more leave than come and it's the leaving that puts a hole in your heart for some of these folks.  So, even if we come back again it won't be entirely the same since each mission is really a small package in time.  It's been such a privilege to be part of this little bit that God has chosen to do in this tiny country.  I often wonder what his plan is for each of these people we've helped?  Will one of these VVF mom's go on to be the mother of the next president of Togo?  Will our little Akou be inspired to be an eye surgeon and help those in the way she's been helped?  God's ways are not our ways but He has work here to be done and I'm so thrilled that Peter and I've had a chance to see some tangible evidence of being used in this work.  I pray each of you feel like God's instruments in some way and start each day offering the next 24 hours to be used for what you were created for.  Thanks for coming along on the ride for the past four months.  Have a terrific week and check K-love's blog for more stories from the big white boat!