Tell God Tenki

One of my favorite things that happens in the morning during rounds is when the patient is asked how she is feeling. Her response, more often than not, is:

"Tell God tenki."

Tenki means thank you in krio, the local language. Tell God thank you. Even through all these women have been through, their daily response is:

"Tell God tenki."

Their response isn't:

"Why did God allow this to happen to me?"

or:

"Can you PLEASE take this catheter out!"

or:

"When can I get out of here and go home?"

or:

"When can we eat?"

it's:

"Tell God tenki."

On another note, there is a woman who had surgery yesterday and now she has three drains coming out of her. A catheter and two stents which come out from the kidneys. Those will be removed in seven days. When she gets out of bed she carries the stents around in a bed pan. Don't worry, it's super clean. But that's not what I want to share about. So today was visiting day and her husband came! That in itself is always a beautiful sight to see. So many of these women are abandoned by their husbands. But I looked over and he was bending over cutting her toenails with a razor blade. That was a tremendous picture of love! She was sitting there with a foley bag and a bed pan full of two other bags and tubes and he was lovingly cutting her toenails. I walked over to them and they both looked up at me and laughed, as did I.