Sonshine Christian Academy

We are participating in a home school program developed by the Cameroon Baptist Convention.

The program, Sonshine Christian Academy, caters to missionary families from many parts of Cameroon. The program consists of home schooling materials, a two week group session in Bamenda in August and again in February, and a two week home visit. The home visit is by the director of the program who helps with assessment and teaching.

We are now in Bamenda for the first two weeks.  Jennifer was here for the first week and I am here now for the second week.  Teaching is done by the parents and it has been really fun getting to know the other parents.

Two other families from Lay Mission Helpers (our sister organization) are also participating and are graciously letting us stay with them in Bamenda:)

The kids are having a blast!

Dublaise

Dublaise, an 8 year old boy, has been coming to the hospital frequently since our arrival. His mother is also HIV positive and his father has died.

He is on ARV’s but almost every month he comes in with worsening whole body swelling, fluid in his abdomen, and difficulty breathing.

The amount of suffering that the child and mother experience is almost unbearable to watch.

However, with medication and prayers, he improves and goes back home… a small miracle in spite of tremendous suffering.

We always know he is better when his insatiable appetite returns

Thank you Dr. Garlitos

Dr. Garlitos, is an internal medicine doctor from Southern California.  He has come to Njinikom through Mission Doctors Association.

He has been with us for the last month and has been working on the Male and Tuberculous wards.

He has also helped in the out patient department and with our therapeutic committee which overseas our HIV patient population.

We have really appreciated all of his help and look forward to his next visit!

Mother’s Day Thoughts

One of my favorite things about Cameroon is the many names I have here. I am Madame, Sister, Doctor, Mom, Mami, Mama. I am also called “Mom of …”(insert any one of my children’s names). Almost no one calls me by my first name. Any person who has a child can be called Mami (pronounced mah-mi) and I use this frequently when I talk with patients. I think it gives a sense of familiarity, especially when I can’t remember the patient’s name.

There are a few staff at the hospital who always call me Mom. This is my favorite title. It is rather endearing and makes me feel needed and wanted. However, with that title comes responsibility. I then need to be a model of kindness, respect, and compassion, taking the time to listen to the patient and do whatever I am called to do with a positive attitude and a grateful heart.

A favorite song at Mass here is “Mama Maria, mama, eh mama…” Mary is called Maria in Pidgin English. When we think about the formal titles we have for Mary like the Virgin Mary and Mother of God, she may not seem as accessible as when she is called Mama. As Mama, she becomes one of us. We need her and want her to intercess for us.

I also see Mary in the many mothers we see here with sick and suffering children of all ages. Mary’s heart broke when she saw her Son suffer and die. I think of the countless mothers here who have lost a child or children and endure that seemingly unbearable pain. Mary, then, becomes a source of comfort.

As I struggle daily with the mother that I want to be, let me look to Mary as my inspiration.

Junior

Junior arrived from a referring hospital with his grandmother. He had been ill for 6 days and presented unconscious, seizing and febrile. His labs showed malaria, a low hemoglobin of 3 (normal 12 and above), low calcium of 1 (normal 8 – 10) and an elevated white blood count.  Treatment was started.

With a lot of praying and help from our growing expat consulting service (thank you Dr. Angela!), Junior improved over the next few days and was discharged much better than he arrived!

Collaboration with Mbingo Baptist Hospital

Drs. Chuck and Angela, from Mbingo Baptist Hospital which is about 30 minutes down the road from Njinikom, recently visited St. Martin de Porres and provided an excellent Saturday continuing medical education talk.

Dr. Chuck is an internal medicine doctor and his wife, Angela, is a pediatrician. They have been in Mbingo for the past two and half years.  Their on the ground experience has been invaluable to us and they have shared many medical pearls. They know first hand the challenges of working in a resource limited area.

We have been fortunate to get to know them and have been very fortunate to have had their expertise for some tough cases.

A happy follow up the other day…….

Adamou is a 9 year old boy who came to the hospital for the first time in January.  We were asked to see him urgently.  I was told he was referred from a clinic with the history of an undescended testicle. Upon arriving to see him, he was unconscious with rapid respirations.  He was subsequently found to be in diabetic ketoacidosis and had a fractured femur!

The history was that two weeks prior to his arrival to St. Martin De Porres he had been kicked by a cow and the family had tried various “traditional” treatments at home. He had not been able to walk since that time and the last few days before coming to the hospital he had become less responsive.
He was started on insulin and IV fluids and the orthopedic surgeon was consulted. He improved over the next week and was discharged. On follow up he was doing much better and the family was doing well providing insulin at home.

New Ultrasound

We recently received a new ultrasound machine.  This was obtained by a donation from Mission Doctors Association.

It is a portable US so it allows us to take it to the wards, outpatient, maternity and recently to one of our outreach clinics.

It really helps to direct our care of patients!

The photo is of Dr. Dabo our Obstetrician/Gynecologist with the new portable US.

 

Christmas

We asked the children to write "something" about Christmas this year, here is what they wrote.

Nicholas had a bit of prompting.

Christopher:

This year we had Christmas in Cameroon. It was fun, but I still missed my family. I got many Christmas presents like Legos, candy, gloves, a video game, and a magic set. But my favorite gift was Jesus coming to the world. This gift was from God.    

Elizabeth:

This Christmas was special because it was in Cameroon. There was no snow, but it was still fun. We did Advent calendars, hung stockings, decorated our tiny Christmas Tree In-A-Box and watched Christmas movies. The most exciting part was Christmas morning and seeing the presents left under the tree, and the milk, cookies and carrots gone. Christmas is my favorite time of the year, even in Cameroon.

Julianne:

Christmas was really fun. I got candy, a little stuffed bunny that I named Carrots or Fluffy. I also got little glass animals from Santa. I got a Polly Pocket girl with some clothes. I also got princess slippers and a lot of other stuff. We made some ornaments for the Christmas tree. We opened our advent calendars every day. We also went to a play about Mary and Joseph. When we woke up the carrots, cookies, and milk were gone.

Nicholas:

What is special about Christmas?  Receiving presents, time with family, the birth of Jesus.

What did you do?  Put decorations up on the windows and a little Christmas tree including a star on top.

We went to celebrations including mom and dad’s anniversary that the Sisters had for them, Christmas Mass and a Christmas play at the hospital. 

We treat, God heals.

We admitted 2 babies on consecutive days with respiratory distress caused by a lung 
infection. When I saw the first one and the baby was breathing 100 times a minute (normal is less than 60) and had an oxygen saturation of 60 percent (normal above 92 percent), I told the mother that the child was very sick, but that we would try. We started antibiotics and IV fluids. The next day, another infant was admitted in an even worse condition breathing 120 times a minute and with a saturation of 50 percent and again I told the mother that we would try. We transferred the only oxygen we had from the first baby, who was slightly better, but still in need of oxygen, to the second baby. Then, there was no electricity overnight to run the oxygen concentrator, so I was surprised to see that the second infant was still alive the next day. 

Miraculously, both babies survived. “We treat, God heals.”

Welcome to God’s House

The chapel is at the center of the hospital compound. Every day the staff starts with Morning Prayer and a short reflection before going to work. Surrounding the chapel are garden beds with tiny shrubs formed into words. At first, this might go unnoticed, but the words really struck me and are as follows:

“Welcome to God’s House. Jesus is here, waiting for you.”
“Come to me all you who labor and I will give you rest.”
“We treat, God heals.”

The motto of the hospital is “To see Christ in all by spending time to care.”The core values are Faith, Discipline, and Selflessness.We are blessed to really see these things lived out by the staff each day and it all begins in the chapel.

Thanksgiving

We had a very nice Thanksgiving celebration with an American premed student who has been volunteering at the hospital for the last several months and with 2 Belgian midwifery students who were doing a practical rotation here. We did not have turkey, although we have seen some turkeys around, however chicken was a fine substitute. We had stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, cranberry sauce, Magic Cookie bars and even pumpkin pie. Thank you to Terry and Jim, the volunteers here before us, who had left some things like butterscotch chips, flaked coconut, and canned pumpkin which came in handy. We ate until we were all stuffed!

Death

The line between life and death in the developing world is precarious. A patient, whom one thinks will surely die, miraculously survives, while another patient can be talking with you and, a few hours later, that same patient is dead. Many times it is HIV/AIDS that steals people away, maybe from opportunistic infections that we can’t diagnose. Our diagnostics and treatment options for all diseases are more limited here, so we rely on what is most common or probable and treat with what we have. But too often it is not enough or it is too late. Death seems more unexpected and unfair here. It takes babies, children, new mothers, and young people, not just the elderly or chronically ill. As a physician, it makes one question one’s ability to diagnose and treat patients. What is it that lets one survive and the other die? Is it that patient’s will to live? Is it God? Is it destiny? Is it our treatment? Or a combination of these?

Please, pray for those who are sick, suffering, and dying, their families, and those who try to care for them.

Video from Feast of St. Martin De Porres

We wanted to share a video from the Feast of St. Martin De Porres celebration at St. Martin De Porres Hospital in Njinikom, Cameroon.

Ode to Cheese

Oh, how we miss you Cheddar and Pepper Jack, Blue Cheese and Havarti, Mozzarella and Colby.  Laughing Cow, we’ve grown to like you, but, oh, Mr. Laughing Cow, real cheese you are not and will not be. We’ve grown to eat cheesy rice without the cheese and Mac and Cheese just isn’t the same when Mac is all alone. Pizza breads are good with just sauce and French Onion soup is nice with bread, but both would be great with a sprinkle of cheese.

We are hopeful that you are coming with the next visitor passing through customs. Remember you are not a food item when asked by the customs officer. You are medicine desperately wanted by a family in Njinikom.

Recycling

All of our recyclable paper and cardboard goes to Adisa, the school and workshop for developmentally challenged individuals. They make many products from recycled paper and cardboard that are sold on Novica.com.

There is a truck that comes around and buys all things metal. We give our food cans and aluminum cans to one of the older women who has a store on the main road and she receives the proceeds from that.

For the first 2 years we were here there was no recycling locally for glass or plastic. We would save it up and take it to Antigua (2 ½ hours from here) once or twice a year. We don’t have that much plastic and glass recycling as we make most things from scratch and can’t buy a lot of things in bottles. However, now there is a local place that accepts recycling called Punto Verde (Green Point). This has made recycling much more convenient.

Corn is the staple food in Guatemala and can grow anywhere….. Even in the drainage ditch on the side of the road.

Eco Bricks

Trash is a problem all over the world, but when we first moved to Guatemala we were really struck by the amount of trash everywhere. That is when we learned about Eco bricks. Eco bricks are made from plastic drink bottles stuffed with trash. Since we rarely buy a drink in a plastic bottle, we started looking for bottles on the ground while we were walking back and forth to town. Then we started stuffing bottles.

We stuff all trash that is not compostable or recyclable. If you use a stick to push the trash down in the bottle, we found that we could fit a whole cereal bag full of trash in one bottle. We’ve found that wide mouth bottles are easier to stuff and pick up those up preferentially. Since we compost even our toilet paper, recycle everything recyclable, and stuff bottles, we only have a small cereal bag size of trash every 2-3 months!

The Eco bricks are then used in place of cement blocks or other building materials to build things. A

frame of wood is made and chicken wire attached to both sides. The stuffed bottles are then slipped between the chicken wire. They can be used with the bottles showing to make things like garbage cans that don’t need to be sealed or they can be covered by cement for a home. Recently a school in a town nearby was collecting them to make a playground and a local school garden project took some to make some benches in the garden.

Holy Thursday

Although Easter has passed, I wanted to write about my favorite Mass of the year in Guatemala. It is the Holy Thursday Mass. It is outdoors at 5pm in the square of the Church with at least a thousand people present. During the Mass, one can see majestic Volcan San Pedro and the sky changing colors as the sun sets.
 

Each year the priest has had the same message. Holy Thursday is the commemoration of Christ giving us three gifts… his love for us, the Eucharist, and the priesthood. Each year I’ve thought that was a simple, true summary of what we celebrate on Holy Thursday.

 

 

10 days and 26 ways

Over the next 10 days, we will be sharing 26 things we've learned or only experienced in the missions. 

1. You know you've lived in the Missions for a while when you tell a story and your kids ask you, "What's a comforter?" or "What's a driveway?"

2. Cars and trucks that look like they could never be functional, somehow function with nearly flat tires, so many people in the bed of the pickup that the back bumper is just a couple inches off the ground, missing fenders, broken windshields, lurching movements, and unsettling sounds.