Someone from home has asked me if every day is as good as I make them sound on the blog, and asked me if I ever have a bad day. The honest answer is yes, there are some bad days, but they are so few I can count them on one hand. Thank the Lord!
The wards have been busy. I am still alternating between A ward and B ward. This week I was only on B ward which currently has a nice mix of plastics patients and general surgery patients. I generally have 5 – 7 patients during the shift and that usually includes a few dressing changes. Plastics dressing changes can be very tedious. Meticulous care has to be taken with the graft sites and sterility of the sites must be maintained since they are susceptible to infection. It also requires, at times, more than one nurse to do the dressing change, one who assists to help maintain sterility. This, as a result, sometimes leaves only one nurse on the ward to care for the other 19 patients. It can get busy and overwhelming at times, but the atmosphere is still wonderful.
This week, I experienced a heart wrenching experience. We have a patient on the ward who had burn contracture releases done on her neck, axilla and arm. Her axilla and arm graft sites and her donor site became infected and she was now requiring twice a day dressing changes with vinegar soaks as treatment for the infection. Having been assigned to her, I only had 4 patients, because her dressing change can take a few hours. This was my first experience with vinegar soaks on the infected wound, and it hadn’t occurred to me how painful it could be. She now was getting premedicated not only with pain medication but with an antianxiety medication as well. The surgeon wanted all three of her sites to be changed at once so he couldl visualize them to assess whether they had improved enough to regraft. As I was removing the old dressings, she started to cry from the pain of the dressings coming off the raw infected wounds. I couldn’t bare to know I was causing her that much pain. I had another nurse and a day volunteer with me- one to hold her arm which had to remain close to 90 degrees from her body and the other to help me stay sterile. After the surgeon saw the wounds, I then began to apply the vinegar soaks. She was screaming and crying and begging me to stop. It was awful. Its hard to believe that something so painful can be doing any good. I have to wonder what else we can use for the infected wounds rather than something so caustic as vinegar. She asked me to stop and then asked me to pray. She then asked the other nurse to pray as we moved on to the other sites. By the end, two and a half hours later, she thanked me and thanked God for all the nurses and the doctors. I don’t understand. I was causing her so much pain, yet she was so greatful. This experience really took a toll on me. Causing someone that much pain just doesn’t seem right, even when in the situation, it is what is best. I teared up many times during the dressing change and prayed that God would take away her pain. I can only pray for her as she continues to go through these dressing changes daily, for strength and for decreased suffering as she experiences this.
The people here have suffered so much. And yet they are the most grateful, most appreciative people I have ever come in contact with. Many of them, when you ask them how they are doing, simply respond, Tell Papa God tenki, meaning “tell God thank you.” They have suffered in their lives and in the war, and they still find it in their hearts to thank God for each new day and for every situation they encounter. I find myself ungrateful for the smallest things but am reminded that all things come from the Lord, both the good and what may sometimes feel like bad.
Other than this dear heart, the ward and patients are great! I had seven patients yesterday, one of which was a fistula patient. This outreach we aren’t doing VVF fistula repairs but we had a 6 year old with rectovaginal fistula, which we did repair. I also cared for a 10 year old who had a ureteral stricture from pelvic trauma in a MVA a few years back. She was living with a suprapubic tube. After we removed her urinary catheter yesterday and she voided for the first time since the accident on her own, the joy she had was unexplainable. She couldn’t stop smiling and every time she went, she would make sure I knew and would keep count. J Oh the little things we take for granted.
I enjoy work and I enjoy connecting with the patients. I enjoy spending time with them both in the hospital and at the Hope Center. God is doing great work here in Sierra Leone. I have been praying about His will for my life after this outreach and my time here ends. Some have asked me to return for the outreach in Togo, which I’m praying about. Please pray with me as I seek the Lord’s mind for His will for my life.
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