December 14, 2013
Welcome to our blog. Here within you'll see a mishmash of events that have happened over the last four years. Some stuff will make you smile, some will make you cry, and some (the last post of 2011) will gross you out. Albeit incomplete, it's a window into the journey God has taken our family on. You'll notice that there are huge gaps in time on the blog. I did journal during those times and, as my kids will tell you, took way too many pictures. It will be fun recreating some of those memories for you here. Most of our memoirs involve Jesus, our family, and work overseas (particularly Zimbabwe, though we've worked in a few other places as well). I think we probably have a lot to say about being small town doctors too. Maybe I'll try to post some stuff that wouldn't get us into too much trouble with our patients (it's a really small town).
Recently DOCS for Hope www.docsforhope.org has become a reality. As such, we feel it is important for us to share our life with you- for you to come along with us. Hopefully this blog will help that to happen in some small way.
Journal 5/26/13
I got a little choked up singing to Henry today as I put him down. The words "Ive got a river of life flowing out of me, makes the lame to walk and the blind to see, opens prison doors and sets captives free..." suddenly sprang to life with meaning. For those of you who don't know it- here's a fun campy version from youtube: River of life . It's usually such an up tempo song, but I've slowed it down and mellowed it out to sing the kids to sleep. It's a favorite along with "Be Thou my vision, Come thou fount of every blessing, and Sanctuary". I've seen the Holy Spirit at work here at Karanda in a very tangible way. It is a humbling honor to see this work and to be used in a small way to accomplish it.
I rounded forever on Saturday. We had a fantastic breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee and I was off to the races by about 8 or so. I didn't finish the day until supper time. The wards are full of very sick people - I believe 5 of them died during the day. I probably saw sixty people on rounds or so. After finishing ward rounds, Including multiple admissions, I was simultaneously hit by two broken arms, a foreign body lodged in a kid's trachea, a bad obstetric laceration, and a close personal friend running into some real post operative (post C section) problems.
Just after noon, the nurses called and told me that our friend Miriam's abdomen was becoming distended. I felt ill, as I had performed the emergency C-section the day before. I ordered IV fluids and a blood count. The lab was out of CBC (complete blood count) reagent, but was able to do a manual blood count. We found that her blood count was dropping over night, and her heart rate rising. In short order, another physician and I took her back to the OR and opened her. She had lots of blood in her abdomen, including old and new blood. We oversewed a couple of areas, but over all I had not committed any surgical errors - she was just diffusely oozing blood from all over the place, mostly wound and skin edges. Ultimately, we explored her entire abdomen. We found that she had evidence of old a really scary bleeding and clotting problem called Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation. She was still able to clot - but was doing so poorly. We had no way to get a platelet count and therefore assumed she was in early stages of this life threatening condition. We closed her when we were satisfied that we had done all we could to help her. We honestly thought she was not going to survive. Thankfully, we had just received several units of O positive blood, which was the patient's blood type. Prior to that we had no blood products in the hospital. Also three American nurses had just returned from an outreach to a local village. They "happened" to be the same blood type as Miriam. Miriam was in need of clotting factors and platelets which are not found in packed red cells (usually stocked by hospitals). The only platelets and clotting factors for miles and miles were in the blood of those nurses, so the Lord provided the blood for Miriam, which we gave her for most of the evening. I prayed at the bedside for her in the ICU, her husband standing at her side. Many people have been praying ceaselessly for her...
As you can see below, Miram and her baby wound up doing very well. It was a miracle. I saw them a lot while working at Karanda. Also, the pretty girl with the chicken at the top is also named Miriam (her husband, Prosper, is in the background) - they are good friends of ours, too. In the picture, Miriam is buying one of the chickens that our patient's husband was selling in order to pay the hospital bill. I think these are our only friends named Miriam.
