Into the Night

We're into the single digits now, counting the days until we come home. Are we counting, well yes. But the reason for it changes with the minute the question is asked. As it stands, i have four shifts left before we leave this big float-able boat. I'm in the middle of another set of night shifts, which if you've been following our blog, usually means some sort of lengthy thought provoked blog entry. Only, this time i have been thoroughly engrossed in a book the last two nights. I call them 'fluff' books, long stories about nothing much. But, it makes the time go by faster.

Still, i suppose i do have a few more stories left in me. Say for example, when the A/C breaks down for 10 hours in the belly of a hospital ship situated on the equator. Turns out it gets hot, really hot, fairly quickly. Ya ya ya, i hear you saying, "poor little white girl fanning herself complaining that it's hot in Africa." Well, I am proud (maybe not the right word) to say that the African translators were agreeing with me by 3 am, as were the patients who were all very awake and agitated around the same time! Agitated really isn't a fair word, it just meant the kids were up colouring and the adults were up getting showered to cool off. I was the one agitated that everyone was awake so early! That and, I may be leaving out a few hilarious details for the privacy of all persons involved in the heat wave, but that is only because you had to be there to appreciate them!

(ward empty of patients)

There was little rest going on that night. As the temperature climbed, the layers of blankets fell to the floor in equal increments. One Mama, sleeping under the bed of her daughter, pulled back the curtain that acts as a light shield during the night, waving at us that she was hot. She fell asleep shortly after only for her hand to flop out from under the curtain suddenly in her sleep. Now, picture us, on the other side of the curtain minding our own business, when a hand suddenly appears in the corner of our eye. We had to stifle a startled laugh! Not long after, her daughter who is a very 'active' sleeper suddenly fell off her bed, pulling the curtain down on her. (This curtain had already fallen down 5 times that night). The precious girl didn't even wake up! Around 2am, 6 people decided it was tea time, all asking for tea and bread! Now, at home this wouldn't be all that shocking, but here, I'll admit it was a little out of the ordinary. We spent the night procuring fans, settling a startled patient, and walking other who were too hot to sleep. Later, as the patients calmed down, our energetic translators begged us for lessons on facebook as we surrounded the screen looking at pictures ship friends had posted from their various travels around Benin. Night shifts rarely fail to deliver some kind of unexpected story.

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10:30 am the drums start to beat. A door opens and a beautiful young African lady emerges singing her heart out. She comes down the hallway gently swaying to the music in a new yellow dress, complete with a matching hat she has created using clever folding and weaving techniques that I have never been able to follow. She walks toward the ward, the place she has lived for the last 3 weeks with her son. The drums get louder and louder as she approaches. Inside the doors she is welcomed by dozens of faces. Some, the smiling faces of the nurses who have looked after her and her son. Others, ladies from other areas of the ship who have heard about her story and her son. They have spent time with her over her stay, bring craft projects and smiles with them. Still others, translators and disciplers who know her better than we do greet her with cheers. Everyone smiling, singing and dancing to the music as she makes her way to the seat of honour at the front of the room. She carries with her an instrument which she shakes rhythmically to the beat without thinking, calling out loudly in a way i can only describe as African yoddling! She is beautiful, she is going home.

The ward is full of patients awaiting Maxillofacial surgery. Our friend was the last of the VVF patients to go home, and she celebrated her healing unashamedly with her new friends. They stared curiously at the celebration taking place in front of them. A young man sat quietly smiling as he watched. A large mass protruding off the side of his jaw, the size of a small grapefruit, didn't hinder his one-sided grin as the Yovo (nickname for white person) nurses tried to dance African style. Across the room was another young woman, already joining the singing, though reservedly. A larger mass was taken from her neck the day earlier, now replaced by a large bandage. Her face now swollen from the surgery did not mask her joy as she celebrated her own new day of hope. A small girl sat a few beds away, anxiously waiting for her to surgery. A large lesion occluding the vision in her right eye was to be removed today. Another girl sat propped up on pillows as her mother stroked her hand while her nurse administered pain medication. Her surgery took place the night before, taking 6 hours while the surgeons removed a bony mass from her neck. She's doing well, though the sight of so many drains and IV tubes was obviously unfamiliar and uncomfortable to her. The drums grew louder, and the singing even more so. From the other side of the room, another young man roused from his bed, cautiously guarding his abdomen from a hernia repair. He slowly made his way toward the celebration, taking a seat in the corner, clapping his hands.
(picture from previous dress ceremony in June)

Ditching her mop, one of our day workers joined in the dancing. Energetic to the core, she pulled in others and a dance-off ensued. I laughed from my seat in the back of the room as my African friends laughed joyously, dancing their hearts out in agreement with our patient's joy. The celebration was the best one, i thought, since the start of the VVF surgeries in May. Perhaps because we all knew this little family so well. Perhaps because after 8 weeks of laborious care, we were all due for a large celebration... and opportunity to truly praise and thank God for what he had done. Tears clouded the eyes of our patient as she shared her story, a story of hopelessness, abandonment and sadness. But, while her little boy ran around the room looking for anyone of the nurses who love him so much to lift him up for a better view, she praised God. She praised him for her son, she praised him for the nurses who have looked after her son as much as they've looked after her. She praise him for the hope she now had. After 13 years of being wet with urine, after being abandoned by 2 men who said they loved her, she was now setting out for a new life. Her face will forever be ingrained in my mind, the true image of joy.

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Last night, i looked after a little old man who had had a little medical excitement the previous shift. I positioned my chair close to his bed to keep an eye on his monitors early in the shift and prayed that he would be alright. I had an ICU nurse next door should i need assistance, but I still felt that uncomfortable unease any primary nurse would in a new situation. I have gained a new appreciation for surgical nurses and their special set of skills during my stay here, turns out it's not all as straightforward as i naively thought before! I would look up from my charting periodically to check him and he would open one eye instinctively to smile at me. His smile was one of those grandfatherly grins that will melt any nurse's heart. His face, aged by the sun, was wrinkled, though i thought filled with smile lines. His small frame, crippled by bowed legs, moves slowly as he maneuvers about the ward with a well aged cane. This small man had seen more of life than i can probably imagine, he bore a look on his face saying, I've been through worse than this, don't worry. I wondered what this man was thinking as he struggled to find a comfortable position to sleep amidst the tubes, lines and drains. What must it be like for him, living 80+ years now confined to a bed at the bottom of a ship? I suppose I'll never know, I wasn't about to ask him in the middle of the night. Later, early in the morning as i was preparing to leave i said through a translator that his heart was doing much better and soon we could take off some of the monitors. He smiled and simply said "thank you" with a little pat on my hand. He signaled "are you done?" i said yes, smiling once more he disappeared under his sheet. "I'll see you tomorrow," i said in my limited French. Silent thankfulness,... he will be just fine.

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I am where I am supposed to be.