MissionDocs.org

Shanksteps #44

9-4-06
Please come to the hospital I have a number of
patients for you to see (as translated from French).
It was Sabbath morning and I was trying to sleep in.
I went in to the hospital and found a “few” patients
(nine!) in the ER. This is the season when all the
things from last year, mainly onions and peanuts, are
sold at high prices just before the new crops start to
develop. Onions buy for $14 a large sac and at this
season sell for $40. So this family had sold their
onions this week and had “made” about $2000. Wow that
was impressive! What we suspect is that people
watching these transactions and noted which family
made a large sum of money, then told their Nigerian
friends who came an robbed this family. So the
robbers showed up in a vehicle, shot a gun in the air
to scare all the neighbors from helping, then brutally
beat up the family till they handed over the money.
So they all arrived together, penniless and with many
injuries.
– wife #1 severely beat on head, loosing
consciousness, with multiple cuts from the stick
hitting her head
– wife #2 with the same injuries
– father of house, multiple cuts over head from
beating and cuts on hands from defending himself
against a knife, contusions over shoulders, back,
face, arms
– Son with loss of consciousness from severe blow to
head, I could not determine if he had a skull fracture
or not, seemed to be slow of speech.
– One neighbor had the guts to help, man severely beat
on face with zygomatic arch fractures, as best I could
see on the x-ray- nondisplaced
– Son with contusions over thigh and probable medial
maleolus fracture they refused to let me x-ray.
– worker of family with small finger fracture at base
and contusions everywhere
– worker with facial contusions
– young boy with minor contusions
It took us about 4 hours to suture all the cuts, look
at all the films they allowed us to take, and
prescribe medications.
I went back to the ER to see if there was anything
left to do and two new were in the ER. One was 17 you
girl with an acute abdomen (surgical abdomen). She
had been seen in Maroua and said she had a hernia and
needed surgery but the surgeon left for Yaounde. I
think they have more surgeons there so it not all
clear to me. The other one was an old woman with
complete bowl obstruction for 3 days, also needing
surgery. The younger girl I operated on after getting
something to eat and drink. She had perforated
appendicitis with pus everywhere. Her father is
influential in Mokolo and could give good or bad
publicity for our hospital. After finishing her I saw
a couple more children. One with malaria and
convulsions, and another with dysentery and malaria.
After admitting them I headed for home. I ate supper
and headed to bed. Just after crawling in bed there
was another knock! (Not what I wanted) Audrey was
already asleep so I headed back in. I found another
convulsing child with what I suspected was malaria and
another child who had a cough. Father demanded a shot
of Ampicillin and to go home. Because that always
works for a cough. By then I was not feeling very
amiable so I told him he needed to be admitted because
I thought he had epiglotitis (infection of the throat
and epiglottis) but he refused so I gave him oral
medications and they left. I got home about 3AM and
had difficulty falling asleep. Strange how one can be
so tired and not be able to sleep.
Sunday is our busiest day. We saw a number of
patients in clinic. At about 10 AM I finally
convinced a man to let me do surgery on him. He had
refused for 4 days of complete obstruction. Finally
he felt so bad he let me. He had ruptured
appendicitis and fortunately I only had to take his
appendix. Then the old woman was not being
decompressed with the nasogastric tube so I convinced
her family to let me operate and the government
official of that area agreed to pay. I found a pelvic
tumor blocking the large intestine. It had already
spread so performed an ostomy to relieve her
obstruction. She looks 100 and is very malnourished.
I pray she survives the insult. I finished her about
7PM. I went home and dropped dead from exhaustion.
The first couple weeks we were back things were slow
and now they are picking up. I guess God was giving
us time to get our internal clocks set back to
Cameroon before we picked up a lot of work. We are
thankful for the work as it helps our hospital try to
run in the black. And we thank God we have the energy
to keep up. Please keep us in your prayers as we
serve Him here! Shanks

Shanksteps of faith #42
8-25-06

We’re Back…
It may be hard to believe for those of you who have
traveled in Africa, but we had an essentially
uneventful trip back from the states. As you may
remember, on our first trip here, we missed every
plane, train, automobile, and motorcycle. I think
that God was really pushing for us to get back to Koza
quickly as the hospital went without doctors for
several days. (The couple that replaced us at Koza
were told that they only had one day that they could
fly out of Cameroun or they would have to stay until
September. They chose to leave Koza a couple of days
before we returned so that they would be able to leave
the country.) We left Charleston WV on Aug 11th (the
day after the terrorists were arrested) slightly late
and arrived into Cleveland OH with just enough time to
catch the next flight. (I have to add that we had 8
bags (allowed 6) and they were all overweight, but the
agent never charged us one cent – a miracle in
itself.) We left Cleveland a bit late but arrived in
Newark NJ with just enough time to make the flight.
We were kinda hoping that we wouldn’t make the flight
in Brussels so that we would be “forced” to spend a
couple of days with our good friend Steve in Germany,
but God had other plans. We arrived in Brussels,
deplaned and arrived at the next gate as they were
boarding. We got into Douala, Cameroun at around the
time planned and fortunately there were people from
the church to meet us there. (We did however lose 2
bags, only one of which has been found.) We spent the
night in Douala at a hotel and traveled the next
morning to Yaounde. In Yaounde we found that the
airline we were supposed to take back up north was not
running, and hadn’t been for over a week. The
Kettings (the doctors that replaced us in Koza) faced
the same problem and were forced to travel to Yaounde
by train. So, we were able to spend a day with them,
debriefing. We found that we were not able to catch a
train back up north for 4 days – and were feeling very
frustrated. But, again God is in control. Our
Administrator Yves had traveled to Yaounde with the
Kettings, and he dealt with the people at the train
station all day to get us tickets. At 4:30 on the
14th he called and said, “Get to the train station
quickly, I got us all tickets.” So, we left our
baggage in Yaounde and got on the train. We spent 19
hours on the train, and then 7 hours in a minibus.
The next part of the trip was definitely a miracle
because we really just wanted to get home to Koza, but
there is no transportation at 10:30 at night which is
when we arrived in Maroua. As we were driving into
Maroua, we passed a bush taxi that was headed to
Mokolo. Our driver turned around and flashed down the
taxi. We were able to squish on board to travel the
hour to Mokolo. At 11:30pm in Mokolo we found one
motorcycle driver who was willing to take us the last
1 ∏ hours to Koza. He found two friends. With the
driver, Sarah and me on one moto, Greg and driver on
the 2nd, and Yves and driver on the 3rd, we headed to
Koza. My moto taxi had fuel problems, and only had
lights about half of the way. Greg’s moto got a flat
tire about ≤ of the way there. So, Greg, Yves and the
driver finished the trip on one motorcycle. Sarah,
myself and our driver on the 2nd, and the third driver
limped along with a flat tire. We got to Koza around
12:45 in the rain, and as there are only dirt roads
here it was all mud. I looked over to Greg and Yves,
and they had slid right over and all three and their
baggage were sitting in mud. Fortunately, the mud here
is soft and they were going slowly, so no one was
hurt, only a bit muddy. The three moto drivers spent
the night on our porch to fix their motos in the
morning and then left for home. We were sooooo
thankful to be home. Isaiah and Pierre were both here
to greet us and we stayed up until around 2am talking.
We’re happy to be back but sad to leave our families.
We are extremely grateful to the Kettings for running
the hospital in our absence. Everything was running
smoothly when we returned, and all salaries had been
paid through the worst time of year. (Last year when
we arrived, salaries hadn’t been paid for almost 3
months due to lack of funds.) This in itself is a
miracle, and we have God and the willingness of the
Kettings to thank for that. Thank you all for your
prayers – they are much needed and appreciated. We
love to hear from you. We were hoping that our ham
radio/e-mail would be up by now, but it is not yet
working. We’ll let you know once we get it going.
God Bless,
Aud, Greg, and Sarah Shank

Shanksteps #41

So we are back in Cameroon. We will tell you about
our journey next time.

So what do you think of babies being born in taxies
on the way to the hospital, in ambulances…? Where do
you think a hospital workers wife would deliver?
I was at the front of the hospital when one of the
nurses pushed in a poos-poos. (this is a hand
pushed/pulled cart with two wheels used to carry
anything heavy) He headed for maternity. I called
after him to see if he needed me there. (Normally the
nurses here deliver all children in the hospital
unless there is a complication) He said no things
were fine. I questioned further as I saw a woman in
the cart. This normally means a very, very ill person
because they cannot walk, thus the poos-poos. He
said, no, it was one of the workers wives and she
already delivered. She had gone to visit his home and
the baby “came out”! I guess the cord and placenta
were still there so he was taking her to maternity to
wait for the rest to be done.
After being gone for nearly 2 months Koza is still
the same. Other than coming back to one MAJOR
personnel issue it is nice to be back. We are very
grateful for the octogenarian couple, Drs. Ketting,
who covered the hospital while we were away. All the
staff and population have great respect for both of
them and very much appreciated the work they did here.
Also we are very grateful that the generator is
really fixed this time. Dr. Ketting made it possible
while they were here to obtain a good mechanic from
Maroua and got it fixed. So our generator need is
fixed. He also started a “fuel fund” so that we do
not need to operate or work in the dark. As diesel
fuel is expensive $4/gal. I’m sure we will have many
more dark nights but at least when we need the lab
working or the OR running we will be able to start it
up. I am also very grateful for a gift that was given
to me from my previous surgical director. It is a
rechargeable headlamp that is really bright. If you
surgeons are interested check out www.enovamedical.com
Very good for the mission field. We also want to
thank each of you that have sent donations to my
father or our church. I was able to bring it back to
Koza with me. We have started with replenishing
medications that were low and have started measuring
broken glass windows so as to replace them. This will
diminish risk to patients and us… We thank you so
much for your help to the people of Koza.
For those of you who plan far ahead, we plan on being
back in the US in July and August again next year. We
were very happy to see those of you that we could and
hope to see more next year. Please continue to keep
us in your prayers as we work here for HIM (Christ).
In His Service, Shanks

Dear Friends,
We have now been back in the states a number of weeks
and have acouple left. What a blessing to have
physicians covering our hosptial while we are gone. A
doctor couple that has had many years of medical
experience and are now retired decided to brave Koza
and cover the hosptial while we are away. we are very
blessed for their help. It is nice to know that we
left the hosptial in compitent hands. They were there
about three days before we left. They were struggling
with jet lag when we left and we have heard they are
doing well.
While here in the US we have visited each of our
families and been able to see a few friends along the
way. It is wonderfull being stress free and just live
life carelessly for a few weeks. we also just spent
some time in the Adirondacks canoe camping on Raquette
Lake. We had great weather and a wonderful time
together. We plan on attending ASI (Adventist
Laymen-Services Internatinal) in Dallas before heading
back to Cameroon. The few times we have been able to
attend ASI have been a real spiritual lift, and we
always have interest in the mission organizations
represented.
We thank you for all of your continued prayers and
support for “our” hospital in Koza. We have been
blessed with more medical equipment and donations to
take back with us or send. We also hope to collect
sufficient larger donations to have the need to send a
container in a couple years. that would be an
expensive venture but greatly help the hospital in
things that are not able to be purchased in country.
While here I have had a number of people ask me what
kind of things we still need for the hospital so here
is an emerging list
New Generator
microscope
voltage convertors for donated equipment usage
infant nebulizer
surgical mesh for various hernia repairs
blood culture setup – eventually
extra stethoscopes
digital thermometers for each ward
more variety of antibiotics
rewire entire hospital – part of the funds for this
have been raised, still need quite a bit though
finally, would love to get a hosptial in the US that
wants to help finantially support our hospital in
Cameroon. I think it would overall be a good tax and
publicity for the hosptial here and a huge benifit for
our hospital there.

So there is the evolving list of needs for Koza
Hospital.

Thank you again for all of your prayers. Sincerely,
Shank’s