July 6

6 Jul 2009 – Day 26

Ok, here is a somewhat typical morning greeting:
nDee!
nDee! Apemathoe?
Olee. eChobedo.
Do cho. Deveearay?
Wo fwo. Apemathoe?
Wo fo. sRoe wo fwa?
Ehh. O fwo.
Ehh.
This is accompanied by a handshake and repeated with unending variations to everyone you meet at work (remember there is quite a bit of French influence here!). Sometimes it even continues as the two parties finish their handshakes and start walking away from each other! And other times they’ll be finishing the verbal exchange with one person while starting the handshake with another. When I’m joining in, this exchange is usually followed by peals of laughter. There’s a French version as well, of course. And ambitious missionaries can even learn the Kabiye version!

Well, internet’s been down for a week now. We were told Saturday it would be repaired today. Today, we were told it would be ready tomorrow. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

To be honest, while some things remain vague and unpredictable like phones, internet, and electricity, the one thing we do know about tomorrow is that there will be sickness and disease, surgery and malaria, wonderful recoveries and the finality of death….and I’ve been working so much lately I don’t have much time to think about internet.

July 4th. A wonderful evening of fellowship. One of the celebrations that bring the missionaries together. Though it rained a bit, we had independence-related Cari-led games in the Payute (like a pavilion), a delicious barbecue/potluck, tons of desserts, ‘smores over a campfire, fireworks (bottle rockets from a coke bottle to the pediatricians’ dismay and Togolese pipe bombs), and a time of singing and praising God. Our Canadian and South African colleagues joined in for most of the party.
Earlier in the day I got to see Luve in follow-up. He’s the 5 year old hero that pushed a 2 year old girl out of the path of a moto, was struck and in a coma for several days, and is now recovered enough to go home. He’s eating and using his right arm, but not talking or walking yet. His heel cords are tight so Dr. Briggs and I fashioned some AFOs (ankle-foot orthotics) for him to wear at night to try to stretch out the muscles. (As we sometimes joke about here, we referred him to physical, occupational, and speech therapy while he was in the hospital, but apparently there is a HUGE backlog of referrals and they never stopped by….typical!….and there was such a LONG wait list for appointments at the office they couldn’t get in…….) We did the best we could but it sure would be nice to have real therapists here with us! (Hint,Hint, Andrea……. : )

July 5th. Sunday. On call (3rd Sunday in a row). Cari and the boys rode up the mountain with the Ebersoles for church. 60 year old man who was so drunk the night before he drank insecticide (not good), in a coma getting gastric lavage and atropine. 40 year old man who broke his ribs 4 days prior to arrival, has a gallon of blood in his chest and a flail chest (the broken rib pieces bulge out with each breath), and his kidneys have shut down, no urine for 2 days (because we don’t have true ICU care, his only real hope is to pay 100,000 a week for dialysis in Lome, usually prohibitively expensive. 40 year old lady with extreme hypertension (finally controlled with four meds, one of which is so old it is no longer sold in the US and we had to go back to a 1994 Drug Reference Book to even find it listed in the dosing guidelines, under the qualifier “Rarely used”!), pancreatitis, and kidney failure (yes, very common here), actually doing a little better. Premies doing well. Sick newborn seizing. Malaria kids recovering.
Late in the evening I returned to the hospital to treat a child with severe malaria and seizures. While I was there I stopped to chat with the 60 year old because of some abdominal pain. He was awake now, and talking, and looking so much better. We talked about how I could give him pain medicine but it will soon wear off. The bigger problem was his bad decision to get drunk and drink insecticide. I didn’t have any medicine for the pain of that sin. But we believe in and follow the God who created us and sent his Son Jesus to die for us. Jesus says he came to take away our pain for good, he died for our sins, so we could be forgiven and have a new life. We at HBB were all very thankful to God he was still alive. He could’ve died because of his bad decision. While he was here I wanted him to hear about this Jesus and think about following Him. No one else could make this decision for him, not us doctors, not his family, just him and God. Then I briefly shared my testimony with him, like I did with the youth at the lock-in, how before I followed Jesus I used to drink a lot and one night drank so much I couldn’t remember what I did – just like him. That was the night that changed my life, and started me on the path to listening to Jesus and following him. Would he think about that? Akpe na mawu! But of course he was Kabiye and he didn’t understand. So after the laughter at the yovo stopped my nurse translator who knows Eve, Kabiye, English and French translated -- We thank God! I found out the next morning that he gave his life to Christ while talking with the chaplain during morning rounds!

July 6th. Long night. The child with malaria had seizures all night and things look bad. Then they brought in a 5 year old with tetanus spasms – whole body, including the trismus (locked jaw) that is so classic. The old studies report a 50-50 chance of dying from tetanus, but here at HBB they’ve started putting the anti-toxin directly in the spinal cord so I did that for the first time ever -- by lumbar puncture. We’ll know in two weeks if he’s going to make it. The 60 year old man and 40 year old lady are much better. The 40 year old man’s kidneys have not recovered any function and we sent him home to die. After morning rounds I took a long nap.
Jade, a college student here checking out missions, has had a wonderful time. She has tons of energy and jumps in everywhere, especially up at the hospital. She’s helped out a lot in the surgery sterilization room, cleaning and organizing supplies and folding drape after drape. The work is tedious but I guess the staff is a lot of fun so she really enjoys it. They sing a lot of songs, in Eve, French and English, and Bible quiz each other. She did Bible Quizzing at her home church so she fits right it (plug for Bible quizzing!!). The other night at the Ebersoles she taught us an Eve praise song (akpe, akpe, akpe, Jesu, akpe) and stumped us – name the two books of the Bible that end in a question mark?
Tomorrow Dr. Martin finally arrives. We’ll have two weeks of four docs on the call schedule then everyone starts leaving and it’ll every other night on call for much of the remainder.

Come to Africa!!!! Missionary advantage #2 – you don’t have to be embarrassed about picking your nose in public, everyone does it here and it’s no big deal !!

Crazy God-humor #1. I was born in the same Gerber hospital that Dr. John Briggs worked at back in Freemont, Michigan. One of his kids, Ryan, was also born there. We had a good laugh about that.

Crazy God-humor #2. Several of the Briggs’s kids attended Black Forest Academy while they were studying language in France, where Laura Peterson is a dorm mother. We had a good laugh about that as well. During our last stay we talked about Laura as well - one of the Gayle kids, Nathaniel, also attended Black Forest Academy and knew her.

Mawu ne no kpuli wo (May God go with you)

Yours in the service of our LORD,

CADT (The Robertsons)