January 5th
So sorry we have not blogged for a few days but the team has been super busy! God has blessed me with a great team and they have all come with loving and serving heart. We have been presented many challenges, but through prayer and guidance we have remained strong and the team has touched many lives. The biggest challenge for me has been trying to get all my medical bags through customs at the airport. I have all these documents and they still continue to put me through so much stress. The first night was 3 hours and then they kept the bags and then when I was told all bags were cleared I went to the airport to receive two more team members and got a different story. I spent another 3 hours in the airport. It is hard to remain patient when I am bringing over very needed equipment that I am donating to the people here, but through silence and prayer I kept my cool and in the end we won the battle. I have learned it is best to keep quiet and as you all know me that is hard to do. In the end the hospital has super excited to receive this much needed equipment.
Here are the summary of a couple of our last day:
Second outreach clinic
Many of the patients that came in today were young children. One child has neurological issues from a birth defect that was fascinating to see. She was unable to hold her head up, grasp objects in her hand, or stand with help from someone and she was around 3 years old. Another case we had was very touching. A father and his 9 year old son came to the first clinic, but did not seek out our help because we had finished and were cleaning up. This father and son took a bus, taxi, and motorbike many many miles to get to this second clinic for us to hear his story and get our help. This young boy had been sexually abused many times at school from an older schoolmate. The son did not ever tell his father this was happening, but the father had sensed something. The child would not leave his fathers side, look at any of us in the eyes, pull away when we tried to take vitals, and wouldn’t smile at all. We sent the child to be test for HIV and praise God is was negative. We talked a long time with the father about how to support his son. This is a sad situation that occurs way to often in this country and they don’t have counciling to help these patients. This young child and father touched all of our hearts.
January 7th
Summary of thoughts from the teams day at clinic in Selian: challenging because we were not used to how they do things here; we learned from each other; palliative and hospice home care had amazing people who work there and take costs out of pocket to help feed some of the patients in hospice; very well organized for hospice; very helpful when the doctors explained what the diagnosis was and what is happening with the body; waiting room full of people; amazed by how much pain, almost every patient had pain; unorganized because some patients would randomly walk into the room; hardly any patient privacy.
We began the day at the chapel and then listened to report. We went to the orthopedic rounds to check in with the patients that had surgery recently. In the orthopedic clinics many interesting cases came in. One case needed a lengthening of the Achilles’ tendon via a Z-plasty. The child was walking on his toes due to his Achilles’ tendon being too short for his leg. Another patient had a medial malleolus fracture which caused his tibia to sublock on the talus bone. A total mastectomy will be done on a patient that has a cantaloupe size abscess on one breast.
Today I learned an incredible amount of things from orthopedics, to neurological, and to breast oncology. The knowledge I gained today will stick with me forever.
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Kimberly Hults
