VVF Screening

The stench of stale urine has started to permeate the hospital corridors but more specifically B ward. Yes thats right, my favourite ladies are back and I couldnt be more excited! My heart is full right now, full of love for these ladies and full of hope and anticipation for their futures when they can go back to their families and to their villiages dry for the first time, sometimes after 40 or 50 years of leaking. For those of you who dont know, these ladies were the biggest reason for me wanting to come back to the ship.

We had our screeing day for them on Monday and screened nearly 70 ladies, only 4 of whom we had to say no to, either because their fistulas were too complex for us to fix or they weren't genuine fistulas. The rest are all booked in for surgery.

My job during the screening process was to take their health histories and ask some of the hard questions. Like, do you leak urine all the time? Is the bed wet when you wake up in the morning? Does urine run down your legs when you stand up? Did this start after you had a baby? How long did your labour last? Is the baby still alive or did they die? Did your husband leave you after you started leaking? Questions that are hard to ask and sometimes hard to hear the answer to.

The funniest part of my day was when one of my ladies I had screened insisted that her child see the doctor as well because they had the same problem as her, I had to hold my laughter in as I said to her Im sorry but there is no possible way that your 5 year old SON has the same problem as you and the doctor wont be able to see him! She was dissapointed understably but I told her she needed to take him to a local clinc to sort out whatever problem it was the poor boy was having.

I also got to see around 6 of the women that I had looked after last year. It was certainly bittersweet to see them again, so sweet to see them and to be able to hug them and show them love again but bitter because we do have to see them again. Josephine, Germaine, Sabine, Rosali, Veronique and Yaba. Names that will forever be etched onto my heart. Yaba who everytime she sees me says 'Beccy!' To which my reply is 'Yaba!' And we then carry on some kind of communication which consists of lots of hand actions and some vocab in her language and we finally agree on whatever the matter might be. My charades have definitly improved since being here and working with these ladies! My heart for these ladies is huge so please join with me in praying for them, praying that this time the are able to go home dry and that their hearts and souls are healed as well.

If you want to find out more about VVF I recommend you check out the movie A walk to Beautiful, you can see some of it online or check out their website

http://www.engelentertainment.com/walktobeautiful/of.html

Im famous?

Well apparently there was an article about me in one of the local papers back home, how exciting! I must say I feel a little proud and I know you are too Mum and Dad!

For those of you who havent seen it here is a link to the article, enjoy! :)

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/local/hutt-news/3680091/Hutt-Hospital-nurse-Becky-Martin-sails-on-international-charity-ship

Afi

Forgive me.

I realise I havent written in over a month and for that I am sorry. I have no real reason or explaination to give you. Maybe a little writters block? Its not to say that I havent anything to write about I think its maybe more to do with the fact that I have had a lot of processing to do over the last few weeks and have had alot that has been on my heart that I just havent known how to share.

So I will begin with Afi.
Afi is one of the sweetest and coolest 5 year olds I have ever met, she has totally stolen my heart and she knows it. She came to us with a tumour in her mouth that was begining to obstruct her airway and had to be sent to theatre urgently to have a tracheostomy placed to allow her to breathe properly. She spent the next few weeks in the ward adjusting to breathing thru a tube in her neck and waiting for the results of the biopsy we took of her tumour. During that time of waiting for the results she contracted a nasty infection in her sputum and had to have several rounds of antibiotics to try and clear it up. After the fourth round we were finally successful and got the infection. After weeks of waiting the results came back saying it was a malignant cancer. Oh gosh. What do we do? Do we send her back home with palliative follow up? Do we attempt to take the tumour out and hope for the best?

Fortunately for Afi a head a neck specialist was due to arrive on the ship the following week so Dr Gary our resident maxilo-facial surgeon who is a very talented and humble man decided to wait for him and they would attempt to do the surgery together.

Im so grateful they did. Afi went to surgery over a week ago and is doing amazingly well, they were able to remove all of the tumour and are pretty postive that it wont return. It was news that nurse needed to hear. They removed her trach tube and she was able to breathe without any problems, she can eat properly again and be a normal 5 year old.

Awesome.