Little One

And from Natalie's blog . . .

I will call her Little One.  She is 6 months old with beautiful big brown eyes and silky soft skin.  She has a smile that stretches ear to ear and an adorable little coo.  She is one of Mama's 11 children.  She often wears blue clothes but is every bit a little lady even in her brothers' hand me down clothes.

Little One needs our prayers.  She is currenly on the feeding program but has yet to gain any weight in the 2 months since she's been followed.   She weighs 3.4kg or 7lbs8oz and appears the size of an average newborn.  She is from Sierra Leone but is living at the Hope Center (Mercy Ships off-site building where patients live temporarily, often months, while they await surgery or get outpatient treatment in a clean setting without taking up valuable hospital space on the wards) with Mama awaiting surgery once she gains an appropriate amount of weight.  It is not uncommon for cleft lip babies to be underweight, as the defect in their lip or palate (or both) prevents them from eating or latching on to their mother's breast and getting the proper nutrition.  Haberman feeders (special cleft lip bottles/nipples) are obviously unheard of here, and even if they had access to them, formula is much too expensive with no clean water to mix it.  Little One has been nursing well though, she latches great and gulps down milk.  Mama cup feeds her faithfully with extra calorie formula.  Something just wasn't adding up.  They thought maybe she needed more time.  It's only been 2 months.  She wasn't losing weight, so that alone was a small victory.

Well, three days ago, the Hope Center staff brought Little One to the Ship with respiratory distress.  We admitted her with obvious febrile bronchiolitis and started her antibiotics, O2, nebs, and suction.  Once her lungs quieted down, there was an obvious heart murmer.  A chest x-ray was done and Little One's heart is huge.  Huge.  We don't have radiologists on the ship, so the x-ray was sent to the U.S. for an official reading.  It doesn't take a radiologist to recognize marked cardiomegaly.  We are assuming they would recommend an echocardiogram, which we cannot do on the ship.  Even if we could, it would be of no benefit to her.  We assume she has a congenital heart defect, and if her heart is already that large at 6 months of age, the outlook for Little One is not good.  There is not much we can do for Little One, and tomorrow it will probably be decided that she is not a surgical candiate for her lip repair.

I have taken care of Little One the past three days and bonded with her mama as well.  Mama is Muslim and leaves the ward to pray several times a day to which she promptly hands over Little One to my loving arms, kisses Little One on the forehead, then kisses me on the cheek and says Merci Merci Merci Natalie and something else in Foula I have yet to make out.  I am off the next three days but I will be visiting the ward tomorrow (which conveniently is at the end of the hall on the other side of the fire door).

Please pray for Little One....

"I've been looking for you . . ."

Take a few minutes and read Laura's post . . .

Halima is a petite little grandma...not much left but skin and bones and tumor.  I can feel each of her ribs through her dress as we embrace - the same bright dress she was wearing when we met in the market between here and Mamou. I have been looking for you, she tells me, for a month I have been looking for you.  She takes my hand and places it on her tumor and it throbs warm and alive beneath my bare fingers.  This pains me and chuks (pricks) and suffocates me at night...I just want it to be gone.  Will you take it away?

Halima, I have been looking for you too.

Every day for the last month I have thought of the morning we met in the market, when we came in the land rovers and asked them to find you, when you rode up on the back of a motorcycle and unveiled your face for your neighbors to see your shame.  Every day I think of the first moment I saw you and realized the lump on your face you had covered so carefully was almost as big as your face itself, and I looked past into eyes so full of life and impossibly joyful.  When I lie in my bed at night I remember you told me you had trouble breathing when you sleep, and I looked in your throat then and could not see an airway, only tumor and palate, and I wondered how you were breathing still.

My heart remembers you. 

I have often thought of the morning I unfolded a square of gauze on the rubber mat of the land rover floor, between the backpacks and baskets of food and guitars, and laid out the laboratory equipment in my island of clean white, when I pressed a lancet to your wrinkled finger and read your blood test in the main street as your whole village watched.

I saw them rejoice with you when we gave you the golden ticket: a patient card with your name and a screening date in four days.  I met your husband and your granddaughter and that man who translated for us from French to Pular.  I cannot remember his name...do you?  What do you remember of that sunny morning when we met?  What captures your heart in the darkness as you struggle to breathe?

When your screening date on ship came and went and you were not here, I asked what had happened to you and no one knew.  Did you forget to come?  When your surgery date arrived and you still had not, I wondered if a night had passed when you finally fell asleep and did not wake back up.  Were you lost and alone?  I looked for you but I did not see you.  I prayed for you...God sees you.

Now you are here and your voice has changed and you still struggle to breathe every night.  You tell me the Hope Center is a good place with plenty of milk to make you fat, and you pinch your arm proudly in display.  You look at me with a spark still in your weary eyes and ask me to take away the monster that pains and steals your breath.

I send you away with pillows to prop your head at night and paracetamol and a promise of hope.  Just a few more days, Halima, and the operating rooms will open again.  A few weeks only, and Insha'Allah you will no longer cover your face in shame.  After looking for the last month you have finally found us, and I welcome you with open arms. 

Hadiatou, the Girl With the Well-Loved Name

Hadiatou was born with a cleft lip, a condition so repugnant and frightening to the people in her village that they believed she should not be given a name. Even her father felt this way and refused to allow her to have the traditional baby naming ceremony.

Fatumata, the baby’s mother, remembers these early days all too well. “Ousaman, my husband, had a stone heart that made me very unhappy. I knew that God loved our daughter, so why didn’t he?” Even some sympathetic neighbors implored Ousaman to support his newborn daughter. But Ousaman refused to budge, forcing Fatumata to make a painful decision. She would hold her own ceremony to name her child. “It was very difficult to go against my husband, but our daughter was a human being, and I loved her. No matter her condition, she would have a name.” Fatumata prayed about a good name for her daughter, choosing “Hadiatou,” which means well-loved. She prayed that the love in this name would one day bring Hadiatou the healing she needed.

Despite her cleft lip, Hadiatou was a happy child who touched the hearts of her two brothers, Ousaman and Mamadou, with her unique smile. Fatumata recalls, “Hadiatou’s brothers always thought that Hadiatou was so courageous. They played with her and sang her songs to help her go to sleep.”

Hadiatou, true to her name of being well-loved, also softened her father’s heart. According to Fatumata, “There was something in Hadiatou’s courage that made Ousaman feel differently. While it still pained him to have a daughter with a deformity, he developed a grudging affection for her spirit. Instead of accepting insults about Hadiatou, he would speak up for her.”

While she prayed for God to help Hadiatou, Fatumata admits she was doubtful. “I did not know what caused Hadiatou’s cleft lip. No one in the village had a condition like this, so we all believed it was something that could not be fixed. I could not imagine that there were people who could treat something like this.”  

When Hadiatou was seventeen, something quite unexpected happened. Samba, a fine young farmer she met through her brother Mamadou, fell head over heels in love with her. Samba was drawn to Hadiatou’s kindness and her sense of humor. He saw great beauty in her eyes, and he knew Hadiatou was the wife God had made for him. Fatumata felt a stirring of hope for her daughter. If God sent Hadiatou a husband, maybe he would send her healing too!

When Hadiatou and Samba were blessed with a chubby baby boy, they talked about having a very special baby naming ceremony – to help make up for what Hadiatou missed. But suddenly, plans for the naming ceremony were put on joyful hold. Samba’s cousin Manay, three villages away, confided to Samba that their two-month-old son, Bubacar, had a funny lip like Hadiatou’s, but that a hospital ship in Conakry fixed it. Immediately, Samba borrowed the money needed for Hadiatou, her mother, and the baby to go to Conakry to Mercy Ships. Hadiatou and Fatumata were first taken to the HOPE Center for the weekend, until Hadiatou could be examined first thing Monday morning. Fatumata was overwhelmed by the reception they received.

On Monday, Hadiatou was given an appointment for surgery. And, by the end of the week, her cleft lip was repaired and on the mend. After two weeks of tender post-op care, she was ready to return home. As Hadiatou left the hospital for the last time, Fatumata turned to her and said, “Praise God for this miracle. Thanks to Mercy Ships we will have the most beautiful baby naming ceremony ever . . . with the most beautiful mother there is!”

Written by Joanne Thibault

Edited by Nancy Predaina

Photographs by  Debra Bell and Bright Effowe

Alya

Soriba sits on a stool at the end of an empty hospital bed with his arms folded across his green and blue striped shirt. His eyes are fixed on the door. He is waiting for news of Alya, his son, who has been in surgery for nearly three hours to remove a tumor from his small neck.

Across the narrow hallway of the hospital ship, Alya’s skilled volunteer surgeon, Dr. Neil, works diligently with OR nurses to finish up a successful surgery. “Incredible,” he says of Alya’s tumor, which had grown around his windpipe. “He was a few months away from suffocating from this.”

In his six short years, the tumor Alya has had on his neck since birth grew from the size of a quarter to the size of a potato. But today, because of Mercy Ships, there remains only a crescent-shaped scar, made up of a couple dozen stiches, where that tumor used to be.

Before surgery, Alya was teased by his friends for the
lump on his neck.  He as also out of breath and tired.

Now there is just a small incision
where the tumor used to be.

There is a sacred moment in the hospital wards of the Africa Mercy when a nurse tells a patient’s family member that the surgery was successful. Delivering this news is more than just giving an update – it is telling someone that their loved one’s life is forever changed. Mercy Ships ward nurse Rachel Greenland smiles as she approaches Alya’s father. “The surgery went very well,” she says. Soriba’s eyes flutter between Rachel and the translator as the message is relayed in his language, Susu.

“Everything went well. He hasn’t woken up yet, but he will soon,” Rachel says.

Sitting up a little straighter now, Soriba looks around the room. He smiles and in Susu announces to the ward, “My mind is free, my heart is happy!”

Another patient chimes in from a bed nearby, lifting his head to get a better view, as he says, “Let God bring these kinds of people every year in this country!”

“Amen!” says Soriba.

What had been hushed mumbles quickly turns to chatter from the surrounding patients and caregivers. “May God help them to bring healing for other illnesses we have here,” says a woman in the bed behind Soriba.

Soriba turns and holds up his hands, adding, “Amen. May there be healing for all.”

Four days later, a squirmy Alya sits on his knees at the end of his hospital bed, pulling on his father’s shirt. He is no longer the little boy who can’t catch his breath. He is no longer exhausted from his hindered breathing.

Alya proudly wears a red star sticker on the middle of his forehead and a huge smile on his face. Next to him, his father eyes the door – this time for a different reason.  Today, Alya finally gets to go home, and they are anxious to leave.

“Without this opportunity, we don’t have the means for surgery,” Soriba says. “Now I am happy; may you come every year.”

Written by Catherine Murphy

Edited by Nancy Predaina

Photos by Paul Millgate and Bright Effowe

A very merry Christmas indeed!

Blessed is what we were this morning!  For the past week or so, we've had an $18,000.00 bill for my ankle surgery hanging over our heads.  Now, it really wasn't quite that bleak - our insurance had sent us a check for $8900.00 so we really only owed around $9000.00.  Not knowing how we would ever come up with $90000.00, we turned it over to God.  Fast forward to this morning, Sam went to the Surgery Center to talk with their billing department while I took Matt upstairs for physical therapy on his ankle (do you sense an ankle thing going on at our house?).  It turns out there was a sheet we should have signed the morning of my surgery which we were never given that clarifies that they will accept the amount our insurance will cover minus our deductible.  $400.00 is a definite blessing compared to $9000.00 and we will now have a very merry Christmas indeed!  We hope you have a merry Christmas, too!  

Build-a-Tree Workshop

As the saying goes,  "Only in Africa . . ."

can you build a tree to celebrate Christmas!

 

More Christmas!

It's my festive foot!

The orange color is surgery residue - only 13 more days until it finally gets washed!

Can you imagine having this friendly face teach you?  

He said his kids loved it yesterday!  

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you from the Deck 3 Halls!

(Deck 3 is where the operating theatres and wards are.) 

Celebrating A Mighty KIng . . .

Who came as a babe . . . Isn't she beautiful?

Hopefully, one day, she'll join in the celebration of the King!

Life's Little Blessings . . .

It just last night that I reminded the kids of their cleaning chores - each had a bathroom to clean and a level to vacuum.  And they actually did it - quickly and without whining.  So why is that important?  Well, this morning I checked Reka's blog and discovered these two photos of bathrooms she was privileged to use in Guinea:

And all I can say is "Thank you, God, for the bathrooms we get to clean."  Amen.
  

Good news!

That's not the good news - but isn't it a great picture Reka took in Guinea?  Somehow, I think we might get in trouble traveling like that here in the States - not to mention, it could be a bit cold traveling during the winter!  Anyway, the good news is that Mercy Ships will be featured on "Sixty Minutes" somewhere between now and Christmas.  Filming took place before we arrived on the ship this summer.  Once I know the date, I'll let you know! 

Another story from the good ship . . .

While Deb isn't the nurse in the attached photo,  it is the right patient and it is Deb's story and as always, it is amazing!

My heart could burst!

During my night shift last week, I came into the ward to find a woman on the ventilator.  She had had quite a large tumour removed from her palate and a tracheostomy put in for her airway.  She wasn’t unstable or particularly sick post operatively but was a little too lazy to breathe on her own.

The following night, she was back in the ward, coping well with her trache and change of airway.  She spoke a language that wasn’t spoken by many of our translators, but she also wasn’t able to speak with her trache in. We were able to communicate well enough with her to meet her needs.

Over the following days, she recovered very well and at the beginning of my shift one day this week, it was time to remove the trache.  With a surgeon, ready with a scalpel to cut the sutures holding it to her skin and several nurses standing around ready, she sat wide eyed on a stool next to her bed.  With the swift motion, cutting the sutures and a gentle sweep of the wrist to pull out the trache, it was gone! The small hole in her neck gapped open as she took more breaths. Eyes still wide, pulse racing, nurses’ hands reassuringly resting on her, we told the translator to ask her to relax and just breathe normally.  Soon enough her wide eyes, calmed and she realised all of a sudden, this strange plastic tube in her neck was really gone! She was back to herself! Her smile spread ear to ear, almost as though her face would burst open with happiness.  She reached for every nurses and doctors hand, shaking it and murmuring her thanks.  We covered the small hole, letting it close over itself as it heals, and she stood to her feet.  One of our other patient’s mothers came over, and began to sing a song of praise and we stood around in a circle clapping along, as our dear patient danced, her arms raised high and her smile splitting all of our hearts open wide with joy! As she hugged every person she could reach, my heart danced. This, these moments, are exactly why I love my job here, where my heart could burst any moment because it just can’t contain any more joy!