A good friend told me about Mercy Ships Links - connecting me to all sorts of blogs from people on the good ship. I read this last night - and while it is long, I'd like to challenge you to read it, too:
Tell your family, tell your friends what God has done for me. If I had not been here at just the right time, I would already be dead. When I go home I will tell everyone in my church and all my friends how God has saved my life. ~Dandy (name changed for privacy)
Dandy's story starts like so many of our other general surgery patients...An exam from a doctor at screening, an appointment to come in to admissions to be admitted for a hernia repair, a patient card as a golden ticket for entry to the port and to the ship. But there, the story began to change. Shortly after Dandy showed up for admission, the intestine bulging out into his hernia would no longer go back into his abdomen where it belonged...it became intensely painful, and the pain started to get worse and worse as he waited just outside the admission tent.
I first met Dandy in an Emergency Medical Team call a few minutes later, a sweaty, scared man that Dan and I reassured as we covered him with a sheet and moved him onto a stretcher for the quick ride up the gangway and down into the ICU. Our doctor had already alerted the operating room, and the general surgeons were just finishing up on their case.
It was a 90 minutes strangely reminiscent of my time in the emergency room...frequent vital signs, changing him into a patient gown and a basic nursing assessment, IVs and labwork and OR consents explained and signed in a hurry and then morphine and more morphine and a surgical scrubdown and prayer before we loaded him on a stretcher and whisked him off down the corridor to the operating room.
Afterwards, still in my pajamas from sleeping in that morning, I sat down with my charting and prayed that we had been in time. Would he be coming back to A ward missing a part of his intestine because it had been cut off from its blood supply for too long? I found out soon enough - after some lunch and a shower I headed down to A ward for my regular shift. A sleepy, pain-free Dandy rolled in the door on a stretcher shortly after my shift began, sporting a small incision. We were just in time, the OR nurse told me later, much longer and we he probably would have needed a bowel resection.
All week Dandy greeted me in perfect English from his bed, told me he was doing well, remembered my face from the pain-filled haze surrounding his time in the ICU. We talked about his experience, and the perfect timing of God in sparing his life. Had this happened anywhere else in West Africa, he would probably already be dead. He asked me to share his story with you, his life as a living testament of the goodness and sovereignty of God.
We were just in time...only an hour or two more and the story might have ended differently.
Looking at Dandy now, less than two weeks later, only a small scar and a few steri-strips remain as evidence of his miracle. He has been discharged from the hospital, and is just waiting for his incision to finish healing before he goes home.
Of all the places in West Africa to have a hernia strangulate, Dandy was in the perfect place at the perfect time. We had general surgeons already on ship, with the operating rooms and bed capacity to receive patients. Our surgeons had just had their surgical schedule open up because of several cancellations that morning, and were closing a case just in time to prepare for emergent surgery. Even though we are not set up as a full-fledged hospital with emergency room, our emergency team and ICU nurses were in place to care for him before surgery, and we had a bed with surgical nurses ready to receive him afterwards. And on top of it all, things started happening after Dandy arrived on our dock, giving us just enough time to get him into surgery immediately.
Even just an hour more waiting for surgery, and part of Dandy's intestine would have died. Just an hour, and Dandy might have left with a colostomy. Much longer than that, or anywhere farther away from a surgical hospital, he would have died in agony somewhere on the streets. Praise God for his goodness, and for his perfect timing.
Dandy's story starts like so many of our other general surgery patients...An exam from a doctor at screening, an appointment to come in to admissions to be admitted for a hernia repair, a patient card as a golden ticket for entry to the port and to the ship. But there, the story began to change. Shortly after Dandy showed up for admission, the intestine bulging out into his hernia would no longer go back into his abdomen where it belonged...it became intensely painful, and the pain started to get worse and worse as he waited just outside the admission tent.
I first met Dandy in an Emergency Medical Team call a few minutes later, a sweaty, scared man that Dan and I reassured as we covered him with a sheet and moved him onto a stretcher for the quick ride up the gangway and down into the ICU. Our doctor had already alerted the operating room, and the general surgeons were just finishing up on their case.
It was a 90 minutes strangely reminiscent of my time in the emergency room...frequent vital signs, changing him into a patient gown and a basic nursing assessment, IVs and labwork and OR consents explained and signed in a hurry and then morphine and more morphine and a surgical scrubdown and prayer before we loaded him on a stretcher and whisked him off down the corridor to the operating room.
Afterwards, still in my pajamas from sleeping in that morning, I sat down with my charting and prayed that we had been in time. Would he be coming back to A ward missing a part of his intestine because it had been cut off from its blood supply for too long? I found out soon enough - after some lunch and a shower I headed down to A ward for my regular shift. A sleepy, pain-free Dandy rolled in the door on a stretcher shortly after my shift began, sporting a small incision. We were just in time, the OR nurse told me later, much longer and we he probably would have needed a bowel resection.
All week Dandy greeted me in perfect English from his bed, told me he was doing well, remembered my face from the pain-filled haze surrounding his time in the ICU. We talked about his experience, and the perfect timing of God in sparing his life. Had this happened anywhere else in West Africa, he would probably already be dead. He asked me to share his story with you, his life as a living testament of the goodness and sovereignty of God.
We were just in time...only an hour or two more and the story might have ended differently.
Looking at Dandy now, less than two weeks later, only a small scar and a few steri-strips remain as evidence of his miracle. He has been discharged from the hospital, and is just waiting for his incision to finish healing before he goes home.
Of all the places in West Africa to have a hernia strangulate, Dandy was in the perfect place at the perfect time. We had general surgeons already on ship, with the operating rooms and bed capacity to receive patients. Our surgeons had just had their surgical schedule open up because of several cancellations that morning, and were closing a case just in time to prepare for emergent surgery. Even though we are not set up as a full-fledged hospital with emergency room, our emergency team and ICU nurses were in place to care for him before surgery, and we had a bed with surgical nurses ready to receive him afterwards. And on top of it all, things started happening after Dandy arrived on our dock, giving us just enough time to get him into surgery immediately.
Even just an hour more waiting for surgery, and part of Dandy's intestine would have died. Just an hour, and Dandy might have left with a colostomy. Much longer than that, or anywhere farther away from a surgical hospital, he would have died in agony somewhere on the streets. Praise God for his goodness, and for his perfect timing.
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