It has been a while since I’ve written. We have been quite busy. The rains came for a couple weeks and now it has not rained for a month again. No one is planting yet. we look forward to being home and since January we have not found a physician to cover the hospital during our absence. God has provided every year. Last year it was 5 days before leaving. I’m sure he will provide again. We were hoping to have peaceful sleep, the Friday night. The power is out because 9 power poles blew over on Thursday. I suspect we will be out for more than a week. So I was getting ready for bed. Where to sleep. It’s 94 degrees inside. A little breeze near the kitchen table, the bed is to hot, the trampoline outside is a good spot but I don’t feel like mosquito repellent tonight. So I lay a sheet on the concrete floor and sleep for about an hour. I am awakened by itching and buzzing around my ears, Mosquitos! So I go for the bed. I take a bucket bath (no power = no running w
ater) to cool off and don’t even dry off. I just drip to bed and evaporate while laying there. I’ve just fallen to sleep when there is a knock at the window. There is a problem at maternity. Jonas is calling. I slowly walk into the hospital and wake up enough to talk to Jonas. A woman has been in labor since yesterday but is not progressing. I do a vaginal exam and get meconium on the gloves. The baby is stressed. i tell the father that we need to do a C-section, and surprisingly he directly agrees with whatever I think is best. I go and start the generator and head to the OR. I do a c-section and pull out a screaming baby. Praise God, the last two were still-born. It’s very frustrating to do a c-section and know the baby is dead. I finish up her surgery. I slowly go home as to not be my muscles hot. I take a shower and drip to bed.
An hour later the hospital guard is at the window. This time it is someone who was drunk and got hit in the head. He had done Ok and then became unconscious. He is laying on the ER bed wet and smelling of urine and bili-bili (millet wine). I rub his sternum to arouse him and he doesn’t really do anything. Checking his pupils demonstrates that the one is working fine but the one on the side where he was hit is dilated and non-reactive. He needs a neurosurgeon. Let’s see, the nearest one is in Yaounde aprox. 1000 miles away. You may recall Shanksteps #73 that Audrey wrote about my job description. Well, let’s add one more- Neurosurgeon. Dr. Gary Marais had brought us out a drill and a few instruments that could be used for a burr hole. So I took these with me to the OR. Reviewed cranial anatomy, sliced open the scalp, dissected up the periosteum. And found a hole punched in the skull with blood clots bulging from it. As I evacuated the hematoma, he seemed to react
more. We put him more asleep. I found he had an epidural hematoma. I evacuated this. Picked pieces of bone from his brain matter and then closed the dura. But he kept bleeding. I tied off the meningeal artery, where it was bleeding and then held pressure 20 min. I left a drain and at the end of surgery his eye was reactive again. Praise God he is still alive. I am anxious to see the end result. There is never a dull moment in the mission field. I pray that God heal this man and that he be able to go home without deficits. Thank you for lifting them up in prayer too. Greg