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Sunday, June 22, 2014

Occupational Hazards

My second flat-out-take-down illness in less than 3 weeks, chills and fevers over 102.  Bleaaahhh.  I think 25 years in this profession gave me the false assurance that I had developed great immunity.  But I am way less invulnerable than I think, and this weekend of shivering under blankets and coughing until I pulled a rib muscle proves that.

Scott's hazard was of a different nature, physically and technically demanding.  Friday was his fourth call for the week, the other three were mercifully reasonable to get him ready for this doozy.  Just at 5 pm a woman presented in labor with her baby transverse, meaning the baby's back (not head or bottom) was across the cervix.  It is not possible to deliver that way, and without surgery the baby and mother would die.  Even with a Cesarean it is a difficult extraction, but he was able to make an incision without rupturing the membranes and turn the baby around inside the amniotic sac for a safe entrance into the world.  He made it home for dinner and to help us set up for Senior Class night (we're still sponsors) then got called for one emergency after another, in the operating theatre from 10 pm to 6:30 am.  A lady with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, which had to be removed to save the mother.  A lady who was bleeding to death from a cervical laceration.  A lady with a placental abruption, meaning the placenta separated from the uterus with the baby still inside, which would have led to both baby and mom bleeding to death.  A woman with previous scars who presented too far dilated to wait for morning for an elective CS.  There were some delays because the Paeds surgery team was stitching up the severed trachea of a 15 year old boy who had supposedly been attacked by a baboon in a nearby town.  The point is, he accepts the all-nighter for the satisfaction of eight lives saved (and one lost, the ectopic fetus, but that was not possible to save).  And having lived in the "bush" we know that most of those would have died most places in Africa.

In John 16, Jesus says that we endure pain as we wait for him, as we work for the Kingdom, but when we see Him we will forget all the suffering just like a mother who is in labor for a baby.  I resonate with that analogy.  The suffering is real, the scars are palpable, but the worst of it becomes a dim memory in the joy of the outcome.

And some of that joy, for us, is the privilege of living here where we can see our kids and participate in their lives.  So we close with a few photos of the weekend:
Missing Caleb.  Sigh.

Julia and Katie, baristas!

Coffee, donuts, and hot chocolate for class night (remember it is winter here below the equator at 7200 feet, chilly and damp and grey)

Julia's senior singing group leads worship this am.

"Small Group", the senior choir, performing

More World Cup with RVA kids, Germany vs. Ghana





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