Thursday, June 8th
Hi Everyone….it is Mama Gayle. I am excited to report that my two neurosurgeons, Dr. Ralph Reeder and Dr. Matt Johnson arrived last evening with Will, Ralph’s grandson. It was so good to see them. Those 3 plus Foster left on Safari this am with Julius as their guide. I talked to them tonight and they were so excited about all the animals that they saw. They are seeing God’s beauty of Africa.
Mark, Alex and I headed to the hospital for a very busy day. We started the day by doing ward rounds to see the postop patients and they were all doing very well. Then we saw the patients that we were going to do surgery today. Mark went to the busy orthopedic clinic with Dr. Roberts and Alex and I were in the OR. Two of the cases were these two cute little boys who were brought in by a friend who helps children in village a long ways from here. These two were such cuties and they came to the preop area and sat there so still without saying anything. In America our children would have been screaming. They recognized me so I sat with each of them as they were being put to sleep.
The first little boy had an old fracture of the humerus and it had infection with two areas with pus drainage. We surgically cleaned the wounds and took out a piece of bone and he was given antibiotics.
The next little boy had badly deformed legs..we call the “wind swept” deformities. We did a procedure by removing a wedge of the bone so the leg could be straightened and then we casted his legs. I will show you the before and after pictures. What a change this will bring to this 8 year old boys life.
We had the pleasure of having some pre-med and nursing students from the US, UK and Switzerland observe us the last couple of days. Today Alex and I have the pleasure of teaching them. Alex is a wonderful teacher and those girls were so excited about what they learned. So our mission of teaching extends beyond Tanzania and they were exciting to teach.
Tomorrow I go to see the accountant at the hospital. I am afraid I am going to be in shock when I see the total bill. I kept telling the staff I was going to need to rob a bank and they said they would help because they said Hope Ministries is helping so many people who are very very poor. I referred 16 orthopedic patients and 4 had surgeries, one was referred to special hospital in Dar, and one sent to KCMC to get fitted for a prothestic leg; referred 22 to the general surgeon and 20 had surgeries; referred 3 to the Gynecology doctor and 2 had surgeries; referred 8 to the eye clinic and 7 received glasses. All the staff could not believe the unbelievable cases I brought them and these patients have been suffering for a long time because of no money.
God bless everyone who has donated to Hope Ministries. God sent a lot for us to help this time and without your donations this would not be possible. I thank you from the bottom of my heart and I wish you could be here to see their smiles and then they say to me “Mungu Akubariki” which means God bless you. I told them is not me but God who did this. Please pray for their successful and quick recoveries. To God be the glory.
Please continue to pray for the team as we have a big day of surgery tomorrow.
