Happy

Church at the same place as last week. This Sunday the service lasted 3 hours. There were many testimonies given, many in song. I enjoy the singing thoroughly, so I didn’t mind. Also, loads of adorable babies being passed around and toddlers playing in the aisles. The only way you knew who a baby truly belonged to is who finally took the baby out of church when it started screaming. Seriously. One man stood up to give a testimony and was holding a sleeping child… 3 minutes into his story a lady walks up and takes the child.. a few minutes later she wanted to give a testimony, so she passed the kid to the lady next to her. The lady next to her had to sing in the choir later, so she passed it on behind… I thought I was going to end up with a free baby and got excited, but it never got to me.

Allow me to try and paint a picture for you of particularly interesting woman who stood up to give a testimony. She had a vibrant traditional African orange dress on, with a fascinating pattern of horizontal stripes, green parrots, and a large triangle of gold glitter on the front. The amount of fabric required to cover her frame provided a clear view of all the details of the garment. She wore a neon pink head wrap, the top of which stood a good 8 inches above her head, and looked just like the tissue paper sticking up out a gift bag. This was also one of the women who would get up and go dancing amongst the choir members and throw money on the ground when the songs got exciting. I think I forgot to mention this little detail in my post about last church: The women in the audience make a sound like a mariachi band when they get excited or like the song a lot. I don’t know what it’s called, a trill, a yodel? There’s an elderly lady who kind of props herself up against the wall and looks like a broken hip waiting to happen. She does the sound most often. I need to take lessons from her so I can always travel with a Mexican band if I need a back-up career. Or I could be a travelling mariachi nurse. So many options.

Hospital was good on Monday, interesting. Staff meeting included one of the loudest arguments I’ve heard yet about the drug of choice for malaria. The 20 year old guy in a coma died over the weekend. No doctor had rounded on any of the patients for the weekend, so we were busy catching up. We were like discharge fairies on the pediatric ward. You get to go home on malaria meds and Tylenol, and you get to go home on malaria meds and Tylenol, and everybody gets to go home on malaria meds and Tylenol!

A 6 year old girl with a fractured femur still had her leg in traction. A different physician had decided against referring her to a hospital that can do the surgery. The physician I round with actually did an ultrasound and could see from the bone’s shadows that the bones weren’t quite aligned, so they realigned the traction, but she’s going to have a crooked leg when it heals. There is no portable x-ray here, but the ultrasound was better than guessing. The girl is very sweet natured and giggly, for having spent the last 4 days with her leg tied to the bed. Her name is Happy. I was talking to her and she started singing “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.” She doesn’t speak English, her mom doesn’t speak English… I’m not sure where she got the song from, but she’s adorable.

Happy!

 

I was checking a sweet 60 year old’s heart rate, and it was jumping from 50s to 90s, so I listened to her, the doctor listened to her, diagnosed her with atrial fibrillation. She had come in for a cough and shortness of breath, but her saturation was still 98%. I asked what we do if we suspect pulmonary embolisms or what kind of meds are available for a-fib. He said they have aspirin. Possibly digoxin, as that is usually available here. An EKG might be done later. We move on. A little while later, screaming erupts from down the hallway. She died. She could have thrown a clot, she could have gone into a lethal arrhythmia… God only knows. Abnormal heart rhythms here are bad news because of very limited treatments available.

A kiddo with asthma needed a spacer for his inhaler… they made one out of a saline bottle. Inventive.

The doctor did eight ultrasounds after rounds. One lady had twins kicking around in her tummy! She was so thrilled, it was awesome.

After we finished at the hospital, we went shopping to go get a voltage stabilizer/converter for the new oxygen concentrator a church sent. Eight stores later… we finally found one. There’s no Home Depot here. You just go from little shop to little shop and ask who might have one. After that, I went with two other American women to a different market to find fabric and vegetables. It only took us five shops to get the fabric and two stalls for the veggies. You know, there are times in life when you just have to accept that blending in is absolutely impossible. For example, when you’re white and in a market in Africa.

These types of dresses are actually worn.

Inside the vegetable part, where it's actually dark and not hot

 

The power has been going off multiple times a day recently. It’s a little rough on some of our friends on oxygen because the convertors just shut off. There’s no back-up power or generator at the hospital. The fans in the ward don’t work anyways, so power doesn’t affect the work otherwise.

The power went off last night at the house and I went for the matches and candles. My hosts, who are around my parents’ age, went for their phones. Generation gap.

At the beach I heard a mom calling for her child multiple times who was busy playing in the waves. When she finally got her attention she said "Do you know how many times I called your name? I need you to be listening for me calling your name, even when you're having fun. I may need to tell you something important to keep you safe."

I looked around for someone to draw a spiritual lesson out of that for me, but I was the only one who had heard. So here you go:

How many times does God have to call my name for me to hear Him? How closely am I listening, even when I'm having fun?

Thank you wonderful people for all your encouragement!