Eye Candy

Last week I took four of our kids from the Village to see the eye doctor.  I’d taken one of the kiddos before but she had lost her glasses or they broke or….something.  Kids. J  One of the girls had an obvious problem with her eyes so I needed to take her.  I decided to take the other two because after we did some screening at the Village, their vision was questionable so I wanted to follow up.

I hadn’t been overly impressed with the last eye hospital I went to, so this time I decided to brave the streets of downtown Freetown and go to the one associated with the governement hospital.  As we were driving down the road away from Grace Village, their excitement was palpable.  One of the boys remarked that this was the first time he’d left the property in the year since we’d moved there!  I felt bad about that!! With 43 kids it can be difficult to move around with them, but I decided we need to start getting these kids out more!!

After an hour and a half drive, we arrived at the hospital. When I told them we needed to watch the streets so we would remember where we parked, the two older boys gave each other a very concerned look. I am not known for my sense of direction.

We walked to the hospital where we began what would end up being a 6-7 hour wait.  God bless appointment times in the U.S.A!  Despite the long wait, I was really impressed with this place.  Each of the kiddos had different problems and they took their time with each one.

One of the kiddos just needed eye drops.  His eyes were fine.  Another of the kiddos needed glasses. I felt bad that it had taken us this long to get to the eye doctor because his eyes were bad!  When he got his glasses and could see so much better, he was amazed!!!  Pure excitement!  He told me that I needed to talk to his teachers though, because apparently another kid had shown up to class with some fake glasses and they told him to take them off because they thought he was just showing off.  I told him I’d back him up. J

The next two kiddos took the longest. Although it made for a long day, I was thankful they were really thorough in their investigations!  They sent us from one person to another, using different machines, different technologies to see what the issues were and how to fix them.  The news was not good.  One of the kiddos had what they called “a lazy eye.”  I knew she had a problem, but was hoping that with surgery and glasses, we might be able to help her.  But she was too old.  They told me if we’d come when she was two or three, they would have been able to help, but at this point, her brain had disregarded this eye for so long that there was almost no vision in it.  If we did surgery to correct the alignment, it would be purely cosmetic and wouldn’t actually improve her vision.  Surgery is such a risk here that at this point I don't think it would be worth it.

She was thrilled with this look. Obviously.

The next case was equally as sad.  While the previous eye hospital had given this child glasses, this doctor said that it wouldn’t help.  The kiddo had severe scarring on the macula.  He couldn’t tell me how it had happened, but said it happened years ago.  The scarring made it difficult for her to use her central vision, and there was nothing that could be done.  Glasses wouldn’t help.  He pointed to a glass cabinet and said they had some “devices” that could help.  It was mostly filled with giant magnifying glasses.  The biggest issue this girl will face is being able to read.  

My heart broke for these two little ones.  There was nothing we could do. So, while the day was marked with the excitement of a road trip, glasses, and ice cream (of course!), I left feeling defeated.  If they’d been born somewhere else, had parents who knew there was something that could be done and access to good medical care, their futures might look different.  Such is the way of things Mama Salone......

 

Back in the Emergency Room

One month ago I was hanging some laundry up to dry when I (oh so graciously I’m sure) fell off a little step and bent my foot in a weird way.  It hurt.  A lot.  I couldn’t walk on it very well for a day or two but by day three I was managing to hobble around on it.  It still hurt, but if I bent my foot and walked on the inside, I could manage.  It always felt better on days that Peter was home and could help with the kids and I could stay off of it.  But those days aren’t often, and staying off your foot with three kids at home……not really feasible. 

After a couple of weeks it didn't seem to be getting any better so I went to see a doctor friend of mine to get a second opinion (mine being the first).  He basically said the same thing that I was thinking which was that I might have broken the 5^th metatarsal, but if I did it probably wasn’t too bad. I could go get an X-ay, but the X-rays here are generally so poor that a small fracture probably wouldn’t even show up.  He gave me a little flat bottomed boot and suggested that I try and stay off it to allow it to heal.  The boot seemed to help a little as it kept the bones in my foot a little straighter.  Some friends loaned me some crutches and I attempted to hobble around.

My attempt at being an ortho doc!

I could always tell that my foot felt better when I used my crutches.  However, although I’ve given crutches to countless of patients in the ER, I’ve never used them myself.  How does anyone get anything done on those things???  Usually, by noon I was tired of shoving clean laundry down my shirt to bring it inside and carrying things in my teeth so I gave up and hobbled around on my boot.

I’m a month in now, and....it doesn't seem to be getting much better.  My ankle, which wasn’t swollen at the beginning is now swollen, I think from all the bending of my foot to avoid walking on the outside.  So a few days ago, we decided to go ahead and get it X-rayed.  I’ve never broken anything before and in the ER we just patch them up (after getting a good X-ray so we know what's going on of course) and send them off to Ortho.  I know just enough for Google to be scary in a land of little medical care. 

We decided to go to a hospital in Freetown that only caters to emergencies.  I wasn’t sure if they would even see me since technically it wasn’t an emergency, but I knew they had an X-ray machine that might be pretty decent, so we decided to try.  They agreed to see me and actually even got me in pretty quickly.  Then we sat with the other patients and waited for the results.

While we were there an ambulance came in.  Having worked in the ER for awhile, I knew that generally, when an ambulance came in, the patients in the waiting room would wait.  I was right.  After another two hours or so, they called me in for my results.  The ER was basically one large room.  So while I was waiting to see the doctor, I was sitting right next to the patient that was brought in by ambulance.  I saw written on the whiteboard “Trauma transport from Waterloo- 7 year old boy, TBI (traumatic brain injury)". 

I tried not to stare but kept looking over.  I noticed that he was breathing on his own but had a device inserted in his throat that meant he wasn’t maintaining his airway very well.  He was receiving oxygen and had a large bandage wrapped around his head.  As I watched him, I noticed him doing some involuntary movements that are never a good sign in a brain injury. I overheard someone mention a motor vehicle accident.

As I sat there, waiting for my turn to talk with the doctor, I continued to observe.  There were two nursing assistants who were bathing him, preparing him to be transferred to the floor.  Other than that, not a whole lot of activity around him.  Such a stark contrast to a pediatric brain injury patient brought in to a hospital in the States.  And this isn’t to say that the staff was being negligent.  There just wasn’t a whole lot else to do.

I kept thinking about what the scene would look like if it was in one of the hospitals I typically work at.  He would probably be intubated since he was struggling with his airway, which meant a respiratory therapist at his bedside pretty much non-stop.  There was no intubation equipment in this ER.  If he had just come in, we would be rushing to get him to the CT machine so we would know what the damage was.  If it was a small hospital, we would be scrambling around on the phone and doing paperwork to get him the heck out of here, probably on a helicopter.  If he was at a bigger hospital he would be flanked by a pediatrician, a pediatric neurosurgeon, multiple nurses as well as other support personnel.  But here…..there was just nothing else to do. Despite the fact that I knew I would look weak to the staff there, I started to cry.  I couldn't help myself.  It could have been my child. Easily. 

After they took him to the floor, I continued to wait, and watch. Even though this ER was WILDLY different from others that I’ve worked at in the States, there were some things that were the same.  The board showing what was coming in.  Nurses discussing what the cafeteria was serving for lunch. And the apparent universal battle of the ER wanting to send a patient to the floor but the floor not being ready yet.  A tale as old as time. Those small things made it feel familiar enough that I told Peter if the hospital were closer, I’d want to volunteer there.  Too many things to do here! 

The doctor came to discuss my X-ray.  There were no obvious fractures, although he basically said the same thing that the other doctor had said.  There could be a fracture that was just too small to be picked up by the X-ray. However, it wasn’t displaced.  I don’t even know if it was plausible or not, but I had this fear that it was slightly displaced and that every step I took was making it worse.  This was good news for me.  The bad news is that if it’s not broken, I still don’t know what’s wrong and it’s still pretty painful.  So I’ll keep “trying to stay off of it” and pray it gets better.

You get to take your X-ray home as a souvenir! 

Speaking of praying, yesterday I stayed after church to see the kids of the orphanage that were sick. I’d just been there on Friday but that was the day the new uniforms were passed out and kids tend to forget they’re sick when there’s something exciting going on. Sure enough, saw one kiddo on Friday….and 12 on Sunday. 

Precious little boys

They come and see me one room at a time and when I called the kids from the last room to come in my office, there were so many!  I said, Wow! What is going on in your room that everyone is so sick?!?!  One of the boys spoke up and said that they didn’t come because they were sick but because they wanted to pray for me and my foot.  “You take care of us when we’re sick and we want to pray for you because you’re sick.”  Cue the tears again.  So blessed in what I get to do with my life. 

But God....

This has been a hard couple of weeks for a lot of people!  First the flooding here and now watching the flooding happening in Houston, in Asia.....Uncle!!!!  That being said, it’s been incredible to watch the way people have shown up in the midst of these tragedies.  

Several months ago I read something that challenged me to look for “But God….” moments.  When things are painful and difficult BUT GOD is doing this! BUT GOD has done this!  Last week I had one of those moments that brought me to tears.

Over the last year or so, I’ve built a relationship with a teenage girl in our community.  She’s 16 years old.  As is a sad tale that is far too common here, she was sexually abused by someone in a position of power.  Since coming here I’ve seen it happen with students and teachers, young girls and policemen, and of course family members. 

This girl, Jariatu (not her real name) now finds herself pregnant.  The abuse started when she was just 14 years old.  The man, of course, has run away and is nowhere to be found.  The people she was staying with said she could no longer stay there.  Some other missionaries and myself have been really burdened for what is the best solution for this girl.  How can we help????  Peter and I talked about it and were ready to bring her into our home.  But we both kept wondering if that was really the BEST thing for her.  I’m not a Sierra Leonean woman.  Being pregnant and giving birth is such a personal thing and there are so many cultural things that influence perception and beliefs surrounding it. I’ve delivered quite a few Sierra Leonean babies and until I stopped, was still finding out new cultural beliefs and practices surrounding birth.  So we were ready to take her in….unless a better solution could be found.  We kept praying. 

As we were praying, one of my friends kept thinking of two Sierra Leonean pastors that we know.  Peter went to go talk to one of them.  He said that before he even finished explaining the situation, the pastor said, “We will take her in! This is the role of the church.  We will take her as our own daughter.”  When Peter told me about the conversation, I just started crying.  It’s so true!! This is the role of the church!  To care for the poor and desperate! We can be their “people” when they don’t have anyone else!!  This is what Jesus would do!  We are confident that with this pastor and his wife, Jariatu will not only be cared for physically, but will be nurtured and loved and invested in.

The last couple of weeks have been tough.  BUT. GOD. God is still working and is using His Church!! Someone from the States pledged to send some money every month to take care of her expenses so that it will not be a huge financial burden to this pastor and his family.  This is the church working together to care for His people……and it’s just beautiful. 

It’s still a hard situation.  She’s still a young girl who has suffered abuse and is now pregnant. She doesn’t have an easy road ahead of her. BUT GOD will not forget her. Of this I am sure.