First full blown smile in 13 years

Here is a wonderful story of the first patient who was operated on board in Freetown!

Isatu was born with a cleft lip and was mocked her entire life. While other kids could go out and play with each other or go to school, she was hiding in their tiny little kitchen and spent her days helping her mum around the house. She rarely spoke to people outside her family and practically never smiled in her life.

Then one day she heard the radio announcement that Mercy Ships is coming to town and to her delight cleft lips and palate was listed among the type of surgeries that we offer for free. She came to the screening with her dad and she was scheduled to be operated a couple of days later. In fact she was the first to receive the priceless appointment card for surgery in the Sierra Leone field service.

According to the doctor who did the surgery on her it was an "easy operation that took only about 40 minutes". She spent the night on board and from the early hours of the following day she never stopped giggling and laughing!

Her father said that she will soon enroll in an adult education class. Her brother was excited too and said "now she can make friends and find a husband" :) (getting married is extremely important for Sierra Leoneans!)

What an amazing way to start our Field Service here!!! I have tears in my eyes again as I type this story. I just cannot imagine my life in isolation; not being able to spend time with others... The fact that you cannot smile or laugh with others is breaking my heart again and again. In the Western world many kids are born with cleft lip and palate, but they are operated right after being born - problem fixed! Here people have to spend their entire life in shame and hiding.

But now Isatu can and (I think) will never stop smiling for the rest of her life! :)

Screening ReBoot - Take 2 in Freetown

My day started at 4am when the alarm clock went off. It was a bit tricky to get all 3 of us in the cabin organized and ready in the bathroom before we grabbed a quick breakfast in the dining room. Nearly 100 of us left in several vehicles just before 5 am with another 100 coming an hour later. The port gate guards were standing in awe as our white Land Rovers full of people in blue scrubs rolled out one by one - it must have looked like a mass exodus...

We got there in no time, strangely there was no traffic whatsoever and I realized that Freetown is not that big after all. :) Slowly all the vehicles arrived and people started running around like poisoned ants: some busy with distributing chairs, others hanging posters, another group trying to move the tents and tables...etc. It looked kinda funny, most of us had flash lights in our hands or on our heads. Suddenly I saw something amazing: in the middle of the chaos Dr. Gary was sitting on a chair in front of some big lights and he was reading a newspaper... That sight calmed me down like nothing else could have since that Monday. If he acts so calm and relaxed, as if it was just another normal morning... then it's gonna be an awesome day! :)

Our only goal that day was to schedule ca. 500 patients for surgeries - we didn't go there to have fun or to take pictures of people's sufferings. Only the 2 official photographers were allowed to take pictures. We are allowed to use some of them so that others can also see what we saw on Saturday.

From Friday evening people started to line up outside and our security guys were going up and down the line with some posters I gave them that showed the type of conditions we were looking for. According to them it helped a lot to screen through the line. It is always difficult to send people away, but we didn't want them to stand in line for long hours only to be turned away right before the gates.

The weather was extremely pleasant, till about lunchtime the sky was entirely cloudy and we even had some breeze all day long! What a perfect day to be outside all day without shades! :)

(Dr. Frank and Anna with possibly the youngest ever
patient who will receive a prosthetic feet!) 

The most difficult thing for a doctor or nurse is to say NO. Not because we don't want to help, but unfortunately sometimes patients come with a condition that is in too advanced stage to be treated. Those patients are often referred to Harriet (see photo), a good friend of mine from England. She is the palliative care nurse (click here if you want to read a very touching and sad story). During the screening I witnessed her unfailing dedication and compassion as she prayed and cried with the parents of a little boy. The tumor started growing 1 month ago on his face and according to Harriet the best they could do was to give him 2 weeks worth of painkillers to ease the pain. Why 2 weeks? Because in 2 weeks time he will be home with Jesus where there is no pain and no suffering...

I knew it will be emotionally very difficult for me to be there. We saw sooooo many patients with conditions you NEVER see in the western world. The desperation in people's eyes were piercing right through my heart and you just simply cannot be unmoved by it. For the photographers it was quite a challenge to take pictures of people who wish they were invisible. Often they have to live in hiding and isolation... Imagine the struggle they went through, to build up enough courage to come to our screening, to stand in line for hours, to be visible to people, to show your handicap openly, to dare to hope...

And to finish on a higher note: today we had the debriefing and it turns out we were able to see ca. 3000 people and scheduled about 500 surgeries! What an exciting thing to know that soon all these lives will be changed and through these transformational surgeries not just individuals, but their entire families and communities will have a brand new start and a brighter future!

(the patients had to go through several
stations from registration to medical history
and check ups and at the end they were
all coming to our station where
a "pre-op" photo was taken.)

If you want to see a short video on the screening click here. (it's the footage from Lewis and I who were filming that day, some stills from the photographers plus some shocking statistics.) Enjoy!

Mercy Ships in Freetown - video

Here is our official video on the arrival of Africa Mercy to Freetown. Some of the footage is from me when we were in the speed boat :) Enjoy!

Screening ReBoot March 26.

Sooooooo... the big day was yesterday. "Without a doubt this was one of the best and most successful screenings ever!" This is not my comment (my track record up till yesterday was less than desirable). Dr Gary said this around 2pm yesterday as we were packing down; all of us ready to grab a cold cold shower and crash into bed. But let me give you a little background.

After that Monday we were all shaken; some angry, some hurt, many sad and even more of us confused. The leadership started evaluations and preparation for a possible future screening. Actually the word "screening" quickly became everybody's least favorite word around here. I spent many hours on debriefings... took much time to dwell on what happened if I am honest. :(

Besides the obvious the events of Monday raised other challenges, too. With a large number of new crew on board who was not used to "normal" operating procedures, it was an extremely challenging time. "Normal" (if it ever is normal haha) operations would have included the beginning of patients coming in to be operated on board for the hospital team. For our department it'd have meant that we can start focusing on a Civic and Media Reception, followed by a Hospital Reception for local medical personnel and other PR tasks on one hand. As for my other hat (leading the comms team as well) capturing patient stories and photos to provide fund raising material to the national offices seemed a bit hard since we missed the big screening.

The good thing is that we have now an eye-screening up and running every Monday in a local eye clinic, where our doctors book the (mostly cataract) patients. The dental screening is at the HOPE center just 5 min walk from the ship. The doctors and nurses are already in full swing - pulling, filling, cleaning and booking patients every Monday and Thursday.

In preparation for a new mass screening I wrote a radio jingle (click here to listen to it) that a famous local radio guy performed in Creole and was broadcasting it for a week in several radio stations. Just for fun, listen to it and tell me how much you understand... The jingle is about 2 min long!!! Imagine that in Europe! :) He talks about the type of problems that we do NOT treat and emphasizes the conditions that we are able to (benign tumors, goiters, cleft lip and palate, bowed legs, clubbed feet, cataracts, dental issues).

In addition to the jingle we were on radio a couple of times for interviews and I was also on TV. Their biggest channel SLBC had a 1 hour live TV show called Good Morning Sierra Leone where I was invited as a guest. During the screening day several people in line mentioned that they recognize me from TV. Yay.... :) It was kind of funny, how the other guest and presenters are so animated and they often talk with their hands. Those of you who know me, I often do the same, but compared to them I came across as a stiff wooden statue :)))

On Friday our security guys went to the site after lunch and most of them stayed there through the night. According to them the people started gathering in the afternoon. Unfortunately they had to turn away many people who came with conditions that we do not treat. And the line grew and grew as the night approached... more and more people joined the queue in hopes of a "YES" to the dreaded question of "Can you help me?"

To be continued... :)

Reka operating

Before the surgeries start on deck 3, the nurses and doctors throw an Open Day where normal people can go down to the hospital (that is off limits for the general crew) and goof around for one evening.

This is me, operating on a monkey while a former US Army Nurse is commenting on my cultural background... I offered him a free surgery too, sadly he refused. :)

Hospital Open Day part II.

So, after I learnt how to intubate, it was time to learn how to stitch the poor patient together.
I was privileged to have Dr. Gary Parker assisting me. If you don't know him, he is one of the best maxillo facial surgeons in the world! He has been serving with Mercy Ships for 24 years.
It was really an honor working with him! :)

Life in a hospital...

This happens when the ship doesn't have enough doctors - a crash course in intubation and off I go... :)

The doctor said at the end that I have a gifting in this area, usually people cannot do it for the first time... Do I see a change in carrier??? :)