First Clinic Day

Well, we made it through clinic today more or less unscathed... 16 patients in all, with 6 surgeries scheduled.  Most of them are vaginal surgeries, but there's one big uterus that needs to come out and one large ovarian cyst also.  Six of the patients were sent by Tom, 2 of them were return patients that I had scheduled to come back myself, and the Fickers sent us 2 also.

While we're being stat-happy, something that really struck me today was how many pregnancies and lost children these women have!!  The AVERAGE number of pregnancies today was 7.3, with 5.5 living children.  Median was 8.5 pregnancies and 5.5 living children!  Yikes.  Our first patient today had been pregnant and given birth to 10 children with 5 still living (she is in her 50's), and this is a story all too common here.  Seven of our 16 patients had been pregnant more than 10 times.  Wow.   I can't imagine the pain of losing a single child, much less 5... but this is the reality that these families live with.  I keep trying to remind myself that but for the grace of God, I would have been born in to this life, too.  It is mind-blowing to think about, and I am constantly thankful for the privilege of helping in any small way I can.

I do continue to need prayer for healing as I remain miserable with some kind of virus that really has me down. Clinic was bad enough, but operating (and seeing patients between surgeries) will be some kind of un-fun if I don't wake up feeling better!  Here's hoping.  Luckily Sarah has not been struck with this, and I hope to keep it that way.  It was so frustrating to have to shy away every time a patient or old friend wanted to hug me today.  I am so glad that Sarah is a very huggable person to make up for it a little.  I was pleasantly surprised that many of them actually seemed to understand when I told them I was trying not to touch or hug them because of my cold.  There's really a lack of general health knowledge here usually so that was a good sign I guess.

Okay, I'm going to bed now, fully hoping and expecting to wake up a new person tomorrow.  It's gotta give sometime right?  Please continue to pray for Sarah's strength to hold out as well-- the next few days will be really long ones!

Sorry there are no pictures tonight; we left Sarah's cable in the clinic so I couldn't transfer them.  I'll try to get more up tomorrow.