Lots of 'FIRSTS'

Hello friends and family. Sorry for the long delay since my last blog. It's been a bit busy with things here in Makeni. A lot of “FIRSTS” for me - some good, some not so good, but all for God's glory. I'm sure there will be more to come. 

It took me to move to Africa to attend my FIRST Chrism Mass. It was so beautiful and fun. I met so many people whose names I will never remember (the name thing is not a first, that's a daily event for me 😄) The gentlemen in black I assume are their version for Knights of Columbus. It was pretty cool.

I experienced my FIRST big holiday being without my family. Thankfully Sally was still here and we had a quiet and lovely day. We went to Mass at the church near the hospital with some of the Sisters. It was a beautiful Mass and the longest Mass thus far - over 3 hours. The kids that received their Sacraments the day before, presented Father with a song/dance and a gift. It was very fun!! Sally made it through, but needed to rest afterwards. There were no filling and hiding plastic eggs and spending the day with my family eating Honey baked ham. Instead we watched “Jesus movies” and talked about our traditions. 

Due to some medical issues that could not be figured out here in Sierra Leone, my amazing housemate & friend Sally left back to America to figure things out so that she can return when she's better. The drive to the airport is a six hours round trip! She left on a Wednesday and arrived on Thursday, tired but safe and now her new journey of finding out what is happening begins. Please pray for her quick recovery and return. 

Right after Sally left, we welcomed a new missionary Nancy Maglorie. She will be working at the University of Makeni so she is living on campus - their apartments are very nice, I might be a little jealous. It's unfortunate that she won't be so close but it's just over 1km to where she's living. We're already planning on taking trips and venturing out of Makeni and seeing Sierra Leone, God willing. Our friend Sheku helps me find my way and takes me to.the market when I'm in need of different things. He is the FIRST person I introduced Nancy to. I had never been to the university so he picked me up and we went to visit Nancy and take her to dinner.

Work continues to be a source of joy, happiness and learning as well as my biggest challenge and source of frustration and even sadness. It's been a while since I worked “on the floor”. I'm used to “treat ‘em and street ‘em”, or get them stabilized and transfer them to the appropriate floor/department or in the case of my last nursing position, to the appropriate hospital. Administering timed medications, recovering patients after they have surgery, WRITING all notes and recording medications (they don't have an electronic medical record, everything is on paper - downtime 24/7!) There are a lot of things I have to dig out of my old brain and hope I'm remembering it correctly. 

Since my arrival at Holy Spirit hospital, I've taken care of a few acutely sick patients. Most of whom have most likely suffered some sort of stroke.  Because the hospital doesn't have a CAT scan, the doctors can't know if it was a “bleed or a clot”. You would treat these two things very differently. With my medical knowledge and the condition of the patient's deterioration, I knew that these patients would most likely not survive. With God's hand, and close monitoring, I was able to keep them alive through my shift but then all but one, passed away on the next shift. I was able to teach some of the students and staff the different things to look for in stroke victims, signs that they would want to look for both improvement and deterioration in the patient. One of them actually was able to be discharged with ongoing physical therapy and close monitoring. I was so thrilled that he recovered - Praise God! But with that being said, my last acute patient was not as fortunate and went home to be with our Lord. She was my FIRST to pass away. I remember the first patient who passed when I started working in the medical field as a secretary nearly 30 years ago. I remember my first patient who passed when I became a nurse. And now I will forever remember that lovely soul and her family. May God grant her eternal rest. She was the FIRST, I'm sure there will be more. It seems that death is much more common here than in the U.S. - it is another thing that I will need to get used to unfortunately, but I know and pray for them as they are passing, or as they are recovering.

Sorry for bumming y'all out. I never want to end these on a negative note so let me tell you about a fun FIRST that happened last night. The Expats will have game nights, movie nights, or other gatherings and I had yet to attend one for various reasons. But last night they were offering a screening of the movie Hail Mary at one of the local libation establishments (i.e. at a local bar). It was a movie I was wanting to see before I left home but it hadn't been released to the theaters yet. I asked my friend Sheku if he would be interested in seeing the movie with us or at least willing to give me a ride there and home afterwards. He said he would like to see the movie with us so we joined several other expats and locals and watched the movie at Kiva's bar. It was SOO GOOD!! I highly recommend it! They had fresh popped popcorn, wings and other snacks. Because of the electricity being out earlier in the day, the beer was warm but having lived in Germany back in the 80s, I had experienced room temperature beer so I decided to indulge even though it was not cold. Thanks to one of the Italians that live on the same compound that I do, I did NOT have to experience my FIRST bike ride home after dark. She gave me a ride in her car!! Riding on a motorbike in the dark was a FIRST I'm okay not experiencing unless I have to! 😄

I'll end this by asking you all to pray for all of the missionaries and volunteers that are trying to make a difference all over this big beautiful world. God bless you all and thank you for your continued love, support and prayers.

Much love and many blessings to you all!

Kathy