Conquering Fanta's Fear

I've reblogged this must-read story from "Ainsworths in Africa".  Enjoy!

It must be a hard day at work if you’re a teacher afraid of children, a jockey afraid of horses, or even a nurse afraid of surgery. But that’s what 44 year old Fanta had become. Despite working in the medical field for over 17 years, she told me she was too frightened to have surgery to remove her 10 pound Lipoma tumor, which had grown to the size of a watermelon under her right arm. For nearly 10 years, she learned to strategically hide the tumor under draped shawls while she worked, refusing to have surgery to remove it: “How can I expect people to respect me as a nurse and not be scared themselves when I am too afraid to do anything about my own problem?”

Since she was a young girl, Fanta would see nurses at her local hospital in their blue uniforms taking care of people and she knew she wanted to be a nurse too. But after a long journey of hard work to get there, the past few years have seen her struggling to fit into the scrubs she’d longed to wear. As the benign tumor began to grow painfully large, she knew something had to be done.

 

However, working in a hospital only heightened her fears: “My colleagues told me I would die if I tried to have it removed, and that I had left it too long”. Her understanding and knowledge of surgery made things worse: “I see the surgeries, I see the blood and I hate the thought of not being in control of my own body”.

When she heard about Mercy Ships through her hospital, she was finally filled with hope instead of worry when consulted about her condition. “The nurses at the ship are so compassionate and loving. They kept reassuring me that everything was going to be more than okay- and something in me trusted them!”

It only took 3 hours of surgery aboard the Africa Mercy for Fanta to realize just how much her fear had held her back for the past decade. Her lighter arm and brighter face made her question why she had waited so long: “I can now lift my arms with ease! I will be able to dress like the other ladies at my hospital. My husband has already bought me some new fabric so I can made more dresses that show off my arms!”

For patients like Fanta, Mercy Ships removes more than just tumors. Her fear and anxiety were dispelled as quickly as her hope was restored.