Imagine with me what it is like to enter a mission hospital as a national pataient. This is the story of one of my patients whose hospitalization continues to weigh upon me.
You are having the time of your life, climbing trees with your friend, trying to get to the avocados for a midday snack. As you are reaching for the first one, you hear a snap behind you. The weightlessness you start to feel is the first sign that your precarious limb is falling, and you with it. Fear sinks in and you fall for what feels like minutes until you see that second, larger branch. The next thing you realize is not that you are falling again, but searing pain ripping through your groin from the branch followed by a hideous thud as your body comes to rest on the field of flowering green beans and rust-colored dirt.
Losing all your wind, you can only lay there and try to compose yourself as your friends look on in astonishment. Finally, one of them climbs down to run and tell your father. You lay in pain for what feels like hours until your dad finds you and cries out in agony for you as he gingerly picks you up and begins the two hour walk to the road where he can find an ambulance. All you know is that you have so much adrenaline coursing through your body that the jostling caused by his gait and finally the ambulance barely causes you pain.
That is until you reach the hospital and the "muzungu" doctors start to prod you to find the problem. You wimper in pain as they move your arms - probably a minor fracture or bad sprain - but they know that isn't the cause of the problems. They keep looking and find a 12 inch by 4 inch tear in your groin as they move your legs and their faces turn to fear. The next thing you know is that the gurney is moving again and you find yourself in a sterile white-yellow room stinking of antiseptic with a huge light peering down on your belly offering some warmth from the chilling night air. Five hours have passed and the pain is returning. You start to feel light headed from the pain and loss of blood when you see the muzungus reappear, hands dripping wet, putting on some type of green dress, placing towels over your body and then placing their hands on you as they offer up unknown words not to you, but their God, and your eyes begin to close as the ketamine starts to work.
Dreams of falling, of unknown places filled with fear, of the towels smothering you fill your dreams. You feel something rustling on your body and you wake up from the nightmares to find your father fixing the sheets on your new bed. You fade in and out of sleep a few more times until your brain is clear enough to receive your father's message. He tells you that the doctors stitched up your groin for an hour and a half. He also tells you how they tried to put in a catheter that was too big, but the smallest they could find, to make sure your bladder didn't rupture in the fall. He says they tried for 20 minutes. One tried and couldn't get it, then another, then the third. They prayed and still couldn't get it. They prayed again and the third managed to get out some fluid - clear - no blood. Then he chokes back tears and you know there is something else. He tells you that they made a hole in your stomach and that for a month, your bowel movements will come out there. He tells you that they had to do it in order to prevent the bacteria from the stool infecting your repairs and causing further damage. He says they call it a colostomy and that it is only temporary, but as a child, all you know is that none of your friends have one. You have no idea what it means and that about 20 different people in white coats just stared and poked at it.
As the days move on, the doctors come back to see you and translate that the wound is healing well. They explain again that it should be reversible in one month. All you know is that you want to get rid of it as it causes terrible pain each time it is cleaned.
This is my patient's story who is still healing at Kibuye and could use your prayers as he continues to heal and is fighting off depression. Pray for him to know the love, peace, and forgiveness that Jesus Christ gives freely.
You are having the time of your life, climbing trees with your friend, trying to get to the avocados for a midday snack. As you are reaching for the first one, you hear a snap behind you. The weightlessness you start to feel is the first sign that your precarious limb is falling, and you with it. Fear sinks in and you fall for what feels like minutes until you see that second, larger branch. The next thing you realize is not that you are falling again, but searing pain ripping through your groin from the branch followed by a hideous thud as your body comes to rest on the field of flowering green beans and rust-colored dirt.
Losing all your wind, you can only lay there and try to compose yourself as your friends look on in astonishment. Finally, one of them climbs down to run and tell your father. You lay in pain for what feels like hours until your dad finds you and cries out in agony for you as he gingerly picks you up and begins the two hour walk to the road where he can find an ambulance. All you know is that you have so much adrenaline coursing through your body that the jostling caused by his gait and finally the ambulance barely causes you pain.
That is until you reach the hospital and the "muzungu" doctors start to prod you to find the problem. You wimper in pain as they move your arms - probably a minor fracture or bad sprain - but they know that isn't the cause of the problems. They keep looking and find a 12 inch by 4 inch tear in your groin as they move your legs and their faces turn to fear. The next thing you know is that the gurney is moving again and you find yourself in a sterile white-yellow room stinking of antiseptic with a huge light peering down on your belly offering some warmth from the chilling night air. Five hours have passed and the pain is returning. You start to feel light headed from the pain and loss of blood when you see the muzungus reappear, hands dripping wet, putting on some type of green dress, placing towels over your body and then placing their hands on you as they offer up unknown words not to you, but their God, and your eyes begin to close as the ketamine starts to work.
Dreams of falling, of unknown places filled with fear, of the towels smothering you fill your dreams. You feel something rustling on your body and you wake up from the nightmares to find your father fixing the sheets on your new bed. You fade in and out of sleep a few more times until your brain is clear enough to receive your father's message. He tells you that the doctors stitched up your groin for an hour and a half. He also tells you how they tried to put in a catheter that was too big, but the smallest they could find, to make sure your bladder didn't rupture in the fall. He says they tried for 20 minutes. One tried and couldn't get it, then another, then the third. They prayed and still couldn't get it. They prayed again and the third managed to get out some fluid - clear - no blood. Then he chokes back tears and you know there is something else. He tells you that they made a hole in your stomach and that for a month, your bowel movements will come out there. He tells you that they had to do it in order to prevent the bacteria from the stool infecting your repairs and causing further damage. He says they call it a colostomy and that it is only temporary, but as a child, all you know is that none of your friends have one. You have no idea what it means and that about 20 different people in white coats just stared and poked at it.
As the days move on, the doctors come back to see you and translate that the wound is healing well. They explain again that it should be reversible in one month. All you know is that you want to get rid of it as it causes terrible pain each time it is cleaned.
This is my patient's story who is still healing at Kibuye and could use your prayers as he continues to heal and is fighting off depression. Pray for him to know the love, peace, and forgiveness that Jesus Christ gives freely.
