Pray for Pee

The final two surgeries happened yesterday and today we started removing catheters. Eleven women had surgeries, one twice, and they are all doing well! The ward only has ten beds so on Thursday another one was brought in. It was something great to see because it means that in all these short trips, growth has begun. On the first trip out here only five surgeries were done and this is the forth trip and now eleven were done. It's great to see the growth even though the VVF hospital isn't complete yet.

On Monday we will do followup exams on the women who have had surgery at previous visits. It has been wonderful seeing them all again. They have all returned from the previous trip. Another thing that has been great to see is how the women help each other out. When a woman leaves the ward for surgery, another woman, usually one from a previous trip who is dry, will come in and wash the wet clothes of the one in surgery. When the women is on bed rest for twenty four hours after surgery, the other woman will bring her food and water and empty her bedpan if they have no family to do it for them. When it comes to these women they are never alone.

I was standing in the ward a few days ago and Aicha, a girl from the previous trip came running into the ward and yelled Sarahtou! Then she started looking all around for Linsay...sorry Lindsay. :) She is a girl who is 18 we helped on the previous trip. Later in the day I went to the tree to see her. She brought a girl up to me, probably about the same age and through hand motions and body language I realized she too had a fistula. Aicha had brought her. To me, Aicha isn't like the other VVF women. Maybe it's her age, but Aicha has this sort of attitude that an 18 year old in the states would have. I could just picture her passing this girl and smelling the urine from her then grabbing her and saying you have a fistula, come with me! I'm sure that's not how it happened, but I wouldn't be surprised. Aicha brought her fistual friend! One of the highlights of my week!

The small picture of me on this page on the upper right is from the previous trip. It's me with Hindou. Hindou was in the ward, showered and ready to go for surgery last August when we had to tell her we couldn't do her surgery this time. An emergency had come up on anther patient and we had to take her back so Hindou couldn't have surgery then. I remember sitting with her while she cried and cried, thinking we were going to leave her even though we had told her she would still have her surgery in November. She was the first to go this time. Her catheter came out today and she is dry! She has no problems voiding and is happy!

There are so many other exciting things I would love to share right now but we are headed to dinner. We have a little less than a week here. Now it's removing catheters and making sure the women can pee and empty their bladders before we leave. Please join me in prayer for this. You may think it funny to pray for someone to pee, but for some of these women their bodies don't know how. They haven't had to for so long. Their bodies are used to just leaking it out or their bladders don't empty completely which can lead to other problems too. Thanks!