Another week has flown by.....

Here is a quick list of the things that have happened in the last week:

• T began eating solid food (well “soft foods without rice”), and he LOVES it! 
• I was scolded yesterday by him for not visiting on Saturday since I have visited EVERY single day since he was admitted. It broke my heart to walk in, and first thing have him ask through motions why he didn’t see me yesterday?  It was humbling to realize how taking those 10 minutes out every day really does mean something, even if it is just to play a game, hold a hand, or give a backrub. I apologized from the bottom of my heart, told him how wonderful he looked, he forgave me and then beat me at several games of cards to prove his point.... 
• T was promoted to move to bed #2 because he is no longer the patient on the unit requiring the most observation--success!
• I learned how to make rice cereal (because African food is too spicy for a mouth that hadn’t eaten food in 2 years)
• I finished my training as a charge nurse on the ward and made it through my first two evening shifts as a manager/helper/fellow nurse/resource/leader to my friends and patients
• I learned that a can of Coca-Cola contains approximately the same amount of Phosphorus as a can of Ensure. --Mr. T is very happy about this one!
• I’ve been able to see a ton of former patients both at the Hope Center and in the Outpatient Tent. It’s such a joy to see familiar faces, ones that you wish you could keep tabs on for years to come. 
• I attended my first African football game! It was amazing, crazy fun, very sweaty, and our crew team beat a local team!
• After a long weekend of family hangouts several friends all packed their bags and headed home to various continents.
• My bunkmate and I moved from the front cubby to the back of our cabin, literally doubling our sleeping space. Wall to wall we now have about 5.5 feet by 7 feet instead of  5.5X5.5 
• Even though it insanely hard saying goodbye to people who have gotten so close, it has its perks.  I am unashamed to say that you get great stuff as parting gifts!  A few of my favorites have been bottles of lotion, clothing, shoes, and other miscellaneous things your friends don’t want to lug home. 
• After saying a bunch of goodbyes I was homesick for the first time since arriving on this big white ship.....
• And this is the one I want to leave you with. For the last two days I have had the honor of helping a fellow crew member from Sierra Leone apply for college in the United States! For me, that experience was ushered along by my parents. But who do you turn to when you have had to fight for every single thing you have ever had? We are the same age, but I have not experienced even 1/8th of the things he has. I have never had to face insane poverty, civil war, homelessness, abandonment, and all the other things that come with being born into a third world country. It left me thinking, if you take away the country in which I was born, the parents to whom I was born, the people who have impacted my life and steered me along the “right” path what would be left? What is at the core of me as a human? What would my life look like? Would I have the strength to fight for a future, or would I succumb to what is easy- drugs, corruption, and all the other things poverty goes hand in hand with. What would that look like for me, a path so far from my story? I would love to say “YES”, I am a fighter and I would conquer it!  But would I? Would I have a story like Papanie’s, going from living on the streets, abandoned by his only family to finishing a top five prestigious secondary school in Sierra Leone 12th out of a class of 75? So as I leave you tonight I want you all to also cheer alongside Papanie-- who as of a few hours ago is a College applicant! You can read more of his story here: http://www.mercyships.org/blog/entry/a-joy-to-work-with

A beautiful voice......

T got his tracheostomy out today!! This is a HUGE accomplishment just 6 days after his surgery. He has a fantastic voice, and after weeks of silence and years of being hardly understood his speech is fantastic! He kept forgetting that he could speak early in the day nodding his head for answers, but by night he was coming up with things to say just to hear himself. It probably helped that each time he spoke we all started cheering, happy to hear his beautiful, husky, deep man voice. I teared up a bit when he called my name out, overjoyed to hear his voice call out “Annah” and to think of how far he has come. Had this ship not come to Guinea he would surely be dead by now, and here he sits in front of me healing at an amazing rate. When I told him that he was healing so quickly he would be leaving us in no time, he told me simply to just come home with them. I told him I wish I could, but I don’t think that could happen, I have a job to do here for all the other patients like him. I told him maybe I could come to visit? He was so excited at the idea-- so maybe before I leave in April I will be making the trek up to the Senegal border to visit this guy who has become family. I can’t lie, It makes me really excited to think about! To see him as he continues to heal, and to see his home would be wonderful. His skin will continue to fall back into place over the next year where it has been stretched to the brink over the last 5. We have to leave some of the extra skin, so that when nature takes over and tries to bring back in the loose skin we don’t end up stretched in the wrong direction. Dr. Gary knows this from years of removing large tumors, that if you take too much making it look better up front, you pay in the long run with skin stretched thin over the facial bones. I demonstrated this with my own face, and I must have looked pretty silly, because he laughed, shaking his head at me as he so often does. One little thing, that seems pretty small when I say it, but really touched me tonight was that he saw me messing with my ear and a few of the other nurses looking at it. I have a piercing that I bumped yesterday and it had a bit of bleeding forming a nice little scab.  He pulled me over, made me to sit down, and he wanted to check in out. Asking what had happened and if he could do anything for me. He checked back on me two more times over my shift-- asking how my ear was feeling. It was just a powerful reminder to see him worried over me, at something so little and silly. It once again puts all my “first world problems” into perspective as I look into the beautiful face of a man who has stared down deaths door, and won. 

Photos!

Just thought I would share a few photos with you all from onboard the Africa Mercy-- have a great start to your week!

A cute little one with whiskers after we repaired her cleft lip

My very favorite teenage girl on board.....We are in the process of making her a nose!

My favorite little guy "L" before he left us a few weeks ago

A few nurses, a dayworker, a caregiver, and a long term patient before he left. Can you tell we are family?

L biting some bubbles--- doesn't he look like a pirate?

Two of my roomies and I out to dinner

 A sunset family dinner on deck 8

Playing cards during our outside time

A super cute munchkin was my helper

Jenga is a crowd favorite and a new essential on the ward

An update for T

As promised- I would LOVE to take a few minutes of your time and update you all to how “T” is doing. The beginning of this week were super emotional for all involved. It was hard to pour out all the love you had in you caring for this guy, taking him up to watch the sunsets and kick around a football knowing what the reality of Wednesday was. I left work after night shift Wednesday morning not really knowing how to leave things. So I said, I’ll see you tonight, he promised me a smile when I came back to work after his surgery, I told him to stay strong and that I believed in him. I walked away, tears in my eyes hoping that I would in fact see him that night. I went to sleep, waking up a few times throughout the day to send up a quick prayer for all those involved in the operating room. At 5pm I got up and couldn’t muster the courage to walk over to the ward alone. I decided instead to head up to the cafeteria, hoping that someone would be up from the ward on their dinner break. The first person I saw when I walked in was Deb, one of our  long term crew and charge nurses on the ward. She threw up a thumbs up and told me he still had about 2 hours left in his case but that all was well! I clapped my hands and smiled ear to ear, full of joy. That evening I had a one hour slot in which I had signed up for to pray for him.  It was the 6-7pm slot--the same time in which I had spent the previous two evenings with him. I sat out on the deck, watching the sun set, and I prayed for all of his days and for how deeply he had impacted all of us. He touched us not only with his story, or the way he faced his illness, but with the way just by existing he forced us all to think of our lives. How we should strive each day to be better, to do more, to make every day count, and question how we would act knowing the end could be near. It is heavy, and things he has taught me will stay emblazed on my heart forever. Wednesday night after getting to work I somehow felt silly for being so concerned with his surgery. I felt silly that I didn’t just believe that he would come through but focused too much on the medical facts. What does that say of my faith? He came through it with flying colors, doing better then any of us could have ever imagined. It is hard to remember looking at him that his entire blood volume was replaced, almost three times. That 9 people gave blood for him, essentially replacing all of his own blood, and that he was at the hands of a surgeon for 8 hours. That night he just kept reaching up, touching where his tumor had hung down to his chest, and writing to ask if it was all gone. Yes, I joyfully told him each time, It’s gone, we saved your eye, and in a few days once all the swelling has gone down we can undo the tight bandages you can see your new face. His biggest complaint is that his ankles and legs hurt, stiff from being immobile for such a long case. All night I just sat, rubbing his feet hoping to alleviate some of the pain in order to let him rest. It reminded me of times in my childhood when my knees would hurt so bad from growing pain. I would lay and cry and my Mom and Dad would just rub my legs until I could rest, staying up late themselves in order to comfort their child who they loved so much. So there I sat, managing all of his ICU monitoring devices, but really the best part of it was that I got to just be with him, rubbing his feet and letting him know that we were all still here, caring and loving him. Hoping that by rubbing I could somehow infuse into him my hopes for his life, that by osmosis he could feel my love and his worth. The next day he requested to leave the ICU. He wanted to go back to his own bed, be with all the other people of the ward in loving community. By the time I came on shift he was walking to the bathroom with a lot of assistance, being shorter than him I was the perfect height for him to wrap an arm around and lean on during the walks. Each time, before he got back in bed he would do some leg stretches, then curl up, and let me stuff pillows around him to make his skinny body comfortable. Looking at him it’s easy to see how well he’s doing, to celebrate his victory, and to cheer him on to a full recovery. He has seen his imminent death and conquered it because of what Mercy Ships has been able to do for him. I am in awe of the life I have been called to, insanely grateful for the gift that I have been given by faithful supporters like you.... To live here on a hospital ship in West Africa, to have a hand in changing lives, and through these experiences be transformed myself every single day. 

Joy! Joy! Joy!!!!!

Thank you all for the prayers! I just got off night shift (its 730am here) and I am thrilled to report that T did amazing! He surpassed all expectations that we had for him, he truly is a miracle. He came out of the OR after an 8hour case not even requiring the ventilator for support. I had the honor of caring for him last night, and he was rock solid stable. He has some pain control issues, and his joints unfortunately are very achey from laying flat for that long, but he is a pretty happy camper. Everything is looking up for him-- we are not out of the woods yet, but praise the Lord! I will update you all later to our last few days together. Thank you for your prayers! Both T and myself are so grateful for your support and love!

He needs you.....

Here is what is on my heart today as I sit down after my shift. I had another day to take care of the bravest guy I know, “T”. Our morning began with him clapping to get my attention a towel clamped over his face. His tumor had ruptured open, again, this time in a different spot. There was blood pouring out in fine steady stream, I grabbed a dish to collect it in, but not before it was on the floor, on his sheets, his gown, and the towels. About 100mls came out before it stopped- no this doesn’t seem like alot, but when its blood straight out of the tumor on your face it’s scary. The upside is that he feels alot better after this happens, it actually relieves some pressure! We had a great day and he even went to ward service with me to spend some time worshiping and dancing. Our afternoon was spent out on Deck 7. After all the other patients have left after their allotted hour the two of us always stay. This gives him time to stretch, exercise, and sit in the peace and quiet of the outdoors gazing onto the horizon ocean as far as you can see. The last two days he began doing pushups against the railing of the ship. Of course I jumped it, thinking this can count as my workout right? Brother did 50 pushups in a row, I may or may not have been sweating! Today he did 5 sets of 20 of varying types. I was corrected more than once because I was placing my arms incorrectly. I think he secretly loved teasing me that I was wrong because when I told the other nurses about it back down on the ward he was smiling ear to ear. It’s wonderful to spend my days with him, but every time I stop moving its suffocating to think of the reality. Today may have been “T”’s last Sunday and his first and last ward service. Tomorrow he may begin his last week. Wednesday may be his last day on this earth. The risks are infinite going into his surgery, one wrong move and he could bleed out or have a stroke, his body may just be unable to handle the stress of the operation. I pray that neither of those things happens and that we can remove the tumor and change his life. Because we use crew members as blood donors we begin the process tomorrow of prepping 10 crew members for his big day. He will take 2 infusions straight before surgery. They will be fresh, literally still warm from the donor in order to have the clotting factors on our side. 6 more will have already given in preparation for the OR and then 2 more will give as they are closing in order to give him more of the factors he needs. It is all hands on deck for his case and I know that Dr. Gary Parker is the best man for this case. He has operated on many cases just like this and is the most kind, compassionate, and skilled surgeon I have ever worked with. But it’s hard, my heart aches, I am so physically aware of what can happen. It’s consuming, my desire for God to heal him. I know that it is possible, that of all places it could happen here on this hospital ship in West Africa. I just ask each one of you to please pray for him. Please send up a few thoughts in the next few days and especially on Wednesday as he heads in for surgery. It’s a difficult place to be knowing that you need so much faith for him, but in the back of your mind preparing yourself in case the worst happens. I’m here in yet another situation that I just cannot fix. I can’t change it, I can’t save him, this is where I shrink and God has to take over. He has a plan for “T”, whether or not it’s one I want. So  today I hand it over to the one who can change it for “T”. I give Him my entire heart. I owe Him my full faith, I owe Him my desperate prayers. I will deal with Wednesday afternoon when it arrives, but for now all I can do is pray. Please join me- he needs you.....

So there is this patient....

I promised I would tell you all about him, and I will do my very best although I know my words cannot do him justice. We will call him “T”. Attached is the only picture I have of him, it is from the screening day. Since then his tumor has grown significantly.  For now this other one will do to allow you to see the man who is just pulling on all our hearts. Just looking at this picture you can see the large lump on his face, what you cannot see beneath the bandana that he constantly wears is that his tumor actually protrudes from his mouth stretching the skin until it reaches down to his chest. What you cannot see in this picture is his bony body. He has gained a few pounds and is now up to 49kg, but how much of that is tumor weight we cannot be sure. His thigh is about the size of my upper arm and I can count every bone in his rib cage. What you cannot see is that we have to feed him small amounts and often, cautious that we could actually cause harm if we re-nourish him too quickly (and he is NOT happy about this--I mean who wants to feel hungry?)  What you cannot see in this picture is that he has terribly kind eyes and a sense of humor. What you cannot see in the picture is the way he works, pushing himself to the limits in order to get better. He is an exercising machine and puts the rest of us to shame. He uses a 1/2 liter bottle of saline for weights, and does at least 200 arm curls a day. Yesterday evening I was asking him about his weight lifting for the day and through motions he told me he had exercised his legs, but that he hadn’t done his arms. When I asked why he motioned he couldn’t because he didn’t have a bottle. I tried to hand him one and he stopped me, it was only half full. He wanted a FULL bottle to do weights with......well excuse me Mr. T I said, I shall get you a full one. He laughed (as much as one can laugh with a tracheostomy. Because you cannot make sound --all you get is the silent motion of laughter.) What you don’t see here is that even with being outcast for 5 years he still has a heart for children and the affection of other people. The kiddos here somehow have an amazing peace with him. They don’t run afraid, but actually come to him. To give him a high five, shake his hand, or just sit next to him with one of us. He plays with babies and you can see the desire in his eyes for one to call his own, maybe this will happen for him one day....maybe. He is kind of brilliant and beats everyone at checkers, chess, cards, and truly wishes we had books here for him to pass the time. What you can’t see are the pictures his mother has shared of him prior to the tumor when all he worried about were football and fun. What you don’t know is that his mother describes him as a “light” to all those around him, constantly working to improve his surrounding and help the future generations. What you can’t see is that even on his best days when his mood is at its prime, he still gets anxious. When he gets anxious he also gets stubborn, but really what control does he have right now? I cannot imagine what it is like to live each day knowing that this surgery is your only hope. That even with this surgery you may not make it. To know that you will go into a surgery next week that you may never come out of. But for him, there is no other option. He either goes for the surgery and takes the gamble or will surely die a slow suffocating malnourished death. How would you live knowing that essentially your days are numbered? How do you spend the last week you may be alive? How can anyone ever do enough for you? It has been hard to watch him, but I cannot imagine taking an ounce of my care back. I will be wrecked if his outcome is not what I pray for--but I will know that I did everything in my power to show him love. To show him his worth, and to show him that people care. I know that God has used him so much to change my heart and maybe, just maybe I am being used to change his. I have earned his trust, and even tonight as I was training to become a charge nurse he congratulated me. We are invested in each others lives-- every time he coughs we all jump, ready to suction him if he needs it. He gives us a “stay” motion, or a “come” motion. It truly is a charade that somehow works. We try so hard to keep him calm, distracted, but naturally it just creeps up sometimes. How could it not? For now I will leave you with a snapshot of our moment the other day. I ask that you will keep him in your thoughts and prayers, and pray that God will bring him through this surgery for his glory. 

Friday T blessed us all with a glimpse of God’s beauty and peace. The patient life team here on board is made up of 8 locals who visit the wards, provide worship time, and play games with the patients. They come in about 10am every day to sing, strum a guitar and beat a drum to the African beat. There are some songs that we do daily with little dance motions and some that are newer to us all. The patients love this time, and I think I may love it a little more. Its a time for dance, to tie a kiddo on your back, get people out of bed and moving to the sounds of their normal life away from this ship. On Friday the team was playing a song I had never heard before. The words were simply this, “Every day I wake and see the rising of the sun, and I say Thank you Lord, Thank you Lord”. We started with a fast beat, moving about and dancing, clapping, just repeating the words over and over. As I was going around grabbing kiddos and adults out of bed convincing them to dance I walked by T’s bed and held out a hand to him. To my surprise he reached out, took off his monitoring devices and blood pressure cuff and got out of bed. He came with me around the corner to where it was all happening and joined me in dancing. The joy in the room was uncontainable. Every one was clapping, dancing, cheering him on. It was a HUGE day for his spirits and beautiful to see. At one point he turned me towards him and started dancing with me in a ballroom fashion--laughter filled the room and again, the joy in his face was overwhelming. We continued dancing for awhile and then slowed it down to a harmonious wail. There really wasn’t a dry eye in the room, tears streaming down peoples face as the presence in the room was so heavy. It was a beautiful moment, one that is imprinted in my mind-- I am simply unable to put it into words.  After awhile, he motioned he needed to go back to bed and he sat there exhausted, spent by his morning. I can’t tell you enough, but what I can tell you is that I am convinced that God is working in this place, smiling down at his children and changing our hearts.