Updates

The days here sometimes seem like the longest days of my life but the weeks seem like they are flying by. Almost every day is really hard. There are so many people with medical needs that aren't being met in this country due to lack of accessible healthcare, lack of money and lack of education (I recently talked to someone who lives in Monrovia who didn't know there is a free pediatric hospital here - seems like something you should know when you have 12 children). Every day I have to tell at least 5 people that we can't help them. It makes for really long days (not to mention it is scorching hot here - much worse than last year).

We're on track to send my patient Michael (22 years old with Hodgkins lymphoma) to Ghana for chemo, hopefully this week. His brother will go with him to take care of him while he is in the hospital and if he's home sick from the chemo. Neither had a birth certificate so it took awhile for them to be able to get passports. Michael is currently attending college thanks to sponsors in the U.S. but he will have to give up his studies for at least six months while he is away. He is the hope of his extremely large family. Here's a picture of Michael with his father Rudolph.

My patient Levi (10 years old with Burkitts lymphoma) is still receiving chemo and is almost done with his treatments. So far no one has survived this cancer even with chemo so I continue to pray that Levi will be healed completely. Even though the chemo kills the cancer pretty quickly and the tumors can go away in as little as two days, their little bodies are almost always undernourished and immunocompromised so the chemo is hard on them. Here's a picture of Levi (with my sunglasses) and his little brother Ivan.

We have been visiting the family of Survivor quite a bit since he passed away on March 1. They are devastated - I can't think of much worse than losing a 5 year old to cancer, especially when he finished his chemo and everything seemed to be going well for him. His family left this week to go upcountry for what they call the feast. It is what they do when someone in the family dies - everyone comes from all over the country to pay their respects and have a big meal. They already had this feast planned because James, Survivor's father passed away in October. So they decided to combine the feast for both James and Survivor.

For cultural reasons, Rebecca (Survivor's mother) is no longer part of her husband's family even though they were together for 12 years and have 6 children. Her children remain part of the family. One of the things that will go on while they are at the feast is decisions about Rebecca and her children. They will take up a collection of money that will be used to support her and her children. Her children, however, will probably not remain with her - they will probably be given to the oldest brother of James (named Steven) and his wife Doris to raise. On my last visit, Rebecca said to me 'Oh sis Michele, you need to just forget about me.' As far as she's concerned, she's out of the family. It made me cry...I told her I would never, ever forget about her.

Here is a photo of their large extended family. Rebecca is third from the left in the back row and Doris is first from the left in the back row.

My patient Mark (26 years with squamous cell carcinoma) is really having a hard time. While we were in the Canary Islands, he went to the local hospital and they debulked his facial tumor. However, the skin grafts didn't take and now he has a large hole in his face that is infected. And, since they couldn't get all the cancer, it has returned and is growing very quickly. He's having a hard time coping with the pain and the daily sterile dressing changes. We are working to get his pain under control but it's not an easy task here since we don't necessarily have access to the meds that we would use back home. Here's a photo of Mark with his 2 year old daughter Angelina.

Here's Angelina 'driving' our car! She's a beautiful little girl with a big smile.

My patient Sarah is a wonderful, vivacious 75 year old with lots of energy even with the cancer. She loves for us to visit and likes to tell us about her family and her growing up years. She wants her whole family to meet us ('her people' as she calls us) so next Tuesday I'm expecting a big group of people at her house. She is well cared for by her family. Here's a photo of Sarah.

We made a visit to the family of Rose who passed away last summer to see how her four children were doing. Here they are with the neighborhood kids goofing off.

Baby George eating his rice.

My partner June and I had a large box of metal and plastic bowls that we donated to an orphanage called SOS Village. My translator Jerry's sister Dorothy is a house mother there who lives with and cares for 8 children. She called my translator and told us she wanted us to come by so she could thank us. So when we stopped by on Friday, she had a whole African meal cooked for us.

I have been here over 8 months and so far have avoided, on purpose, eating at an African's house. But there was no way I was going to avoid this. It was such a humbling gesture considering these bowls weren't anything special but to her, they were a big gift. She said this was her way of inviting us into the family - her own mother, she said, was really hospitable and they always had strangers over to their house for a meal.

So we had rice, chicken with pumpkin, fried plantains, french fries and hot dogs (I didn't eat one - that seemed like a sure way to food poisoning). It was all really, really good and it was a fun lunch. She told us about her family and told tales on her brother (our translator). She talked about living during the war and about the kids she cares for. We met all eight of her kids at the house (plus she has four of her own children who live at another house).

This house she and the kids live in was the biggest, most furnished home I have seen here. It has at least 8 rooms - two kids per bedroom. It had a living room, a dining room, kitchen and even a TV (haven't seen a TV here before since it takes electricity). All the rooms were furnished and each child had their own bed. The floors were concrete instead of dirt. I think these orphaned children were living well above the normal standard of living.

Here's June and Jerry before the meal.

Here's a picture of Dorothy and her 8 children (plus a neighbor boy).

A little one getting a bath!

My friends Marilyn and Lesley and I went out for dinner tonight at a Lebanese restaurant called Sajj. The tables are under huts out on a patio. As usual, no matter what restaurant you go to, there were other Mercy Shippers there! Now that I can drive, it's a lot easier to get out and there are plenty of restaurants that cater to the western/NGO crowd. The difficulty is getting home at night since there are no street lights and so many people walking the streets. They are dark-skinned people usually wearing dark clothing and they dash across the street in front of you. I'm not sure they understand that you can't see people at night when there are no street lights and it's a scary experience to drive here at night. Here we are at the restaurant.