Right-Side Up

Greetings, from across the pond!

I've been on board the Africa Mercy for a week now, and it probably goes without saying that every week here is packed with eventfulness.

My week consisted of 1 day of orientation/unpacking, 4 day shifts, 1 dress ceremony (where we celebrate the healing and the beauty of our fistula patients), and 1 Canadian Crew night out! Dr. Sherif Emil, a pediatric surgeon from Montréal who is here right now treated (most of) us Canucks to a lovely dinner; all the hosers in one place. You can read all about Dr. Sherif's experiences in the OR here.

Dr. Étienne (L) & Dr. Sherif (R)

It has certainly been a whirlwind of reconnecting with some old friends, seeing some just in passing, and meeting a lot of new and wonderful crew. Oh. And have I mentioned how it still feels weird but wonderful to call a physician by their first name? One of the many ways the communal nature of this workplace reveals itself.

Right now, the singing of day crew and patients is reaching me in my cabin (through several steel doors), and that sound will never cease to put a smile on my face.

Smiles and singing and dancing abound in a dress ceremony from a few weeks ago.

We also had the opportunity this week to gather together with all of the medical teams to hear and share stories from the past month or so. Most were pretty humorous - language and cultural barriers lend themselves to creating ridiculous situations. Like the woman who couldn't understand she needed to stand on the weigh-scale in admissions and repeatedly squatted down on it. One story in particular, however, stood out to me:

Patient D is a man with severe ankylosis - a condition that causes fusion of joints. His jaw was so severely fused that he'd been unable to open his mouth for 19 YEARS. When he was recovered from surgery and had his tight bandages removed for the first time, his reaction was one of pure glee. They had some video of this which we were able to see during a community meeting - and this is no exaggeration. His hands were raised in the air in joy, he repeatedly stretches his mouth open and closed, and though he is difficult to understand (speech is understandably affected when you can't move your jaw for that long), you can hear the release of almost 2 decades of pain, locked away in his own body. Apparently, this went on for over an hour.

It has taken no time to remember why I love it so much here.

Lives are turned right-side up like this every day, and it is just so humbling to be able to witness it.

Just a short little update for you today; more to come.

Á la prochaine, my friends.

Interlude

I'm sitting in the departures area of Heathrow Airport right now, at half-past midnight, waiting for the check-in desk to open in a few hours. Most of the limited seating has been taken, and more than a few of us are parked along the large windows that look out to....more airport. A few minutes ago a fellow made his way along the terminal, asking each person waiting for change for a tube ride home. I handed him what loose change I had in my pocket. What seems like odd denominations of money to me - 50, 20, and 1p coins.

"Won't be needing this anymore. Get home safe."

I wonder briefly if he will really use that for tube fare - then chide myself for it. If he's willing to wake half-sleeping, grumpy travellers to get a few pounds, then who am I to make assumptions.

I spent the last few days of an extended layover here in London catching up with some former ship-mates from Benin. Eve & Caleb, a lovely couple from New Zealand (temporarily living and working here) were generous enough to put me up in their tiny flat (at the tippy-top of a RIDICULOUS amount of stairs). It's a little bizarre seeing the itty-bitty living space most Londoners have, along with the pricey-est of sports cars that line all the streets. Give me a jalopy and a country lot over that - any day.

These days were packed with exploration; there is an awful lot to see around this city, and fortunately, if you're a history nerd like me, a lot of it is free! Everywhere I went, however, I had reminders of where I'm going, and who I want to be.

One of the first places I visited was the British Museum (did I mention nearly all the museums in London are free!?), home to just SO many of the world's most important historical relics. As I wandered through the endless maze of cultural icons, my brain half-dead from jet lag, I wondered how many of these items were obtained with the permission of their rightful owners. While I suspect in recent years agreements have been reached with many of the now-independent nations from whence these treasures were plundered, I doubt that was the case 100+ years ago. The objective side of my brain argues with the subjective...

"Yes, but...the scientific and academic value of having all these specimens in one collection is enormous, and has led to countless breakthroughs! Look at the Rosetta Stone! LOOK AT IT!! How on earth did they carve that so small..."

"Yes, but...does the scientific value outweigh the ethical and moral travesties that got them here in the first place? And the aftermath that still ripples down generations later?"

Beninoise carvings

I don't have a conclusion to this debate - it's still going on up there. It really got heated, however, when I got to the Africa exhibit rooms. There was some amazing and ingenuitive modern art on display, highlighting the African peoples' passion, their flair for the dramatic, and their intertwined struggle. Next to these recent pieces were rows upon rows of older relics - traditional weapons and masks and pottery from the kingdoms of Benin and Ghana and Yoruba. How long have these been in the hands of the invaders who shipped a people and their heritage away for profit? That is my heritage - one of devastation and theft. One I ought to fight harder to address and reconcile.

As you can imagine - this was all a lot to process on 3 hours of fitful airplane sleep - so I'm glad I'm writing about it now. It definitely needs more of my thought.

This sculpture struck me especially.
It was created by a member of the Fulani people.
It reminded me of one particular patient I had last year who was also Fulani...

Moving on, however, the next day brought a quiet walk through Kensington Gardens - just a hop away from my friends' flat. A much needed respite from the information overload. I don't think I've ever seen anything as quintessentially English as this garden attached to Kensington Palace.

Well, it was either this or the McDonald's with the mossy, thatched roof.

Later on, we met up with another nurse from the ship - and what else would 3 nurses do with an afternoon out than visit the Florence Nightingale museum!

The small medicine chest Nightengale brought with her to Crimea.

Now, good ol' Flo might have a bit of a stereotypical reputation in many people's minds, but she is known as the mother of modern Nursing for a reason. She turned what was essentially a chambermaid's job into a genuinely respected profession. She established training schools and standards that are still relevant in essence, though some are a bit dated. Her Notes on Nursing is a lasting guide to what is still the core of nursing today - caring. Looking at the patient holistically; beyond the often narrow perspective of medicine.

"Stop that at once - I'm beginning to get cross!"

A teacher's voice rose slightly as we entered the foyer of the hole-in-the-wall museum. A group of chattering, fidgety schoolchildren flitted about. As we sidled around them into the exhibit, a woman in a puffy black dress with white apron and bonnet whispered, "don't worry, they'll be sitting quietly for 45 minutes."

Despite our skepticism, they did just that, as the woman captivated them with her first-person tale of Nightengale's life. Bits of her well-rehearsed story carried to us as we absorbed the museum's information. I knew Florence rose from obscurity during the Crimean War, but I suppose I hadn't grasped the extent of the challenge that she faced.

Pursuing nursing against her aristocratic parents' wishes, she would eventually lead a small contingent of women to a British field hospital, where wounded and dead were being brought by the boatload from the front. They were overrun by dying and diseased men, most with little or no hope for survival. It was not a place you recovered from.

It was a place where you waited to die.

Florence's intervention and pleading letters for supplies, most of which she paid for herself, gave those men a chance. While she said she regretted how many men were still lost, it cannot be denied that she saved countless. She insisted on clean shirts, clean bedsheets, soap, sunshine, and even activities to keep morale high. She turned a place of death into a place of hope.

It is no wonder her nightly rounds, checking on each and every soldier by lamplight, became the stuff of legend. She was revered and honored, and her larger-than-life reputation gave her the momentum she needed to revolutionize nursing the world over.

The very-different-from-what-most-people-imagine lamp belonging to Nightengale.

Well, I've rambled long enough to kill most of this night - the lights just came on in the terminal and the check-in counter is about to open. By tonight I'll be in Cameroon, and have more stories of my own, far-less-momentous nightly rounds to share with you.

In the meantime, if you consider my ramblings worth your time, I'm working to set up a podcast in which I'll chat with various crew about their experiences on board. You can check it out here - and subscribe if you're interested in more.

That's all for now, folks.

Á la prochaine.