Africa Mercy - What Gratitude Looks Like: One Nurse's Journey

My friend Marilyn continues to give of her time and life on the Africa Mercy, a hospital ship that travels up and down the coast of Africa. Her email post is a bit dated, but it is never too late to reflect on Thanksgiving and being thankful. As Marilyn says below: "Gratitude is a constant theme around here, so much so that it starts to feel normal and expected."

2018-11-24 Thanksgiving and kids
It’s a long weekend for us on the ship. We don’t officially celebrate Thanksgiving, but since the largest people-group is American, they did contrive to serve turkey, dressing, and cranberry sauce for supper. Then there was a party in midships, everyone invited. Assorted people shared desserts that they’d made to celebrate. We also celebrated the Canadian Thanksgiving in October, again unofficially. Thanksgiving is a lovely holiday no matter when you celebrate. 

 I went to the Hope Center yesterday to play with the kids. The Ponsetti program is in full swing, so we have lots of kids with bowed legs or knock knees who are in the process of being straightened. Walking with both legs in full length casts can be a bit tricky, but it doesn’t slow them down much. They especially delighted in the balloon animals that one crew member made for them. Personalities quickly emerged: One boy wanted two, then two more, then two more…all with a twinkle in his eye and a big grin, even when we told him no. One boy had casts on both arms and hands, but he tried very hard to grab a balloon out of the box. When he dropped the balloon I gave him, he quickly knelt down and picked it up off the floor with his teeth. Resourceful lad. One shy girl just looked longingly; she lit up like a Christmas tree when we gave her one, too. One girl was a bit of a bully, bossing others around and taking her turn first when she could. They certainly had different strategies, but they were all eager to participate, and they all stayed cheerful even when we set limits. No pouting, no tears, no sense of entitlement. They teach a good lesson to live in the moment, be grateful for what comes your way, and don’t covet what you don’t have. 

 
Work has settled into a rhythm and goes along without a lot of drama these days. I have scheduled almost 600 people for surgery, half of our goal for the field service. So, we’re pretty much on target. Most of the people do show up for surgery as scheduled, but of course some can’t come because of illness or a death in the family. (We try to reschedule them.) I turn many away due to blood pressure or blood sugar problems, with instructions to get it sorted and come back. Most of them do, so maybe we’ve been a double blessing to them, if they continue to take care of their hypertension or diabetes as we have instructed them. 

Conakry is still experiencing a fair amount of unrest. There are demonstrations several days a week, obstructing traffic, sometimes closing businesses for the day. Some of our day crew and patients live in dangerous neighborhoods, but for the most part, the unrest doesn’t impact Mercy Ships, even the off-ship locations for dentistry and eye clinic. I still haven’t figured out what all the unrest is about—is it just the opposing party trying to unseat the president, or are there specific grievances that could be addressed? Most likely, it’s both. 

Christmas season is almost upon us. It is a wonderful, joyous time on the ship, celebrating traditions from several countries, and free from the commercialism we experience at home. I'm looking forward to it. -- 

Marilyn Neville

marilynneville@elitemail.org

 
2018-11-03, What gratitude looks like Gratitude is a constant theme around here, so much so that it starts to feel normal and expected. And then something over-the- top happens to remind me how thankful all our patients are, and how much they tell us so in words, smiles, tears, hugs, handshakes, songs, and prayers. I had one of those over-the-top events yesterday. An old woman, formerly blind, spent her time and resources for the six weeks following her surgery to make fans for a couple of us, a gift of thanksgiving. It must have taken her many hours; you can feel the love and gratitude woven into every thread. I’ve attached a picture so that you can see how intricate and beautiful the work truly is. 

 It humbles me to receive this gift. I personally have done so little for her—I typed a few things Hopefully I at least smiled and greeted her warmly. (I don’t always…it gets pretty busy, and I neglect the least “essential” but most important thing.) But of course, the gift is not so much for me personally; it is an expression of gratitude to Mercy Ships for the restoration of her sight, and hopefully, to God as the true source of blessing, without whom Mercy Ships could not succeed.

It’s not just the patients that God blesses through Mercy Ships. He uses this ministry to bless the volunteers who come to serve. In fact, his shovel is much bigger than my teaspoon when it comes to dishing out the blessings. Perhaps I, too, need to weave a symbol of my gratitude…but lacking the artistic talent to make a fan, perhaps I’ll just need to weave with words instead.

Speaking of words…I listened to the Celebration of Sight being translated from French into Soussou and Pular yesterday. As I listened to the babble of meaningless sounds that obviously meant something to others, I once again marveled at the gift of speech. Isn’t it amazing? We twist our tongues and lips and breathe through our vocal cords…and convey ideas, even abstract and complex ideas, to one another. When you understand the language, you think about the meaning of what’s being said, not about the vehicle of language itself. Yesterday allowed me to be an outside observer of speech, and it is really quite remarkable. The same can be said about written language. How is it that all these squiggles on the page convey meaning to you? But since God has indeed enabled us to interpret language in squiggle form as well as speech, I’ll use these squiggles to weave my symbol of gratitude to God. He has indeed blessed me abundantly, and I am grateful. Receiving the fan yesterday reminded me of how much I have to be grateful for, and how important it is to say so.
 

Marilyn Neville marilynneville@elitemail.org

Sharon M. Himsl

Published: Evernight Teen 

The Shells of Mersing

Africa Mercy - Douala Health, Simple Solutions, Thanksgiving: One Nurse's Story

More from Marilyn in Africa....  Sorry these postings are so late! My friend, as you know, is in Africa serving as a nurse on the Africa Mercy. She emails me and I share her words with you. For those of you who know nothing of  Marilyn's story, the Africa Mercy is a hospital ship that travels the African coast with a crew of nurses and doctors. They come from all over to give of their time as volunteers. 

(November)

2017-11-02,

"Douala health, Frank, Solange"

     My time here in Cameroon is 25% done already.  How can that be?  I

     feel like we are still on the on-ramp, gearing up, trying to get up

     to speed.  For whatever reason, we aren’t finding the patients we

     expected to find, at least for cataracts.  Most of the other types

     of surgeries—ortho, plastics, tumors, etc.—are already fully booked

     for the remainder of the field service.  The eye team is never

     booked that far ahead—we screen for new patients all year long

     because we can do so many surgeries each day.  But, we are not

     finding as many patients as we could be handling, and the people we

     do see are not as blind as the folks we usually schedule.  We’ve

     done a lot of unilateral cataracts for folks whose other eye sees

     pretty well.  It’s pretty strange to see a whole line of eye

     patients walking up the gangway without assistance because they can

     already see.

     Why are we not finding the profoundly blind people with bilateral

     cataracts?  Perhaps we are screening in the wrong neighborhoods.

     We’re screening where the government told us to screen…but judging

     by the number of medications our patients are taking and the number

     of prior surgeries they’ve had, the overall health care around here

     seems quite a bit better than other places we’ve been.  Perhaps

     Douala itself has good health care but the rest of the country does

     not.  Initially, the government planned to screen for cataracts in

     the regions of Cameroon where we can’t readily go, then pay to

     transport and house those patients in Douala so that we could do

     surgery for them.  So far, anyway, that has not happened.  I don’t

     know if it will eventually, or not.  Whatever the reason, we are

     not effectively reaching the poor who need cataract surgery, and

     that makes me sad.

     Turn this on its head:  The people of Douala seem to have pretty

     good access to health care!  People take vitamins, supplements,

     medicines for aches and pains, as well as medications for specific

     problems like diabetes and hypertension.  People with HIV all seem

     to take their medications consistently.  Quite a few people have

     had prior cataract surgery on one eye, done somewhere, and are now

     coming for the second eye.  I rejoice that so many of the people

     here are doing so well.

     Not everyone in Douala is that fortunate, of course.  Frank, the

     boy I wrote about before, comes from a poor family.  By the way, we

     saw him again this week, and his vision had improved a little more.

      It’s still not good, but he’s no longer “legally blind.”  He

     crossed the street in front of his house for the first time in many

     years…with assistance, but still…  He and his family expressed

     gratitude that we did what we could for him, wondering aloud why on

     earth we cared.  They could have been angry or bitter at having

     their hopes raised and then dashed, but no, only gratitude.

    Next I want to tell you about Solange.  She’s a young woman who was

    put out on the streets when her mother died, and so has a huge heart

    for orphans.  She is currently caring for 48 orphans by herself.

    Her house is in terrible shape, she has no income, and she feeds her

    children by faith, not knowing where the next meal is coming from.

    They eat mostly rice, of course; they almost never have meat or

    vegetables or fruit.  Mercy Ships is getting involved.  We took up a

    collection to buy food for them for the next few months.  Someone

    paid the rent that she has been unable to pay for the last five

    months, and Mercy Ships is looking into alternate facilities for the

    future.  Meanwhile, our electricians and plumbers have been working

    on her house to get it functional again.  The dentist team took care

    of all the kid‘s teeth.  Solange brought one child to our eye clinic

    today, so I got to talk with her.  Her cheerful faith in God is

    wonderful to behold.  It reminds me of the stories of Hudson Taylor

    in China many years ago.  Would that I had such faith!

     Can anyone wonder why I love to be here?

 --

  Marilyn Neville

2017-11-16,

"Simple solutions, broken legs"

     Sometimes the simplest things bring delight.  This week, a fellow

     came to the clinic because he’d had cataract surgery sometime in

     the past, but his vision had gone cloudy again.  He was a

     journalist, but he couldn’t work because he couldn’t see to read.

     This condition, dubbed “secondary cataract”, happens gradually in

     about 20% of all cataract surgeries; the posterior wall of the

     capsule that normally holds the lens gets a film on it.  The

     solution is simple…if you have a laser and know how to use it,

     which we do.  You poke a few holes in the membrane with the laser,

     and voila!  Problem solved.  That was one happy dude that day.

     FYI, we routinely do this laser procedure on all our cataract

     patients at six weeks post-op, just to prevent this from happening

     to our patients, since we can’t predict who will be in the unlucky

     20%.

     We really haven’t had enough work to keep two scheduling nurses

     busy, so Amber decided to move to a different position.  She is now

     a facilitator at the Hope Center; I think that she will like it.

     I’ve been doing all the scheduling for a couple of days now, and it

     seems to go along just fine.  In fact, we usually get done seeing

     and scheduling the patients by lunchtime.  Most of the team returns

     to the clinic in the afternoon for other tasks, but I usually stay

     on the ship and help with data entry and other stuff to help the

     team leader.

     One woman came for cataract surgery today walking on a broken leg.

     She apparently broke it nine days ago by stepping into a

     pothole—that’s not hard to do around here, especially if you can’t

     see—and she just wrapped it up and hoped it would heal.  Instead of

     doing her cataract surgery, we sent her to X-ray, then to the local

     hospital to get the displaced fracture attended to.  We’ll do her

     eyes when that gets sorted out.  But imagine the pain she endured,

     walking on a displaced fracture without even a splint, in order to

     get here for her cataract surgery!

     Our reputation is beginning to build.  One fellow remarked that

     he’d planned to go abroad for cataract surgery, but his friend got

     such good results that he decided to come to us instead.  Well…if

     he’s rich enough to go abroad for surgery, he’s not really among

     the forgotten poor that we came to serve…but it was nice to hear

     the good report, anyway.

     We are starting to draw patients from places further away.  We have

     been developing a questionnaire for untrained screeners to use to

     identify potential cataract patients as they are screening for

     other things.  We got our first batch of these potential patients

     on Monday, and three of the four actually were suitable for

     surgery.  It seems promising.  Perhaps this will be a way to find

     patients among the poor who live outside the city, in the villages.

      I sense a wave of the future here…

     You folks will be celebrating Thanksgiving next week.  It will be a

     crazy-busy work day for us, but that won’t stop us from giving

     thanks!  What a blessing it is just to be here, doing what we do.

     I wouldn’t trade this time for anything.  So, eat an extra bite of

     turkey or pumpkin pie for me, and rejoice with me in my good

     fortune to be here.

Marilyn

2017-11-23, 

"Thanksgiving, YAG day"

Well, it feels like Thanksgiving after all.  Yes, we worked hard all

day, but when we got back to the ship, they had prepared a delicious

turkey dinner, and many people had made desserts to share, so it really

is quite festive.  There are a lot of Americans on board…but we invited

everyone to the party, not just Americans.

I wish you could see YAG day at the clinic.  It looks chaotic, with

people everywhere, but it is actually a fairly well-controlled chaos.

The clinic is a room about the size of a normal school classroom.  On

YAG day, the surgeon is doing the YAG procedure on about a hundred

people—our patients who had cataract surgery about six weeks prior, plus

random people who have had cataract surgery in the past but never had

the YAG done.  All of them get their eye pressure checked (for

glaucoma), then their visual acuity done.  They move to the next bench

to begin the drops to dilate their eyes, then have an auto-refractor

reading done.  Moving to the next bench, they get more dilating drops

and wait their turn for YAG.  Meanwhile, based on the auto-refractor

readings, we give them readers if they need them.  After the YAG, we

take them back outside to wait for the Celebration of Sight.  That’s a

lot of procedures happening simultaneously, and the room is packed with

people moving from bench to bench, and workers swarming all around.  It

reminds me of lines at Disneyland.

Once all the YAGs are done, we bring all the patients and all their

caregivers back into the clinic for the Celebration of Sight.  Now there

are 200-250 people packed into the space.  The singing is beautiful,

unlike anything I’ve experienced at home.  The testimonies are

heart-felt gratitude to Mercy Ships and to God for their restored sight.

 Looking at that whole room full of people we’ve impacted with just one

week of surgery—it blows my mind.  And we plan to do it for about 28

weeks.

This week, I had a relatively young man, profoundly blind, brought to us

from a city many hours away by his friend, a very old man, because he

had no family to help him.  They rode the bus all day and then spent the

night on the streets because they had no money for a hotel.  Normally,

when they come to the clinic for secondary screening, we do the

measurements and book their surgery for the next available slot, about a

month later.  But, for this fellow, we put him in as an extra surgery

that same afternoon, and found beds for them at the local hospital,

since of course he needed to stay for the one-day post-op exam the

following morning.  You should have seen that young man beaming as he

greeted me that morning!  What a difference that act of friendship made.

We are starting to get more and more patients from further away, so we

are scrambling to figure out how to handle them.  For most of them,

multiple trips to Douala are a hardship, and yet, stuffing them into an

already full surgery schedule isn’t always possible.  So far, we’ve been

able to find a bed at the local hospital for those who really need it,

and usually we can squeeze them into the surgery schedule, although it

is disruptive to do last-minute add-ons.  If the number of long-

distance patients increases too much, it may not work…but for now, we’re

scraping by.  If we could predict the numbers, we could adapt…but, dream

on.

 Marilyn 

Happy Thanksgiving - A Memory...and Song by Johnny Cash

We laughed about it later, the tiny plates of food the server brought to our table for Thanksgiving. One scoop of mashed potatoes and gravy, a half slice of turkey and a dab of cranberry sauce. Gathered around that table, half way around the world, sat a motley group of expats from all over the United States. Our ages ranged from forty something to seventy. It was our seventh month living in Malaysia and we were all a little homesick, but friendship and the willingness of a hotel restaurant to attempt Thanksgiving for us could not have been sweeter. 

Whereever you are, wishing you a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! 

Sharon M. Himsl

Writer/Author. Blogging since 2011. 
Published with Evernight Teen: 
~~The Shells of Mersing

Happy Thanksgiving: Memories Flood my Heart

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope all of you are tucked in nice and cozy somewhere, enjoying a special time with family and friends today. Memories flood my heart and mind this time of year and I can't help but reflect back. In America, this is the best holiday ever.

My memories grow and change with each passing year. Here are some of my favorites:

Sharing a Thanksgiving meal with international students, those that Vince and I met at the university in our jobs. How I loved the surprise on their faces and the gratefulness they always expressed. Harue and Akino from Japan; Federico, Corine, Pablo and Jose Juan, from Uruguay; Jose Angel and Daniela from Mexico; and many, many more who wandered in to share our table. I'm afraid I do not remember all your names. 

A snowy Thanksgiving morning. Vince was on the road, driving to Spokane to pick up our son. He had flown in from Oregon, where he had taken his first job after graduating from college. He was so excited to be home again. I filled the house with praise-filled music and scrumptious scents that wafted from the oven as the turkey roasted, pies baked, and pots boiled on the stove. How I cherish that memory. 

There is my first Thanksgiving meal as a newlywed in Biloxi, Mississippi. Not bad, as I recall, but no matter. We were thankful, oh so thankful to be alive. Vince and I had survived Hurricane Camille in August. The storm had killed over a 100 in our area alone.

So many more memories. Too many to count, I'm afraid. There are those of my childhood, when relatives gathered from all over the Tacoma area. The women and girls crowded in Mom's tiny kitchen to make a meal for ten or more. How did we ever do it, Mom? Your meals were pure perfection. 

And still, the tradition continues. With family far and wide, we will spend it with Vince's sister and husband this year. My apple pie is already in the oven baking. Sweet potatoes are boiling in a pot on the stove for the candied sweet potatoes, the family likes. 

Blessings to all of you, and if you are alone this holiday, my heart goes out to you in friendship. Huge hug to you! This is one time I would hate to be alone. God bless you and Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving: A Day of Thanks

Thanksgiving Day is the oldest holiday in America, and for me anyway, it is certainly the most popular. Most Americans know the story of the English colonists known as Pilgrims, who in pursuit of religious freedom, fled their homeland in 1620 to settle in present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts. A year later, in gratefulness for a successful harvest, they held a huge feast with the local Indians, the Wampanoag. The famous feast became known as Thanksgiving Day. 

Some may be surprised to learn that this particular feast was not a religious celebration. The Pilgrims did not believe in public display of their religion. Although they were surely thankful, the feast was strictly a non-religious affair, and included game playing and even drinking of liquor. I was also surprised to learn that the 1621 feast is not considered the origin of Thanksgiving Day.

Another feast held on June 30, 1623, is thought to be the real origin of Thanksgiving Day. As the story goes, the Plymouth colony had just endured a terrible drought. Crops were dying in the ground and there appeared to be no relief in sight for the Pilgrims. After much fasting and praying, the rains finally came, followed by a rescue operation from England. Captain Miles Standish miraculously sailed into the harbor with fresh supplies. The shouts of joy that filled the harbor that day must have been heard for miles and miles. A day of thanksgiving and prayer was declared that was both a social and religious celebration.

The standard modern-day meal in America goes something like this: Roasted whole turkey with stuffing, cranberries, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping, green bean casserole, vegetable trays and/or salad (including jello and fruit), pumpkin bread, olives, pickles and other condiments, and last but not least, pumpkin pie. 

Well, it was hardly the menu of the Pilgrims. A standard 1623 menu would have been: roasted duck, corn porridge, venison or deer meat, seafood, onions, squash, and corn. I'll take the modern version any day, but it is a lot of eating for one sitting, which is why I love leftovers the best.

Personally, in spite of an elaborate menu, I love the simplicity of this holiday. We give thanks to God, plain and simple. Many will bow in prayer around the table with a table grace. Or, if nothing else, they will think about something they can be thankful for this year. One tradition is to go around the table and share one thing you are thankful for. If you have never done this, I urge you to try. It really sets the mood, and those beautiful candles you set on the table to glow warmly will make the moment all the more meaningful, too. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!  

Sources: http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmah/thanks.htm; 
http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/feast/slideshow.htm; 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrim_Fathers