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!

Back in Danja!

We arrived here in Danja Saturday morning. The trip here was pretty uneventful. Spokane to Seattle. Seattle to Paris. Paris to Niemey. Then early Saturday morning on a small six seater Piper plane, Niemey to Maradi. It was exciting to run into Jolene, Ginger and Jacqui in Paris. I hadn’t met Jacqui before but Jolene and Ginger and I worked together in Togo on the Africa Mercy. It’s great to be here with some good friends.

Harmitan is here so there is a constant haze. This is when the winds blow in the dust from the Sahara. Because of this we didn’t have great visibility flying here from Niemey. I’m hoping for a dust storm but I’m told it won’t happen this time of year. Bummer. From the pictures I’ve seen they look incredible!

The women are here! They were sitting under the tree when we arrived! Many of the women from the previous trip are here for check ups and many more are here to be seen. The rest of the team arrives tomorrow and screening will happen tomorrow afternoon to see who are surgical candidates. Surgeries will then begin on Tuesday. The four of us have been working to set up the operating room and ward. It’s been great reconnecting with the group here who help us. They translate for us, cook for us, laugh with us and at us, help us out more than we could ask for, and care a lot for these women as well. It’s a good team to be a part of.

More to come soon!

And I'm off...

Yes, I haven't written on here in awhile. I got home from Togo and Danja mid August and here I am, again getting ready to go back to Niger in just a few days! I'm headed back to Danja for another two week trip with the Worldwide Fistula Fund. I can't wait! Not only will we be doing another ten surgeries, we will also be doing check up exams on the women who had surgeries last time! This means I will hopefully be able to see the women again who I met on the last trip! I'm really excited as well to see how the new hospital there is coming along.

My time here at home has been great. I spent time with my brother and his family first for a bit then came over to Idaho. I've been working and living here at camp for the last month and it has been great spending time with my sister and her family. When I'm gone I really miss my niece and nephews a lot so I really cherish the time I get to spend with them.

When I get back from Niger I will have about a month back stateside. Starting in January I will be moving to Sierra Leone for a year, working as the ward supervisor for the VVF clinic there that was started by Mercy Ships. I'm super excited for this experience and to see what this year brings. I'm also REALLY excited to be living on land! That in itself will be a whole new experience!

I'll be posting more on here now that I'm off on another adventure soon!

Pictures of Danja

The plane we flew in from Niamey to Maradi.

Alainie, Me, Lindsay and Ginger wearing our matching free bird head wraps.

The women waiting under the tree.

Camels are not as fun to ride as you would think!

Preparing for the dress ceremony.

Group hug!

Group picture.

The women in their taxi home.

The empty tree... until next time...

The new fistula center under construction!

Home

I arrived home yesterday after being gone for seven months. Thank you Esther for picking me up! It was wonderful to be picked up by someone I had met in Togo on the ship.

The last few days in Niger our internet connection wasn't the greatest so I couldn't keep you all updated but everything wrapped up really well there. Ten amazing women had surgery and almost all went home dry! The final day we had a dress ceremony and the women looked amazing! Their smiles were infectious and it was bittersweet to walk them out to the end of the road for their ride home. It was amazing to see their lives transformed in such a short time. Women who showed up scared and frightened left laughing and smiling. One of the girls I had tried to reach all week came up behind me as we were walking out and held my hand out to the road. It was a beautiful sight to see them all pile into the back of a truck and drive away. It is my prayer that as they return home, they will continue on this path of joy. That they will be welcomed and accepted back with open arms and that the joy I saw radiating out of them will continue.

Yo Yo Yo

In hausa the word for leaking, dripping is yo yo. I wondered why when I walked up to the group of women and just said yo, they all laughed. I found this fun fact out yesterday and today I was reminded of a camp song in which the chorus is "Yo, yo, yo..." over and over. I sung it to a patient today and she just laughed. It's an easy word to remember when I ask the patients if they are wet or leaking.

The final patients had surgery today. Ten women in four days. When I took one of the young girls to the OR I could tell she was petrified. Her mother was there but they speak Twarg, a language not many people here speak so we had difficulty communicating. We walked across the sandy ground and when we got to the door she stopped. She started crying. The fear that must go through these women and girls. To be in this state where they are outcasts and then brought to a hospital where white nurses are telling you how to prepare and how to wash and how to sleep in a bed off the ground and then being led to an operating room which is freezing to your standards and we will put you in stirrups and make you vulnerable and a male doctor is going to do your surgery after we stick something into your vein and another man is going to poke you in your back so you can't move your legs...I took care of her after the surgery and it took a bit to get her to smile, but she did. Her and her mother have been here for over a week waiting for this day. She is dry and has so much to smile about. Please keep praying for her and her recovery.

After the final surgery of the day we heard they were here. They are the camels. We had all been wanting to ride a camel on this trip and the time had come. They were waiting outside our house. When we drove down the road and I spotted them I got really excited! They were so tall and had seats on them and I couldn't wait... until we got out of the car. Camels are not the most graceful of animals. The way they stand up and get down to the ground scares me. One of them was yelling and was hating life. There were three camels and six of us. I knew that if I waited until the second round I would chicken out so I got on one. Here in Niger we need to wear skirts down to the ground. I showed more leg today than I have in months. There was no way around it. When the camel stood I screamed. I don't know how this seat didn't slide off. It felt so awkward. As long as the camel was walking I felt ok but if it was stopped I just wanted to get off. I will fully admit this was not one of my highlights for the week. After our short walk, when it was time to get off, the camel did his same awkward movements to lay down and again, not a good moment in my life as a volunteer. I was thankful only my friends could understand what came out of my mouth. Would I ride a camel again? No, but I am glad I did it today. The men who brought them got the biggest laugh from us all.

It is raining like crazy outside right now! It's actually a good thing for the tadpoles. The day we got here, the four of us girls walked by a puddle full of frog eggs. Every day we check on them and a day or so after we found it they had hatched into tadpoles! It rains almost every night so the puddle fills up. Once we had to fill up the puddle because it was almost dry and many of the tadpoles lay dead on the sand. We drug an old wheelbarrow full of old water and dumped it in. They were happy. Last night it didn't rain and we all got busy and the puddle dried up and the tadpoles died. We hung onto hope that they found refuge in the mud and with the rain now they will come back out. We can hope... This is our nightly entertainment.

................................................

I wrote this post last night but because of the storm the internet cut out. Here's an update on the tadpoles...they all died BUT the puddle filled back up to overflowing and it is full again of frog eggs! We will try to be more on the ball this time around.

The Urine Song

I finally found out the gist to the song the women sing:

I became wet.

My husband left me.

He took me to live with my parents.

No one wanted me.

I heard about this VVF hospital so I came.

There are nice nurses and doctors here.

Now I can be healed.

Only one day of surgeries left tomorrow. I had to fight back tears today more than once. Tears of happiness and tears of sorrow and tears of joy. Women and girls finding healing and others finding a longer road ahead. One needing to wait a little longer but in daya, biyu, uku (one, two, three) months she can come back for surgery.

How do these women and girls survive? I say girls because we have one here who is 14 who had her surgery the last time the clinic was running. 14! Wild. The youngest here now is 18 but looks younger. Only one more day then a week more of recovery and other things.

I can't post pictures on here because the connection is too slow. When I get home I'll post lots!