Morphine, Malaria, Tyhpoid, and Appendicitis (Esther had it all!!!!)

11-11-07


Well on the 2nd of November (Friday) I took a trip to Kelo, Tchad that will not be soon forgotten. Short version goes something like this...Sonya, Esther, and I donned our head wraps and skirts and headed out to find motorcycles that would take us to Kelo. You see we had heard a rumor that there were packages waiting for us there. Now that's a hard rumor to resist checking out. We found two unfortunately we are a little novice and didn't think past the fact that one was putting the wheel back on his motorcycle and the other one was pumping up the tire with a bike tire pump. I'll blame it on the fact that we were just so excited about our upcoming "ADVENTURE!!!"


After we crossed the river in canoes with the motorcycles we started on the 1 hour stretch to Kelo that turned into 2 for Sonya and I and 4 for Esther. You see the Moto Sonya and I were on blew a tire, so we sat under a Mango tree for an hour and entertained natives who had never seen white people before. Have you ever seen a white person make a fish face? In the mean time, the tire on Esther's Moto came off. After much prayer, almost tears, making friends with the postal man, praying with the postal man, and sitting under a tree for 2 hours outside the post office we were all re-united. The only problem with our reunion was that Esther was in quite a bit of pain. She was having strange stomach pain that we thought was just aggravated from riding the bumping moto.


We arrived back in Béré without any complications except multiple marriage proposals from my Moto Chauffer. I told him I was already taken and that he'd have to talk to Kevin about that. Esther took some pain meds and seemed to be o.k. but after about 2 hours of being back, she collapsed in the hallway and didn't come to for about 20 minutes. In the meantime Dr. Greg and Dr. Audrey (the visiting doctors from Cameroon who switched hospital's with Sarah and James) went into action. I started an IV on her and gave IM pain med's. We hung Glucose and Ringer's and began to pray.


Soon the color started to come back to her face. She felt good enough to get up so she laid on the couch while we sang songs around her to open Sabbath. Sonya and I made a bed up for her in the back room of the hospital house and stayed the night with her keeping the fluids going she hadn't drank much all day. About 1:00 AM Saturday she woke up in terrible pain. I went to Dr. Greg, he came over, he found re-bound pain all over her abdomen. He increased the amount of Morphine she could have and started her on Antibiotics thinking it might be Thyphoid Fever. At 7:00 he did a Ultra-sound and didn't find anything of much significance, but the Thyphoid results did come back positive. The only question now was the stomach pain from the peritonitis that Thyphoid fever can cause or was this something like appendicitis, ruptured intestines, etc. I watched him pace outside the window Sabbath morning with his cell-phone as he made the decision to call in Gary Robert's the mission pilot here. Better to be safe then sorry. Along with Gary came Sarah and James. All day long Sabbath I gave Esther Morphine every two hours. Finally Sarah and James arrived. The three doctors conferred together and decided to give Esther two options. To be operated on here or to be flown out to Europe. You could feel the tension in the house as everyone realized what a huge decision she had to make.


Never before have I realized what a perfect group of SM's God has brought together here. The thought of Esther leaving seemed to leave a huge gap that couldn't be filled for the rest of the year. But we wanted to best for her, Sonya and I sat hugging and praying with her after she'd finished talking with her parents. Then the decision was made. She wanted to be operated on here. The decision to leave was risky because something could go wrong in the air and she wanted to be with people she knew.


Hans, Christina (The Portuguese volunteer nurse), and I headed over to the OR to bleach everything like it had never been bleached before!!!!!! Esther arrived and we had a group prayer...Esther was having Dr. Greg (A Surgeon) do the surgery, Dr. James assisting, and Dr. Audrey as backup, while Sarah did Anesthesia and I circulated. The incision was made and in no time one huge unhappy appendix appeared. It was at the point of bursting!


Sonya and I spent the next 3 nights sleeping by her side, keeping the perfusions going, feeding her fruit slushies made from dehydrated blueberries, nectarines, and fresh bananas, and trying to ease some of her pain. That girl is amazing, she not only has a lot of physical stamina but definitely found strength to make it through from God.


She is now eating pizza, has Malaria, and is up walking around some. The evangelical missionaries here who live about 15 minutes away have taken her in as their daughter and are nursing her back to health. They also have constant power and fans. Life is so delicate but praise God He designed our bodies and is the best one to know how to fix them.