Best Day Yet

10 February, 2011

Today I woke to the most beautiful singing. It is market day and people are the up early (as in earlier than usual) for the best day of the week. Market day is every six days, so it rotates and I hear it is quite the experience.

Today is also bittersweet because Dr. Nick and Bryn left at 3:30 this morning to go back to the land of daily temperatures not found on an oven. It has been so wonderful having them here for personal reasons but more importantly, they have done heaps of good for the people of Saboba. In the time they were here, they performed 68 surgeries. Impressive.

Though I will be alone now and will miss them, it will be good for me as I have spent much of my time with them. I will learn what it is to depend on God as never before because the option of leaning on the familiar is boarding a plane at this very moment. It has officially begun…

SO, with that being said, I’m ready to start the day. I will do rounds with Dr. Young and possibly work in the lab today if there are no surgeries. There is a case of osteomyolitis in which part of the bone has become infected and died that we will do soon. I am very excited to see this even though it will be gruesome as it involves a hammer and a chisel.

Yesterday I scrubbed in again with Dr. Nick for another hernia removal. He left me partially close the incision yesterday…. Completely inexperienced girl with a sharp needle, mostly unconscious patient… you just have to laugh. Dr. Morris was SO kind to me as he gave his best to instruct me. I’m telling you, this beats any text book or lecture. This is the way I learn. Dr. Young has LOADS of books at the house, which supplements what I see in surgery very nicely. Dr. Nick and Bryn left me with sutures and the appropriate tools behind to practice my stitching. I will rock this part of PA school if it’s the last thing I do.

I wish you could have witnessed the faces of the OR boys yesterday when Dr. Nick and Bryn gave them goodbye gifts- scrub caps made here that Bryn’s seamstress made out of one she had shown her- they are SO talented!!) and shirts of Dr. Nick’s. They absolutely loved them!! We got videos of it, which is great because they were so happy, they danced.

I asked Richard, the nurse anesthetist, if this Is what they usually experience when groups come through. He quickly threw up his hands and said there had never been a group like this before as Dr. Nick and Bryn have made such a sincere effort to befriend each of them. He said we were something special. I think that is so great, and will of course continue deepening our friendship.

I made the mistake of teaching them how to whistle yesterday, so now I hear a “wooWOOO!!” when I walk by. It still catches me off guard and I spin are wondering who just did that, and then I remember I am in Ghana and it’s ok… and that I was the one to taught them that. We always end up laughing. Gosh I love these people.

Off to do rounds with the doctor. There is a six year old little girl brought in late last night with a serious case of typhoid, making a necessary operation impossible. What is even more heart-breaking is that her sweet father just lost his wife weeks ago. It broke Dr. Young’s heart. Please pray for her to heal.

I hope you are well and I can’t tell you how much I love hearing from you all!

P.S. Yesterday I also handwashed all my underwear in a bucket. Welcome to Africa!

Part II (I thoght I posted the first part this morning. Sorry this is long!)

Great day today!!

-I worked in the laboratory today and I cannot tell you how good it felt to be knowledgeable about something and significantly contribute. If any of you are reading from St. Pete’s, you would roll over and die if you saw what they do in that lab. It’s one giant hazard, but they don’t know any better and it works for them. So, in typical Ghana fashion, I went with it and had a great time. I was very grateful for all that I had learned previously because for the first time since I have been here, I almost… kind of knew what I was doing!

New additions to the cast of characters:

   -Nelson and Emery. They are the ones I worked with in the lab today and I know we will be great friends. They were both so thrilled that I was there and could assist them. Nelson and I tagged teamed drawing blood and processing the specs. He would teach me something and would get SO excited when I got it right. Lol- you just can’t be in a bad mood in Ghana. Emery is the first “hopeless romantic” I have met here... I have been waiting for this haha! I have a very anthropological side of me and am always fascinated by relationships in other cultures, but I do not want to get myself into trouble so I have been careful in my investigation. But if someone volunteers information, well hey! Let’s talk! So Emery is 29 and will marry in June to a girl who waited FOUR years to finally yes to his proposal!! And she lives in Accra, which is on a good day, a 14 hour bus ride. He is a very solid Christian guy and is super committed to doing things the right way. I was impressed. He was checking blood smears for malaria, stopped and leaned my direction, and says in hushed tones, “I told her some time ago, that the next time I saw her, I would give her a kiss.” My heart skipped a beat. He was going to see her this weekend!! But I was also confused and couldn’t help but blurt out, “So you have NEVER kissed her??” He looked back into the microscope, “oh no no we have never shared a kiss.”  How precious is that lol?  So today I got to talk of love, long distance relationships and malaria. Can’t beat that.

I worked there all morning, rocking out to Ghana music and then poked my head in to see how the Sistas were doing… Stella and Margaret, the midwives. They are great and have perfect names for their personality and figures lol. They have been very good to me. I have seen 3 of 4 babies born here but I have never been a part of the whole process until today. There was a girl who had just went into the delivery room seconds before I got there, so Stella taught me how to examine and monitor her dilation. The girl was strong, but this was her first baby so she didn’t really know what to do. Good thing for Stella, “DO  NOT CRY!! YOU DO NOT HAVE TIME TO CRY! YOU MUST POOSH!!” I took the more gentle “good job, I really hope you speak English, hand-holding approach. When that little baby came flyin’ out, and we cut his umbilical cord and cleaned him off, I got to hold him. I’m smiling just thinking about it again. What a miracle. He was perfect too. Strong and smooth and happy to be out of the oven. Stella and Maragaret were laughing at me, as were the other two nurses came in because I was so excited. They wanted to take a picture with me and the baby, and luckily I had my camera, and I am so thankful I have those pictures. Dr. Young says it best, “It’s like Christmas with live presents.”

Also, this afternoon I got to experience Market Day. What a fiasco that is!! People are everywhere selling the most random things you can think of- hair dye, suitcases, animal hair, shoes, fabric, veggies, bags, bananas, machetes… it was totally awesome. And what’s more awesome is that I was the ONLY white face in a black sea and I didn’t even notice until my sweet escort, Pastor Jonah, pointed that out. With Bryn and Dr. Nick gone, we went from 5 to 3J Side note- walking through town with Jonah is like walking down town with a celebrity. Everyone knows him and loves him. I told him he was what we call a “really big deal.” He thought that was very funny.

THEN… tonight, I was invited to the worship team’s practice at Pastor Jonah’s church, which was hilarious. One of them wanted me there in hopes that I could teach some piano lessons. So random- but I did have the pleasure of teaching an 18 year old named Enoch, who had never touched a keyboard until tonight, scales in the key of C, D and F. Maybe he’ll be a rock star someday and touch the whole world with his music…

So, it is bed time in Saboba and the closing of the greatest day yet has come. I will be serenaded by singing as a funeral is going on for the next few days. I hope you are all well. Again, I love love love hearing from you all.

I know that a smile and a wave don’t result in a throng of children following you in the U.S, but it still means something. Shad wrote in a back he gave me for my trip that “the shortest distance between two people is a smile.” I could not agree more. Put a little Ghana in your day and try it out as much as you can today and I guarantee, it will bring you joy.

Coming soon… “A Surgical Removal of Pieces of Dead Bone” starring a hammer and a chisel!

Much love to you all.