Ishmael and Agnes

Yesterday I finished my last day of work on the ward here on the Anastasis. It was bittersweet knowing that I am excited for where I am going to work when I come home and excited to see my family and friends however it will be hard to leave here, my heart is here, but more on that later. My second to last shift I had the pleasure of hosting a sing a long for the patients. Now for those of you that know me well or really any member of my family it is commonly known that we cannot sing at all. And I would like to say right now that it is a commonly held wrong belief that black people can sing, well at least in the USA they can however not here in Africa so I was in good company with one patient that had just had a pharyngoplasty meaning he had his cleft lip repaired years a go but never had the palate put back together so essentially he has not had a roof of his mouth for most of his life being 12 years old know. So we fixed his palate and now he is learning to talk so his singing wasn't that magnificent. And then we were with Agnes, Agnes is a 50 year old woman that had a large tumor removed from her jaw. She is unbelievable, she is a joy to have on the ward and she is doing incredible. She is always laughing and always singing and interacting with the other patients, she is remarkable. I don't know that if i had lived most of my life with a huge couple of kilo heavy tumor on my jaw would I be inclined to live with such joy she was like this before surgery and she is like this after surgery. It has been her mission to teach me a song in Twi which I have learned is quite possibly the hardest langauge to learn. It's mostly basic sounds not really even words per say. It's hard to explain. Anyhow on this occasion I was finished with most of my nursing jobs and was left to just hang out with the patients and I found a xylophone which is dangerous.
All of you phoenix nurses reading this please insert memories of me having dance parties at 3 am and try to imagine a sing a long at that time. Anyhow we sang and sang and it was wonderful until about 5 minutes into it the other nurses were giving me a death stare:) It was funny. Ishmael was one of my favorite patients he had his mom were incredible people. Ishmael had a pharyngoplasty and had a huge scar on his forehead that Dr. Gary revised to make a little better looking. Ishmael came to us through a German missionary friend. He was deserted by his father at a young age and now lives in a suburb of Tema with his mother, his mother works at day trying to sell anything that will make her money. To them Mercy Ships was a lifesaver, Ishmael always had a hard time eating and swallowing because he did not have a palate to help him chew his food, imagine not having a roof of your mouth and just having one huge hole behind your nose and in your mouth, I couldn't believe how hard it was once he was repaired to even try to make and "L" or an "S" sound because he's never had a roof of his mouth to stabilize that whole area. He is now able to eat regular foods and able to finally at 12 years of age to learn to speak. The things that so many of us learned at such a young age, stuff that we don't even think about learning that just came second nature because we not only had the correct anantomy but the resources to fix whateve was wrong. The smile on Ishmaels face was priceless as he left. I will most remember the joy that was displayed on the patients faces as they walked out of the unit. They were changed Ishmael was changed his entire personality was changed it was remarkable. (remember that i can't sing when you look at these funny pictures of me trying to sing).

This is Paulina she was in bed 34 next to Azziz who was in bed 33 obviously I guess. Anyhow both of them had mandibulectomys last week and both of them had the exact same incision the exact same dressing and tube feedings and everything. On day 6 of their feeds when they really hate their feeds and wish that we along with Ensure would die. On this particular day during the lunch hour three of the nurses were off the ward eating lunch and three of us were left there. Caroline was feeding Paulina through her feeding tube in her nose, I was helping another patient and the third nurse was trying to get into the locked box of narcotics but was having trouble, meanwhile her patient was screaming in pain. So I left my patient couldn't get it open, so the next thing I know is that Caroline has handed the feeding syring and tube to Paulina and told her to hold it that she would be right back. Well fifteen minutes later we had still be unable to get into the locked box and we had forgotten about Paulina and her feeds.
Caroline and I turned around to find Azziz and Paulia feeding each other, she would take his bottle of feeds and fill up the plunger and then in turn he would do hers. It was hilarious to see them feeding each other, when they saw us watching them they started laughing at us. Well it was funny when it happened. The pictures from above are of her on the day that we removed the feeding tube and she honestly thought that I was the best thing that ever walked the face of the earth. I took out the tube she coughed and then started shouting Praise the Lord, He is Good my nose is healed and the tube is out and I can eat, Oh sista I can eat. She was dancing all over the place. One of the photographers captured the pictures of me taking out the tube they are in reverse order sorry:)

Cool Pictures!!

Pictures, Pictures

Gloria, one of the girls from the Kinder Paradise Orphanage.

Nicholas trying to climb into the car and go with us.
JennyJo and Stephany playing on the new monkey bars!
Mary and Darisia I think this was the fifth or sixth picture we took, they really really love digital cameras!
This ship is one of the largest that comes in and out of this port
there are 11 decks of cars on this ship it's the Grimaldi lines out of Italy.
We went to tour it the other night it was fascinating it's about 3 times the size of the ship we are on with only 31 crew memebers compared to our 300. it was very cool, the cheif engineer of the ship stated that it was a good day because there were so many women on board, there were 4 of us, the most in a long time he said.


This is my friend Drew who leaves tomorrow to go get married! Anyhow he is standing next to a coffin, yes that is a coffin designed for someone who grows vegetables or is a farmer, they have eagle coffins for pastors, cell phones for technology people, lions for village chiefs. You can look at the stories on NPR and BBC or google Ghana fantasy coffins, it seems just a tad ridiculous:)
Monday was my birthday and in true style the ship was full of festivities, in all honesty you can't get away from your birthday here, one of the nurses i work with has a huge collection of mardis gras beads and she handed them out to all of thes people and throughout the day they would come across me in the hall or at mealtime and sneak up on me and throw the beads around my neck it made me kind of paranoid actually.
I was sung to at lunch by the entire crew and that morning by the medical staff and later that night by the nurses and then by a bunch of friends that took me out after my shift was over. All in all it was a great day oh and I got phone calls from Mom Luke and little bro Cole that was exciting!! Thanks to everyone else that tried to call and couldn't get through. Cheers!!

Life Still Happens Even on a Ship in Africa


This past week was a good lesson that life still happens, a good reminder that as much as you may want to escape life still follows and life occurs the grief the joy the ups and the downs the realities of it all. Last week started with a collision, many of you know that Monday our ship got hit by another ship a much larger ship. I just so happened to be in the shower at the time when we got hit and i was thrown against the wall. Everyone was fine on both ships and we sustained no major damage there is a dent but that is all, no leaking no sinking. We are heavily protected by the Lord.
I spent the last week on night shift. We were overstaffed so the ward supervisor gave me the night off, which I told her that since I was the only ICU trained nurse scheduled that night, that Murphy's Law would have it that I was going to be called in because something would happen and sure enough I got a call at like 8pm saying that there was a ventilated patient. This poor young man had a huge lymphangioma removed from his jaw. The surgery went well, the surgeon said that it was just a huge honeycombed network of lymph nodes and veins full of lymphatic fluid. So the surgery ended and they put the pressure dressing on and injected doxycycline into the incision which is supposed to stop the lymph from producing and causing another tumor. However this young mans lymph system was not so obedient and within 1 hour of surgery his face and neck and airway were swollen with lymph fluid, he had a huge growth of lymph fluid right between his eyes that cropped up in like five minutes, the lymph to the path of least resistance and was everywhere he promptly was intubated as his airway was swelling to a dangerous point. So I had him all night on a ventilator from the 60's. It was a great experience to work in my element in the ICU without the endless supplies and equipment and doctors that we have at home. Creativity is a must in this job. Wednesday morning came and went and then Thursday night I was in the ICU again with the same, however right at change of shift a 911 page went off overhead, an older women a crew member had collapsed on the upper deck and was coding, or her heart was stopped. The medical team responded and performed CPR for 45 minutes and shocked her 5 times with the defibrillator before she normalized her heart, she was promptly taken to the ICU, it was a major event. I thought for sure given her age and just the simple trauma of continuous CPR and defibrillating would definitely not lead to a good outcome. Remarkably well through God's great grace by 2pm in the afternoon shew as awake, they extubated her, she remained on an amiodarone drip but as sitting up talking and feeling a little tired but otherwise feeling well. This whole time there was a continous prayer group meeting every 30 minutes to pray for her. That evening she was transferred to the Korle Bu hospital at the university which for West Africa is a beautiful facility with all of the western equipment you just have to pay extra for modern stuff. Saturday she was airlifted to Paris to the American Hospital there to undergo more treatment. Whenever they turn off the heart medication her heart goes back into a very threatening heart arrythmia but otherwise she feels great. It's an awesome testimony and was so amazing to see God's hand in that. To top all of that Thursday ngiht i went to work and had two ICU patients with tracheostomies. It was a crazy night and a perfect way to end a crazy week. This week as already started better and I hope it's more mild even though the adrenaline of last week was fun!!
Last night I went out with the HIV/AIDS team to teach education at a local church. My friend Nicole heads up the team and is one of the teachers and it's just amazing to see the hunger in these people. They so want to respond to the AIDS problem in Africa and Ghana appropriately. Part of Mercy Ships education is to train these local churches to go out and do the AIDS education program in other areas. Education is key to solving this problem. A great example is the country of Uganda who actually has a drop in AIDS after the current president took the problem to the churches and asked them to address it seriously. The education program we use here is three part, first covering the actual education regarding the illness, then there is a caring portion, how to care for these people and to get beyond how they got AIDS to the point of how can we remove the stigma of AIDS and just love you and validate your place in society as a human being. The third is counseling for that person. It's a whole body system that address physical, mental and spiritual aspects of AIDS. These people in the churches are passionate about responding appropraitely and educating their peers. It was so good to be a part of their night to observe their hearts for those that struggle with the illness, to love on them to bring about health and restore a relationship with Christ. As we were driving out there I kept thinking as we were trekking into one of the poorer areas of Tema, and passing all the shacks and the filth and their poverty. I kept thinking, who gets to do this, who in their 20's is in a car huddled with four other people taking the message of AIDs education and the message of hope and healing to a people group that is afflicted more so than any other by this disease. Who does this stuff? It is truly a privelege one that I will not soon forget.

United States comes to visit.
Last night this Navy ship, we think it is a frigate, if someone knows any better let me know but it pulled in last night and is escorted by a police boat with a mounted gun on it. This morning a navy ship from Denmark pulled in behind us so we are wondering if it has to do with the 20th anniversary celebration of this port. I don't know, a couple of us are trying to get on the US ship to tour it but it is highly doubtful. I will keep you up to date;)

Fire Drill!!!





Part of living on the ship is the exciting things that take place like Fire Drills. Because we are a ship we have to abide by maritime law which states that we must have two firedrills a month. Because this is also good practice for the fire team, the captain always arranges to have victims in the fire drill. Somehow word got around that I play crazy well. So they asked me to be a hysterical nurse. My friend Carolina one of the cooks was the actual victim, she and I were walking on deck when the emergency generator exploded and the wooden door was ripped off and Carolina was impaled in the leg with a wood piece, really it was wood, duct tape and a lot of ketchup. My job was to run around and scream and carry on and make the firemans job really hard. We have two fire teams on board made up of a lot of the long term crew that are required to attend fire school and basic safety training. So the fire alarm went off and I started screaming and carrying on that Carolina was going to die and we would have to phone Brazil and the ship was going to sink and that we were all going to die in Africa and how horrible it would e to sink in this nasty water since the sewage plant broke a couple of weeks ago and all the sewage from the city goes in this water. I was making no sense but just kept yelling. As you can see from the picture above the first fireman to me was Egbert the chief security officer on board he's from Holland speak pretty good english but sounds like Arnold Schwarzaneggar so it was really hard not to laugh when he got to me first. He pushed me aside, and I run around back into his face and started to push him and then two other fire man just picked me and carried me out of the way, I was screaming the whole time. I actually have some bruises from the whole event and even think I made myself hyperventilate while I was trying to act like I had smoke inhalation. But the fire teams and the emergency medical team take this stuff really seriously, so I just kept acting crazy and made them try to calm me down. it was pretty fun. However now any time I see any of the fire team in the hallways or wherever they all shake their head and laugh at me and asked if they could nominate me for an Academy Award. AAh life on the ship.