While Will Was Away

Will is gone now in Gore at the refugee camps, and he took his phone with him which has the internet, which means, I’m without internet right now.  So, I am going to write little snippets of my days without him and save them in Word then post them all later when he gets back.  So, if you’re reading this now, this blog post is several days old.  :)

8/18/14

Happy Anniversary to Us!  We made it to a year already!  Amazing how fast time flies!  Will has been suffering from insomnia the last few days (probably left over from the jet lag) and wakes up early, like around 3 or 4 in the morning.  Much to my chagrin, I seem to be forced to have insomnia too, whenever he has it… he wants to cuddle, read, check emails, and talk to me, but he is usually greeted with sleepy mumblings because I really don’t feel like being up at that ungodly hour.  But somehow, I can’t fall back asleep when he wakes me up.  Well, this morning, it was the same, but I was a little more ready to wake up this time because it was our first year wedding anniversary!  We exchanged cards and gifts and chatted softly about our past year while the house was still wrapped in slumber. 

Now, some very exciting news!  I pulled my first tooth today!!!  How about that?  I was called in the morning to come to the hospital because some patients were waiting to see me.  I first met a couple and the husband spoke English which was nice.  They both had oral issues, but sadly, I couldn’t do anything about it.  I offered to clean their teeth, which they gladly agreed to.  The wife had many possible areas of cavities, but I referred her to the local dentist, because I didn’t feel comfortable pulling a perfectly good tooth that can possibly be filled, and I can’t take x-rays here either.  The husband complained of jaw pain, and after some inspection and critical thinking (worn down teeth + sore jaw/muscles), I suspected he clenches and grinds his teeth and so I asked him about it and he believed he did.  I talked to him about how to avoid doing it and told him I wasn’t able to fix that problem.  The husband had more calculus then the wife and took me a little more time.  Later that day, I was doing laundry and was called again to the hospital.  This time, it was obvious what the problem was.  The man pointed to a tooth that was rotted away on the mesial side (sorry, dental language for my dental friends) and was quite loose and painful.  I explained to him (through translation) that I could pull it and he said that was what he wanted.  I prayed a prayer for God to help me, because I have never pulled a tooth in my life.  I tried numbing him with a makeshift needle and syringe and his whole jaw became numb except for his tooth.  I numbed him more, but it just wasn’t numbing up, possibly because of the immense inflammation there.  He finally just told me to pull it.  So I did.  I was almost as surprised as he was when I pulled out the tooth with little complications and in record time.  It was so loose that I probably could have pulled it out with my fingers.  A sense of excitement rushed through me as I held that ugly, rotten, bloody tooth in my gloved hand.  I had pulled a tooth!!!  I was so thankful for all the helpful advice I had received and thankful to God for no complications and an easy first extraction.

8/20/14

I am really proud of myself!  I am now helping out with wound care and dressing changes!  I have learned that eating breakfast before going to do rounds makes a HUGE difference (that was part of my problem the first day).  Also, I believe I’m already feeling a little better about things, although some wounds I am just not ready to deal with yet.  I am taking care of the patients with sutures and closed wounds, or very mild wounds that aren’t pussy or bloody.   So far, I’ve done well!  I still gag when I see a fresh amputee’s stump or when a wound pours puss.  But, my stomach is handling a lot more than before!

I had my shoes stolen today.  Chadians are notorious thieves… it’s built into their nature, they don’t even think about it as stealing.  I had been told not to leave my shoes outside of the hospital building (they remove their shoes before entering) because they might disappear.  I had to run into the hospital just for a minute and returned to the door to leave to find that my flip flops were missing.  I searched all over the place and couldn’t find them.  It was raining out at that point, so there was no way I was going to walk all the way back to the house without shoes on to get my other pair (thankfully, I packed two).  I asked someone if they had seen it and Lindsay said she saw a guy walk into the lab with them.  I then proceeded to walk to the lab window and peered in to see a male Chadian wearing my pink sparkly butterfly flip flops.  I wanted to laugh and tell him he could keep them as long as I got a picture of him wearing them.  But I refrained, and instead, just said, “Those are mine. May I have them back?” in caveman language so they would understand me.  He said, “oh, oiu, oiu” and handed them back without saying another word.  I’m sure my shoes stood out and so were the choicest pick of the bunch for a Chadian to smuggle.  I took my shoes with me into my dental room later when I had a patient.

8/21/14

Will came home today!  Oh glory!  It is so good to be back in my husband’s arms!  Yesterday I moved all our stuff into a new room that is bigger than the one we had before and is separate of the main living area.  Will had plans to be back yesterday, which meant I wouldn’t have to spend my/our first night in the room by myself, but he had some delays and ended up not being able to make it back that night.  That meant I was all alone in the room, and I had a hard time falling asleep.  But tonight, I have the pleasure of his company!

Today was a quiet and rainy day. Everything started out slow because of the rain and cooler weather.  I didn’t have any Chadian patients today probably because of the weather.  They think anything colder than 70 degrees is freezing.  Not much was being done around the house or hospital, which left more time to piddle around.  When Will got back, I went around with him and Patricia, another volunteer, to do PT with the patients.  It’s great to see them improve.  I’ve never watched this much of Will work, and honestly, I’m impressed. He can get a lady’s leg from stiff and nearly straight, to bending at 72 degrees.  He’s so good at what he does.

Well, folks, that’s all for now.  Will will be posting about his time in Gore soon.

 

Cleaning a volunteer's teeth in my makeshift dental room

Cleaning a lady Chadian's teeth