Prayers for Kadi

I've been waiting and hoping for almost three months and it has finally happened ... one of my little Salone (short for Sierra Leone) babies has come back! As I was working a night shift last night I just happened to look at the OR schedule for the next day. I saw a familar name, Kadi and I immediately thought of a little girl that I had in Salone. Most of the time when I see a familar name it ends up not being the child and Kadi is a pretty common name here. But I jumped up that very minute and walked down the hall to see if it was her. To my excitement it is! She has gotten so big! Let me give you a little backstory. Sorry, I got ahead of myself in all the excitement!
Kadi was a victim to a horrific infection called a noma, it literally "melts" the face away. When she came to us in Salone she was five years old and had been missing her nose for quite some time. Her father accompanied her to the ship. Dr. Gary performed an operation that closed the hole in her face that once was her nose. She was quite an active child, always jabbering away in a language that none of the nurses or translators knew. Her hair was a crazy mess of braids (obviously papa wasn't a hair stylist haha), but that's what all the aunties on the ward are for. She quickly had a new hairdo and became one of our favorite patients.
Today Kadi went in for surgery to take a flap of skin from her scalp to make her a new nose. This is a long and difficult process. I'm told that her operation took longer than expected. She will have this flap of skin (that is still attached to her scalp, I know sounds complicated!) for the next couple of weeks and then a portion of the flap will make her a new nose and the rest of the flap will be placed back on her head. If you are medical or brave enough to want to see illustrations click here. This is a very long process and there is a risk for infection and that the flap will not survive. Please be praying for Kadi! I will keep you updated and hopefully I can get some new photos soon!

Kadi (pre hair-do) and I in Sierra Leone



Kadi (with nice braids in my arms) and all the sweet Salone girls!



Africa Mercy Problems

I don't believe I have ever told you about some of the very unique things we deal with being a floating hospital ship. I have just had a couple "this doesn't happen at home moments" lately. Some of it is nursing related others, just about life.

Ensure, you know that delicious nutritional supplement given to the elderly. Here we use Ensure on all of our adult tube feelings. What do you do when you run out of those little cans of Ensure? Make your own of course. You just need a liter of whole milk, peanut butter, fiber powder, multivitamin and sugar! Throw it in a blender and tada your very own nutritional supplement! What do you do when you run out of smooth peanut butter? In a blonde moment (or maybe a moment of old age) I tried crunchy, it was a horrible disaster. I just marched up the stairs to the galley and borrowed a strainer. Use the crunchy peanut butter and then strain out the "crunch"!

IV poles? What a luxury! No, no we just use magnet hooks and put them on our metal ceiling. Actually I much prefer this to the heavy cumbersome IV poles of home.
Our caregivers (parent, older sibling, aunt, grandmother) sleeps on a mattress beneath the patient's bed. I've been here quite a while and I just recently realized that parents at home would have a heart attack if ever told them to sleep on the floor!

We are a living Petri dish. If one of us is sick, all of us are. We don't only work together but we socialize and sleep in the same rooms together. I now know how hard it is to be a nurse (charge nurse at that) and have absolutely no voice. That was definitely interesting! Please pray for our healing and protection for the patients. Pretty much every nurse on my ward has a head cold and we don't want to pass it on to the patients. I guess that is what we get for cuddling with cute snotty nose babies!

This is an absolutely amazing experience that I will always remember. In no other hospital ever do you work, live and really get to know the doctors, nurses, and all other staff you work with. I love it!