A stretching experience, my call last night:

Last night I took call for the entire hospital. Already this meant, I cover beyond the scope of my training, right, since I work with children, but here I cover every age. This meant I slept at my house on the grounds near the hospital and was to go up to the hospital when they "called" me or rather rang my portable doorbell that I plugged into my room. So, I took a shower and got ready for bed when all of the sudden as I'm lying down, "ding dong." Yes, it worked quite well! :) So, I went to the front door and it was the nurses who came down to tell me about the patients who needed my help. I went up to the hospital and before I get to that part, let me back up to the funny part of the night.

Stretching experience #1: How to get to the hospital--I could walk in the pitch dark with a flash light or I could borrow the truck on property and drive up. The issue is it is a standard transmission vehicle. I don't do well with standards, considering I've really only tried a few times, all unsuccessful. I knew it was time to do it, though, and be stretched. So I did a test drive with the med student, Angela, talking me through it in the front seat and Drs. Dunn and Renfro in the backseats of the cab of the truck. There was loud laughter from Dr. Renfro the moment we stalled out after a few seconds of driving. We really were driving on dirt roads with trees but no light on the property at all except for my headlights. Once, I kind of got the coordination of it, I got us there and back safely, or rather, God did.

So, back to the doorbell... The nurses came, and I went and got the keys and drove up with the nurses helping me see the way there.
First, is a lady who was miscarrying and bleeding that I needed to take care of. That went well and we did that.
Second, was a post-op lady with a distended abdomen who needed an NG tube placed to alleviate bile fluid. After her refusing it then pulling it out once we placed it, we finally got her tucked away with placing it again.

Then, I just happened to stop by the maternity ward and I'm glad I did. They would have found me otherwise later that night. They had two women who needed c-sections they thought. One I had heard of was really sick with anemia, a hematocrit of 10. The other one was not sick, but just needing a c-section. I examined both and found that the anemic one was literally about to deliver. The baby was ready, so I asked the nurses to ask her to just push and we could take care of it. They said she was too weak to push and she needed a c-section. I agreed. The other woman needed a c-section after I examined as well. So, this means, I go and get the full-time missionary doctor who does surgeries here. I went to his house in the truck but I couldn't exactly see the roads, so instead of getting lost I opted to walk. His house is not that far at all. I'm just not familiar with the dirt roads on the property at night time without lights. We both went back to the hospital. He agreed that the anemic lady was about to deliver, so he thought to check her fetal heart tones first just to make sure the baby was alive. No sound on the Doppler. No heart tones. So, we double check with an ultrasound to see a heart beating, no heart beating. Baby wasn't alive. We had to move to another plan to deliver this baby and also get the other woman ready for her c-section. Just as we were preparing, our anemic woman took a turn for the worst. The nurse came running in and yelling "doctor, doctor." We didn't understand what was wrong, but knew we had to run with her. We went straight to the anemic woman's bedside and sure enough, she was in heart failure and dying before our faces. We witnessed her last breath. Here, there are no critical care resources that she may have needed. She had an underlying condition, we are sure of, and this acute anemia pushed her over the edge. I don't know, all I know is God allowed it to happen. So, baby died first and then mom. I'm so sorry to share this news with you, but I need to share the extremes of what our lives involve. Please pray for this family. The husband dropped her off and went into town. He wasn't there at all throughout the night for us to tell him. Culturally, they usually save the babies and bury them separately. Also culturally, if you had an amputation, they save it and bury it. Then, we had to get ready for the next woman's c-section, which we did, and it went great with a healthy life. I got home around 4 am after being up all night and left everyone a note to wake me up for church. I couldn't miss the African jive!

I asked the missionary doctor if our night was unusual or rare there, and he said, "yes." Somehow, I knew I was supposed to be stretched and shouldn't be surprised by a "rare" night in Africa.