#60 Shanksteps
3-31-07
It is HOT! We are now reaching 112deg F in the daytime and down to 85 at
night. We sweat, feel light headed, and have general fatigue. Fortunately
the last bout of malaria or dysentery for our family was 3-4 weeks ago. So
other than the heat we are doing well. We are praying for an early rainy
season.
The hospital has an average of about 35 patients right now. Mostly malaria,
typhoid, dysentery, pneumonia, meningitis, burns, abscesses, neonatal
infection. Recent surgeries include Fournier’s gangrene debredement,
Cesarean section, tube for pneumothorax, patellar reconstruction after
trauma. We have started showing the “Jesus” or “Gods Story” to the patients
weekly. We have also started praying with and for each patient very day.
We know that God is healing them.
Donations recently have helped us:
1- Build an awning over our worship/meeting area of the hospital to protect
us from the sun and rain and provide a larger area for patient education
2- Purchase medications in larger quantities in Yaounde in hopes that we
will obtain more self-sufficiency when a larger benefit is made.
3- Obtain a more useable laboratory system in which more exams will be
available to us and the agents used in the lab would last up to 2 years
rather than ONE month after opening them. I understand that it will be here
in mid-April.
Thank you so much for your generosity and prayers for “our” hospital here in
the bush. It has greatly helped.
“He was stabbed in the chest” (translated from French). “A crazy man
came and speared him.” I ran into the hospital wondering if he had a
tension pneumothorax or was bleeding profusely or whether or not he would be
alive when I got there. When I arrived, he had labored breathing and a tip
of a spear lying beside him. They had pulled it out before arriving at the
hospital. It was a piece of metal about 10 inches long with barbs all the
way down and a flare at the base for a stick to enter for
the handle of the spear. He said it had entered about 4 inches. The wound
was in his right chest about the level of his diaphragm. Only slight breath
sounds were heard on that side. Blood pressure was normal and neck veins
not distended. I took him right to the operating room. After numbing up
the chest I placed a chest tube. We only have old chest tubes and I feared
of the sterility of the package, but all were the same. I swathed it with
betadine after removing the “sterile” packaging,
at least to appease my conscious before putting it in him. He needed it and
I had no better options. He immediately started breathing better. After
exploring the stab wound it was found to only enter his chest. He is
recovering well but does have a wound infection after removing the chest
tube.
As I mentioned above we are very grateful for all your prayers and
support. Please pray specifically for our meningitis patients as the
bacteria seem much more resistant to our antibiotics this year as compared
to last year. Please pray that we remain always faithful to our calling and
most of all, faithful to God. He has given so much for us; I have
essentially nothing to offer Him, other than myself. Have you completely
given your ambitions, your interests, your house, your family, your
finances,
your time, YOURSELF to Him? It is the most important thing we can do in
life for here and eternity. I pray for those of you who haven’t or who have
wandered after doing so. Shanks