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#52 Shanksteps

Hey ya’ll, (missin WV tok)
Christmas is past and we missed our families and
friends. We did get “snow” the last few days. We
woke up to about 55 deg F(very cold here). All our
friends are in coats and hats, and I even saw a pair
of mittens given by a previous physician. The reason
it is so cold is that the winds are coming in off the
Sahara (Hamartan winds). So everything looks foggy
outside. Though it’s not fog it’s dust in the air.
We have a soccer field next to our house and we could
barely see the other side. A few days it only got up
to 70 deg F. We were cold also. I wore my one long
sleeved shirt over my scrubs for a couple weeks now.
Didn’t bring more “warm” cloths, and don’t really need
them anyway. But long sleeves help. I walked out on
our back porch yesterday and I left footprints. I
told Sarah to go out and make a “dust angel”. We had
a little chuckle. Everything in the house and outside
is covered with dust, great for a few electronics (as
if electricity variation wasn’t enough already).
We are starting to plan our next furlough. We hope
to be coming back to the US around mid June to
beginning of August. We will spend the majority of
our time at our parents’ houses and a little time out
west.
We had a very nice Christmas. It was simple but we
had wonderful food. Audrey was able to somehow make a
nearly normal (US) meal for us here. We hung our
homemade stockings and had a small artificial pine
tree. We made paper snowflakes to hang around the
house and paper chains too. Also had some paper
angels with a star on the tree. We made some
stockings for our house-help too. They thought it was
great. We are so blessed to have their help.
New Years was like last year, but this year we knew
what was coming. We had a year-end party with the
hospital workers outside with food and a large fire
for warmth. It lasted about 4 hours, and we brought
in the New Year with goat, chicken, salad, macaroni,
and Coke and Orange Fanta. About 4AM on the morning
of the 1st, we heard the all to familiar, “Bon Anne,
OhOhOh, Bon Anne!” Repeated over and over for 5-30
minutes till candy is given. Kind of like an annoying
Halloween without costumes. It continued until around
noon then took a few hours break, and then they were
back out to try to wrap up the day with a little more.
We were long out of candy by about 8AM after about
400 children had been by. I still can’t figure out
whether this is a French tradition or a Cameroon
tradition. Either way it is strange to my American
mentality. Now we are past that and we are enjoying
more peaceful days in general.
We are now in the process of helping the local
department of health vaccinate the local population
for polio and giving the children under 5 yrs vitamin
A. So we are keeping busy. We are looking forward to
my parents visiting us soon.
We hope your Christmas was very good with friends and
family near, and the Christ was not left only in His
manger, but made it into your hearts. We are so
thankful for His gift to us and hope you all realize
it too. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Shanks

12-7-06
Hello friends and family,
We are sorry it has been a long time since we have
been able to send emails. It appeared like the other
ham email was going to work. But I think the devil
does not want us sending emails easily. I think my
equipment is working but propagation must be bad, and
I cannot connect like I need to. So we are still
using our other yahoo email address.
We are doing well, other than a few rounds of
malaria. Audrey and Sarah had it last month. This
month it’s me with the malaria. We are coming through
it just fine. Audrey had a tough bout with resistance
and lots of nausea and vertigo. Fortunately for me,
my symptoms are not bad with the medications. The
number of patients has dropped down to about 20 in the
hospital now. With Christmas and some Muslim holidays
coming up people are trying more than normal to save
money and therefore come in to the hospital even in
worse conditions than normal because they wait so
long. So we are getting out a little earlier these
last few weeks.
We are glad to have a Nigerian intern with us for a
few weeks. It is a new part of the internship at Ile
Ife to try to send some of the medical interns to
other sister institutions. Also recently we had my
sister, Cristy, visit us for a month. It was nice
having her here. We look forward to my parents coming
to visit in the next month also.
I want to thank all of you who continue to support
our hospital. With donations we were recently able to
make an order from Yaounde at 30% reduced rates for
some medications for the next three months. Others
meds we will still have to buy from other locations.
When we order we get about half of our order because
they do not keep all things in stock all the time. So
the other half we try to get from other sources. Also
some have donated money specifically to help patients
who were unable to pay their hospital bills. This
recently helped a woman who had been here for 6 months
of TB treatment leave, and another whose bill was $20
and she could not pay for 1.5 months. It seems so
contrary to the mission of a hospital like this to
have to keep people because of inability to pay but we
have to do that to continue to purchase medications
and salaries…keep the hospital functional. We
continue to pray for revival of missions in Christian
churches and ours specifically. There are many
hospitals that need personnel and also financing that
is lacking. So all this to say thank you so much. I
wish you could have seen the ?70 year old woman
dancing around after 6 months of being here at the
hospital knowing she was going home. She says
THANKS!!!
Please continue to pray for us and our ministry here
that we would be used, as God wants us to be. In His
Service, Shank’s

12-8-06
Hello Family and Friends,
We sit here coming up on Christmas. Oh what we
wouldn’t give to be back in the northeast of the USA
with our families, in the snow, sledding, and getting
ready for Christmas. As those of you who travel
around Christmas may agree, It’s hard to be away from
family and friends especially at Christmas. We have
made some decorations: snowflakes, paper angels, had
some Christmas lights given to us when a peace corps
worker left the country, and have lit the “spiced
apple cider” candle. We are playing Christmas music.
The temperature doesn’t match up for us! Its 85 in
the day and 65 at night. It’s hard to get in the real
spirit of Christmas. Though as I look at the
surroundings, it is very much like I would expect what
Bethlehem was like. Dry, dusty, cool at night, hot
during the day. Cattle, sheep, donkeys, goats roaming
over the landscape with little boys “shepherding”
them. Most of the animals mangy from roaming around
in the dust and foraging for food. It is similar to
what I imagine it may have been like back then.
What are you thinking of at this season? How to make
ends meet to buy the presents you “need”? Who to get
gifts for and who to leave out? Who will be offended
if I don’t give them a gift? Though Christians in
general are pretty sure that Christ was not born on
Dec. 25th, that is what the season is all about. What
are you giving to HIM this Christmas. Are we
remembering Him or everyone else, and our wants. Do
you have a neighbor in real need? Do you have a
neighbor with much less than you? Who will you help
at this season? Remember all that Christ has done for
you, as you plan for this season. Please pray for us
also as we spend a special holiday away from you all!
In His Service, Shanks

11-20-06
Hello Friends and Family,
We are now receiving text only emails at home via ham
radio. Our email at home is ( removed for security resons. if needed email news@missiondocs.org It
cannot receive pics or large documents. It is an
extremely slow download. So if any of you want to
write feel free. Our other email is still active and
checked about every 2-4 weeks.
So I’m in my office and I see two interesting
patients today. One has a involuntary movement of her
neck. Her head involuntarily moves with her chin to
her left shoulder. She says it has happened for the
last two weeks. She is an adult. It appears to be
gone when she is trying to do things that I observe.
But she says that when she carries water on her head
(as everyone carries heavy things here) that it falls
off unless she is stabilizing it with her hands. So
it has significantly hindered her family duties. I
suspect spastic torticollis but have none of the real
meds she needs and she doesn’t have money to go all
the way to Maroua or elsewhere. I gave her Diazepam
and hope her symptoms improve, and will see her back
soon.
Another I saw today came to me because he has leg
swelling of his left leg. He says his right ankle
started hurting a year ago, then it went to his right
knee then right hip. Crossed to the other hip then
down to the left knee with swelling of the thigh two
months ago. He also had swelling and pain start next
in his left knee then pain down to the left ankle
without swelling. So when I look at his leg I see a
normal skinny leg on the right and a huge basketball
sized thigh on the left with swelling of the left
knee. I aspirate and get a yellow, thick, very cloudy
fluid. “Cytology” only shows “thick fluid with some
leucocytes.” So I chose to drain the stuff. I numbed
up the skin and incised it. The liquid shot about 3-4
feet out horizontal from the patient with the pressure
inside. We drained about 10 liters of fluid and
packed the huge cavity. Diagnosis uncertain. I will
do some reading and hopefully come up with some ideas.
It was not attached to the knee joint that I could
ascertain. Any ideas?
We struggle with the descriptions of things many
times. I have patients that tell me that “it” starts
low in the belly then moves up to the epigastrium then
to the chest and then back down. When I ask what “it”
is they repeat the same again and again. When I ask
what the sensation is he repeated. When ask if it was
pain he initially said yes then declined. Burning?
Heat?…. each time yes then no not really.
Frustrating. We hope to start learning Mafa soon so
that we can communicate with our patients more
directly. It’s difficult to want to spend time in
language learning after working. By learning the
predominant language in our area it would also help us
with ministry.
Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we are
busy and dealing with difficult issues with some of
the hospital workers. Pray for our wisdom and
leadership, and most of all that we continue to follow
God’s leading. In His Service, Shanks