Hey again (or as they say here, “goodnight!”). It’s been awhile since I’ve sent y’all anything and I know that some of you are probably worried I’ve gotten lost somewhere in the jungle or been picked off by a crocodile, but I’m just fine. This electricity-only-after-dark thing really limits the email time. I’ve been busy working at the hospital this week…there have been a couple of babies born (!) and we make rounds to see patients at 7AM, 11, 4, and 9PM. It’s raining right now and, being the wet season, rains at about 5PM every day…otherwise it’s consistently in the upper 90s with what I swear is 100% humidity. I’ve figured out I’m a lot tougher than I thought I was!
I’m learning a lot about the way medicine is practiced here. Basically, when a family member gets sick, the family picks up and moves from their village to Kapuna. Sometimes they travel up to a day, by canoe or by foot, to get here. We have people of all ages just hanging out on the wards and it can get kind of crowded…but it’s neat seeing how families in this culture take care of each other. We unfortunately have a lot of sick little kiddies right now…Dr. Lin says there’s a diarrheal epidemic in this area. It’s really scary to me how dehydrated some of them are…their parents carry them around like limp little noodles and they hardly wake up. I therefore spent a lot of yesterday going to find bananas and giving the kids ORS (oral rehydration solution) because the parents are reluctant to do it when the baby is crying and I don’t think really understand how important it is.
One of my favorite patients is an older man who came in to the hospital because he had jumped off a ladder on a nail. We took a look at his foot and saw that he had an awful infection…it was swollen and you could see pus coming out of the hole where the nail had entered. Dr. Lin decided we needed to drain the abscess so we took him to the old operating suite. Our sterile equipment consisted of old latex gloves washed in disinfectant, and a scapel and forceps wrapped in an old towel. We drained an absolutely enormous amount of pus from his foot (don’t worry, I have pictures) so I’m hoping that helped to slow the infection. What is kind of frustrating to me is that we couldn’t put him on the antibiotics he needed because the hospital just doesn’t have them…and those that are here are often expired or need to be rationed among the different patients. Apparently the government provides funds for the medicines, but they have to be shipped by boat up the river…and the boat has supposedly “been coming” for three months. I’ve learned that this is common in PNG… patience is key!
The patients here are really different than American patients in that they don’t demand anything from us; they’re just grateful for any care we are able to give them. I always ask them what they need before I leave the ward; one lady just wanted a green coconut (they’re filled with this sweet-tasting water) and the man with the foot infection wanted books and magazines. Seriously…he’s a teacher. I took him a couple of books that I’d brought with me and some that are on a bookshelf in our house and by the time I went back the next day he’d already finished four!
One of the highlights of the afternoon was going on a run up the river to a neighboring village. Manar (the other visiting doc from England) is a big runner and runs everyday so I figure I should tag along every once in awhile. Anyways, the village kiddies think we’re the funniest thing to hit Papua New Guinea when we do this, and have decided that it’s great fun to run with us…so we literally had 80 half-naked kids running barefoot behind us and giggling the entire time. I felt like Forrest Gump.
I also found out I’m really going to be put to work in all kinds of ways while I’m here…which is great for me since we have a lot of breaks throughout the day (it’s amazing how much free time a person has when you take away internet, cell phones, music, TV, the mall, etc). My newest task is to teach keyboard to some of the school kids! I said on the first day that I wanted to serve Kapuna in whatever ways they needed, so I’m excited to be able to do just that.
Tonight Rita and Wendi, two of the staff nurses, came over to cook dinner with us (well, I watched them cook). They’re hilarious and I was excited they wanted to hang out. Afterwards, we went to the office here and watched “A Walk to Remember” (great movie) with the rest of the nurses. Friday and Saturday nights are apparently video nights since there’s no other source of entertainment.
The friendships and time I’ve had to fellowship with the others here at Kapuna has been really great. The nurses and nursing students have devotionals on Monday and Friday mornings and it’s great to hear them share what’s on their hearts. I also have had some great conversations with Dr. Lin. In case I haven’t mentioned it, she is an absolutely amazing (84-year-old) woman. She met her husband in medical school in New Zealand and afterwards, both feeling called to do mission work, moved to New Guinea. I can’t imagine the boldness they must have both had since at that time many of the natives had never even seen a white person. Her husband passed away in the ‘80s and she’s been working here since then. She has such an amazing heart for the people here and she’s often running off to find bananas for the patients or giving them money to go buy food in the market. Matthew 25:40 says “…” ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’” I don’t know that I’ve ever met a person who exemplifies this verse as she does. She told me that they’ve really been struggling to find doctors to come work at the small gulf hospitals and one of Kapuna’s sister hospitals, Kikori, hasn’t had a doctor for quite some time because people will leave after a month or two. I understand this…I think that leaving life as most of us know it and moving here would be more difficult than I can even now imagine…but I pray that they do find someone called to this life.
Anyway that’s all for tonight…continue to write me if you want because I love getting your emails! Please continue to keep me in your prayers and God Bless y’all!