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).