Plastic Surgery

It's plastics time on the Africa Mercy!!! Up until now I've been working as a charge nurse on the wards part time and as the ward nurse educator part time. I've been orienting new nurses to the hospital and facilitating hospital in-services weekly among other things. But now it's time for my role to change. I'm the plastic surgery ward team leader which means I oversee all of the plastic surgery patients in the hospital, the plastics nurses, dressing team and work closely with the surgeons and physio to make sure our patients do well after surgery. I worked as a nurse on the plastics team in Sierra Leone and again in Togo, but this is my first time in a leadership position.

Plastic surgeries began Tuesday and we now have 9 patients on the ward post operative. This has been a slow and somewhat intro week as we only had one of our surgeons here. Tomorrow morning is our BIG plastics screening with our whole team and we are expecting between 50 and 80 patients to show up. After that we will have 5 more weeks of surgery. I am so excited to be leading such a great team and would ask you each to pray as we screen potential patients tomorrow and schedule the rest of our surgical slots. More to come in the following weeks.

                         

               

Reflections

Twelve months. 365 days. Hard to believe I've been living on this big white hospital ship for that long. A year ago this week I worked my last shift at Cook Children's hospital, packed up my apartment, and with a great step of faith set out on the journey of a lifetime.

So much has happened yet time has passed quickly. I've lived in Togo, Texas, Ghana, the Canary Islands and Guinea. I've been through 2 big screening days with Mercy Ships and several small ones, watched surgeries, changed dressings and loved on patients like crazy! I've flown more hours then I'd like to count, I've sailed the bluest seas, hiked the greenest mountains, swam in breathtaking waterfalls, sun bathed on beautiful beaches, witnessed extreme poverty, met beautiful people, experienced miracles, and made life long friends. I've laughed, loved, cried, rejoiced, been stretched, challenged, filled up and poured out more times than I can count.

And God has been at the center of it all. I have prayed time and again, waiting in expectation of what God will do...and he continues to provide. This has been a year of great highs and low lows but I can say in confidence this is where I'm suppose to be for this time. A.W. Tozer writes, "There is no greater quest than the pursuit of God." I don't know where the next year will take me, but I am excited! I can't step into the future or relive the past, so I will live today. And what a great day it is!

Psalm 143:8   "Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul."

Isaiah 42:5-7  "This is what God the Lord says - the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it: I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness."

Saint Nicholas Day

Celebrating Sinterklaas with my Dutch friends. Last night, we put a shoe out before bed and this morning there were treats in it. Today, December 5, is Saint Nicholas Day and Sinter Klaas came all the way to the Africa Mercy from Holland. The black faced people are his mischievous little helpers. Fun celebrating new traditions!!

I got a carrot and little ginger cookies in my shoe

Some of our sweet ortho patients...

We're in week 5 of Orthopedic surgery with only a few weeks to go. So far we've done 53 ortho surgeries, 57 Ponseti clubfoot corrections, and 383 physical therapy sessions. We've had a great time getting to know these wonderful patients and helping them get back up on their feet. Here are a few pictures from the ward. 

Ward Service

This weekend I got to go to church while I worked. I love working Sunday mornings for this reason...and many more. As I started my shift at 7am patients and caregivers began to wake and get ready for another day. Except today they put on their nicest dresses...and they are nice! Within a few hours everybody was in their Sunday best and waiting for our ward service. It's a time set aside for patients, caregivers, nurses, doctors and ship crew to come together to praise God and worship Him, a message is shared and the healing process continues.

I love to be part of worship, anywhere really, but here it's so genuine. People sing and dance and praise God from their hearts. There was a joy in the air that I can't explain in words. The message was about faith journeys and I loved what was said. We talked about the paralytic who was brought by his friends to see Jesus and be healed. He came through the roof on a mat and walked out the front door. And Jesus said because of their faith you are healed. It made me think of our ortho patients. Great faith breaks through barriers, and many of our patients had huge barriers to break through to get here. Many of them came in carried and will walk out the door!

Psalm 121 says "I lift my eyes to the hills - where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth." And James 4:8 "Come near to God and he will come near to you." I am so thankful that God can replace our fears with courage and as we draw near to him he will draw near to us.

Week 2 of surgery is underway

The wards are open, the wards are open! I just spent 3 evenings taking care of our first surgical patients in Guinea. It's so great to see all of our new nurses and day workers settling into their new positions and learning the ropes here on the Mercy Ship. One of our new day volunteers is named Judith...and she is wonderful! I walked onto the ortho ward the other night to see all 16 kids standing in line singing songs and praising Jesus. She got each child to go to the front of the line one at a time, choose their favorite praise song, and then everyone sang it together. After everyone had a turn singing and dancing, 2 of the patients got up and recited John 3:16, another couple The Lord's Prayer.... Even the caregivers got involved. Impromptu children's church before bed is the best! I have a feeling we'll have many more nights like that and I love that our day volunteers are so great! Tell Papa God Tenke!!

Guinea Screening Day

On August 22nd I arrived in Conakry, Guinea for my 3^rd outreach with Mercy Ships. It was a 6 day sail from Tenerife with calm water and lots of dolphins and flying fish. The sail was incredibly relaxing and we even got some work done in preparation for our arrival. And now, it’s finally time for the hospital to open.   

Screening day, September 3^rd, was a huge success in Guinea! We saw thousands of people in need of hope, love and SURGERY!  The first caravan left the hospital ship at 5:45am to go to the medical screening site and the last shuttle returned at 9pm.  Over 3,500 men, women and children of all ages and with all kinds of deformities waited patiently in line (some had arrived the previous evening) with one thing in common – a desperate need for hope and healing, a longing for someone to care. As I’ve heard Dr Gary (our Chief Medical Officer) say before, you think someday you will come to the end of the line, that the needs will be met, but every year the line is just as long as ever.  Energy and excitement was in the air as we started to meet our potential patients for the year.

I got the privilege of working in quite a few areas throughout the day.  As a

pre-screener I saw people as they came through the gates and did their initial assessment to see if they would potentially qualify for surgery.  Even though we say in advance we can only do certain surgeries on board and don’t act as a general hospital we still have people that come with stomachaches, back aches, and all sorts of medical problems that can’t be fixed with surgery. We have to turn those away and focus on the many people with medical issues we can fix.  It’s a challenging job for me, turning people away, but I’m learning that God has called us here for a purpose, and that purpose isn’t to heal everyone in Guinea, but instead He’s called us to be a surgical hospital ship that specializes in certain surgeries. And those are the patients we are called to treat.  There was understandably disappointment and grief when someone learned that we were unable to help them, but for the most part they were grateful for the help we were giving their people and their country. And they were each offered the opportunity to be prayed for.  

Later in the day I was moved to the Max-fax/plastics area where I got to work with some of our surgeons, learn from their assessments, and say yes to patients for surgery. It was a great experience and I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.