I think this is such a perfect, simple description of how I sometimes feel. For the last few days my heart has been falling down. I have been upset over a situation with a patient and his wife, so much so that I haven't had energy to do anything past work and go straight to my room. I have been upset with the system here, the way people mistreat each other, the power struggle within this culture, inefficiency, you name it, and its been on my list of 'things I don't like'. To boot, I've spent zero time with God since Tuesday, since I called on Him for an answer which He gave, one that I am seeing for what it really was just now.
Tuesday afternoon one of our patients said his wife was coming to see us, that she had some wounds on her arm that needed to be looked at. We had suspected, and also been told that this wife was HIV positive, so my assumption before seeing her was that she likely had lesions secondary to advanced AIDS. When she came in and removed the lappa of material from her shoulders, I had one of those reactions that only years of "shocking" situations in nursing can help prevent words being said out loud that go through my head
"Oh.....crap!!" (out loud I probably said something like, "hmm, ok...lets see here"
60% of the flesh on her arm was missing. She was swollen, and her pain was evident by her inability to lift her arm even a fraction of an inch without grimacing. I had NO idea what the heck I was looking at. Three days before she said it had been fine, just some pain, but no wounds. I was clueless and felt utterly helpless. I brought pictures back to the ship and we agreed she needed to go to a local hospital, which we called and asked the husband to do. He told us if he could find the money he would. All night I kept running the situation through my head.
God, what could I have done differently? What am I supposed to do?
Just show her compassion.
I have watched this woman quietly and sweetly care for her sick husband for months. In return he has been, (hmm, here I go with needing to not say the words running through my head out loud) um, lets just say he's turning out to be a pretty sleazy character.
The next morning we called to see how it had gone and the husband told us they could not afford the 12 dollars the hospital wanted before they would see her. I decided we needed to pick her up and bring her ourselves. When we arrived to pick up the husband, so he could show us where she was staying, to our surprise he had a brand new 50 dollar cell phone in hand (well, in his son's hand, having him hold the bag in an effort to hide it from us). I was beyond frustrated. The longer I was in the car the more I prayed for God to take the frustration away, I knew I couldn't go all day with such feelings in my chest.
If I'm being honest I have to say I don't have the energy to recount the events of the day to all of you, maybe some other time. Basically, after 8 hours we had found that this woman was indeed HIV positive (which, as it turns out, she didn't know), and she has a horrible case of shingles (which likely indicates she has full blown AIDS)
We were all tired and felt defeated. Oh, I forgot to mention that she is only 25, a year younger than me, which didn't help my efforts at keepin' the old chin up.
I was able to put a dressing on her wound, get her some medications, and asked her to come back Thursday and Friday so I could do the dressing each day. I asked her to come at 8 am, that we had to start by 8. I also asked her to bring her sister who she is staying with so I could teach her how to do them for the weekend. Before she left I asked her again what time she was coming (real time, not African time) and through a sweet, timid smile she said 7:30. Thursday I looked out the window minutes before 8 to see her sitting on the dock. I smiled realizing the trust I had put in her was for good reason, she was there. The day was long, I was tired, and again felt the familiar falling of my heart as I shut myself in my cabin for another night.
When I woke up this morning I had to force myself to get going
"You only have 1 patient this morning, you can get through it and go back to bed" I told myself.
It was pouring out. Like pouring so hard the rain physically hurt when it hit you. We called my patient and they said they were making their way over to us. I felt guilty for how they had to travel in the rain, another tick mark on things that were making my heart feel heavy. When they arrived they were soaked through, squeaking down the hallway in their plastic flip flops. One of the women who helps with the laundry offered to dry their clothes. I let them go to get changed and waited down the hall. After a few minutes I went looking for them and found them wrapped in hospital johnnies. I started tying my patients for her, first the ties on top, then wrapping the second one around her waist. Without warning her and her sister burst out laughing. I mean, uncontrollable hysterics. Confused, I looked at my translator and he said,
"They are laughing at how they look"
Their laughter quickly became contagious, and I found myself in a laundry room, filled with half-dressed African women waiting for their clothes to be dried, belly laughing.
As I led the two sisters to our treatment room, we giggled down the whole hallway, catching the looks of innocent bystanders puzzled by the scene we were causing.
Through the whole dressing the two sisters laughed and laughed. They would stop for a minute, and then would start giggling, until they would throw their heads back and erupt again into full blown-gasping-for-air-laughs. Slowly my heart started swelling with each outburst of giggles. I let myself laugh and enjoy the moment. I wanted to cry I was so happy for my patient. She has probably had the worst few days of her life, yet one could see her heart literally healing in that small treatment room. They asked me to take pictures for them which I gladly did. I'll print them so they can have copies, little do they know I will always remember this day and what the love and giggles between two sisters did for my heart. (My patient is the one on the right with the shower cap on)
We have videos of when my younger sister and I were little. One is of us ice skating at 3 and 6 years old. The camera catches my sister fall with a 'thud' just before a guy skates by with a hockey stick (earlier in the video you see him in the background and Jenny admiring his skills). As he passes she says
"Wow, you're good", to which he replies;
"Oh, you'll be better than me in no time."
And then she asks, with possibly the sweetest three year old voice you can imagine,
"You mean, sometimes you fall down?"
We all fall down from time to time. Its funny because these past few days I knew what I needed to do, yet I didn't. I let myself dwell on the bad, and look at the ugliness of this world. I didn't go to God with any of it. Today in that treatment room my heart was restored. God used a simple scenario to open my eyes to all He can do. He can bring redemption and light to every situation, and that makes my heart happy.
Proverbs 4:23
"Above all else, guard you heart, for it is the wellspring of life"
2 comments:
Suzanne,
. . . and your heart has been picked up, and in the process of sharing it with us, so have ours!
Thanks for another picture of your world.
Momma Z ~ the other Z : )
And how Godlike, as I scroll down this page to 'verify' myself that the random word to type in the box would be "Bless" wooowhooo God!
Suzanne, feel encouraged that we all at times "fall down." I once heard someone say that Christians are like Weebles. [Remember those little toys?] Then remember this, 'weebles wobble but they don't fall down.'
We are like one of those old punching balloons that when you hit them, they rock backwards and then come back to the up position.
Frank Sinatra once sang, "I picked myself up and got back in the race. That's life." Paul on the other hand spoke of running the race. In races there may be several obstacles. It's what we do with those obstacles; do they stop us, no, do they hinder us, yes, but we truck on---forward.
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