Ectopic

I have had my nose in lots of books since I have been in Ghana. I am starting to feel a little bit like those people who ride ponies, paint and read all the time and I really like it! I have read about Ghana, the Konkombas and other tribes, medical books, a Dirk Pitt story (yes please) and National Geographic, but I will be honest. I am really needing a 10 on the sappy scale that does not require me to think.

Enter Dr. Jean. This woman reads more than any human I have ever observed and she flies through books. There are shelves and shelves of books in this house. She loaned me probably more novels than I will be able to read, which I appreciated, but I like to read a few at a time in case one doesn’t quite suit my mood at the time.

I opened the first one, read the last page as I usually do. Those of you that think I just defied the cardinal rule of reading- chill. I forget it after page 2 anyway. I just have to know if there is a kiss on the last page.
Here was the opening line of Firefly Beach, “The house smelled like Christmas cookies. Butter, sugar, ginger and spice. The aroma filled….”

I slammed the front cover. I cannot read about food. I just can’t. And Christmas! I love Christmas- family, songs, SNOW… Oh what I would give to not be in 120 degree weather right now in a pool of cold water on a mountain!

 I tossed that one aside and grabbed the next one off the pile. Summer Light. This looks sappy enough. Back page? No kiss but there was talk of wedding. Right on.

I settled back down into my reclined position, ready for escape, but escape to a place that did not make me aware of what I do not have right now.

“The lake was so deep it had no bottom. When it froze, the ice was thirty feet deep. Mountains rose to the north…”

Are you serious?! I sat straight up. What kind of sick joke was this? Honestly. Here I am, trying to maintain my cravings for cooler temperatures and familiar food, in this foreign land and I just can’t get a break!

I know for a fact I heard God quietly chuckle as I stomped out of my room to stick my head in the freezer. 

We lounged around the rest of the afternoon, ate dinner and went Pastor Jidoh’s. He told me he was having trouble with his lap top connect to the only wireless hotspot in Sababa- the World Vision Headquarters. Being the super techy person that I am, I thought I would look at it for him and tell him what little I know. However, the little I know is a whole lot around here, so yes, I guess I am super techy.

We always show up at their dinner time and they always insist that we eat. Bob likes to eat early, so when we go on evening visits we usually appear around supper time. I have said this before, but I am so thankful that “No thank you” is a perfectly acceptable thing to say here.

Pastor Jidoh, though sick with typhoid, hasn’t skipped a beat. He had Kristi and I laughing so hard last night. We were telling him about the conversation we had with Joe about eating dog. I forgot to mention to you then that they are the one Ghanaian family who names their dogs as if they are pets but still eats them. Most recently, their dog Faith was served as the main course. Faith?!

Their mangy little mut sauntered over to us like it knew we were talking about its friends.

“Do  this one have a name?” Kristi asked.

They rattle off something in Konkomba in unison.

“It means ‘In God’s timing’ like in God’s timing we will eat it!”

This is too much. I didn’t bring my big camera otherwise I could have caught this whole conversation on film, because it only got more comical.

Kristi was explaining to him that we do not eat our dogs and they are treated  better than we treat other humans sometimes! “People will spend hundreds of dollars just grooming them”, Kristi explained.

Note: Thank goodness she is a Texas farm girl so we can rule ourselves out of all over-bearing American categories.

Naturally, our audience was floored by this bit of information. That’s when Pastor Jidoh decided that upon our return to America, he will follow with an application to be a pet groomer in the States.

“I’ll wash it nice and clean and bath it. And when it dies, I will give it a very nice burial with a little coffin. I will bury the dog in my stomach and bury the coffin in the ground and they’ll never know!”

I was doubled over laughing. Ghana humor. I will get him talking on video so you can see how funny he is and how animated he is when he talks. He always cracks himself up too.

What really made this conversation great is that even though we had did not take their kind offer for dinner, Pastor Jidoh had Joe go get us bread, eggs and tea because he knows how much I love those things. I felt almost embarrassed because he did NOT need to do this but he said he just loves our company so much and that God has blessed him so much, it’s the least he can do. This man has forever changed my few on hospitality.

My phone rang as we were chatting over egg sandwiches and pineapple tea, the ideal meal at 9:30 at night. It was Dr. Jean, and she wanted to talk to Kristi. She was questioning her on a patient she had seen that morning on rounds and I felt her mood change even though her voice stayed even. Reader’s Digest version: we had to rush a woman in suspected sickle cells crisis into surgery to hopefully save her insides from a complete blood blockage.

To add to the complexity of this situation, labs showed the woman’s hemoglobin to be 2.2, which is hardly life-sustaining and she was heading into a rather messy surgery where she would lose more. Recall the blood bank situation here- there is none and people do not like to donate their blood. They will if they get money out of it, but also I think there is a general lack of education here and they simply don’t understand that you are literally giving someone life when you give your blood.

Kristi and I felt helpless. There has to be some way to get this woman blood. He family had gone to look for donors and we hastily went through the hospital, asking nurses what type they were. I do not want to portray that the nurses, of all people, were not willing, but some were not. Not unless they were paid. This is beyond my comprehension and I was at the point where I though a quiver of verbal darts to throw, it was a waste of my time. Luckily, Kristi managed to find two nurses in the male ward and I had called my friend Moses, bless his heart, who sleeping to come.
In the middle of our walk to the lab, the power went out and it was the blackest black I have ever seen in my life. WHY NOW? I looked towards the direction of the theater, only to see a thick curtain of darkness.

I knew that Dr. Jean, the seasoned veteran,  had her head lamp just in case, but the woman on the table needed all the help she could get and surgery in a sea of ebony was not helping.  

“God please… ”

There is a generator in the theater, but as with most things here, it doesn’t work. The lights needed to come on. I felt stranded, but thankfully, one of the nurses was with us. Their night vision is superhuman, and we grabbed hands and he slowly lead us through the night.

The lights flickered back on just as we got the outpatient area where the lab was, and I was so relieved.

When I returned to the theater, I walked into a mess. I am not used to seeing so much blood outside of someone and it was a bit unsettling. She had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy that no could have detected. She did not even know she was pregnant, and she would have bled to death if Dr. Jean had not operated.

Fortunately, the surgery went well and we now had a reason for this woman’s sever pain.

We returned to the house at almost 2 am this morning in a daze. There had been so much to this day.

There is no logical explanation for why this woman is still alive.

This leaves me only a day behind instead of two! I had such a wonderful Sunday thanks to Jonah and you must hear about it. However as with the trend of the last few days, I am too tired to continue.

Thank you for all your prayers. It means so much.