Well, for this year, anyway.
Over the next few weeks, a mass exodus of crew will take place, leaving only a skeleton crew for the sail to Grand Canaria for repairs and maintenance. I'll be departing on Friday, which is also the last day of surgery on board. All of our patients should be leaving the ship the weekend after that.
Yesterday, a local nurse from a nearby hospital came around the wards to meet some of our patients with delayed wound healing, who might need a little more time under nursing care before they are well enough to return home. If necessary, they will be transferred into her care and well looked after.
I think I'm still in denial that I have to leave this incredible place in 2 days, but the process of cleaning and packing up our wonderful B Ward has helped give a bit of a sense of closure.
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| We might have been a tidge over-enthusiastic with the cleaning. |
Since one of our adult wards is closing up, the remainder of our General Surgery patients are hanging out on A Ward, as well as our nurses and day crew. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, every single day on the wards has at least one mind-blowing moment. Yesterday, it was seeing a group of 3 men, complete strangers, walking into the ward for the first time, getting some instructions from our Day Crew about how to use the bathrooms (because yes, that is a thing we have to do), then the next thing I knew they were all sitting together praying (in French, so I caught some of it!) for each other, and thanking the Lord for the opportunity to be on the ship.
At another point during the shift, one of the nurses pointed over to the other side of the ward at a young, 11 or 12 year old patient and said, "Look! She's performing surgery on her teddy!" I peeked around the corner to see her knitted teddy laid out on a tray on her lap, and the patient carefully inspecting some pencil crayons before deciding on one to make an incision with. She broke concentration for a second, met my eyes, and grinned sheepishly.
Gosh, I'm going to miss these moments.
It's not all roses and sunshine, of course. There have been incredible highs of encouraging and heart-warming moments, and devastating lows.
My shift yesterday started with some news which left us all choking back tears.
A mother had brought her one year-old baby girl to us, hoping for a miracle. A tumor had grown inside her mouth, making it difficult to swallow, and threatening to compromise her airway if it grew any more. Our screening teams hoped some improvement could be made with surgery, but as is always the concern with fast-growing tumors, worried it could be malignant. As she stayed with us over the last few weeks, her condition became more and more concerning. Confirmation came that the tumor was indeed cancerous. Our team of doctors reached out to local hospitals to try to secure chemo, the only cancer treatment option here in Benin. Just days before she could be transferred off ship to start treatment, she took a turn for the worse. Her respirations were becoming more and more laboured, and her oxygen levels were taking dangerous dips below normal. Imaging revealed the cancer had already spread throughout her lungs.
Rather than endure a treatment that had a limited chance of success, which might cause more suffering than it would prevent, it was decided with the mother to bring the baby home. Our palliative team would do everything possible to help her slip away peacefully, surrounded by people who love her.
She was home not 24 hours, enough to see her family one last time, before her little lungs could fight no more.
Despite what seems like a tragedy, the mother repeatedly emphasized how thankful she was for our help, for doing the best we could to help her daughter, even though it didn't feel like enough.
The death of a child is, sadly, a relatively common occurrence here. That isn't to say that it doesn't still hurt. There is still grieving, there is sorrow, there is anger. Yet there is an ability to accept it and move forward with hope for the future, in a way that is hard for me to understand.
I know, though, that God can bring beautiful transformation out of a tragedy. I have seen it. Time after time. It is so easy to see here...on a daily basis. From hopelessness, to brimming with anticipation.
The real challenge is bringing that vision back home. To see His transformation working in less obvious, but no less miraculous ways. I hope I can.
See you soon, Canada.
À la prochaine, Afrique.
-D
