A Ward Miracles

Of all the specialties you will hear about on the Africa Mercy, general surgeries are the least talked about, least shared at Mercy Ships fundraising events, and least featured stories from the media teams. Hernia repairs are not glamorous, no Mercy Ships photographer or writer will highlight the care and transformation of the lives of our hernia repair patients, but we, the nurses of A Ward (General surgery), know and see the life-changing difference these simple surgeries make.

I was just working last night, a typical weekend evening shift on A Ward, as charge nurse, and stopped and considered the stories of the patients we currently had recovering in our ward. A5- he’s a 4 days after his hernia surgery. He was our emergency incarcerated hernia (a hernia that begins to strangulate and loose blood flow to the tissues of the bowel- resulting in a life or death situation if not emergently repaired with surgery). This man had showed up to our admission tent Tuesday morning, perfectly fine, getting ready for his surgery the following day when he suddenly experienced significant pain and the doctors decided his hernia was strangulating and that he needed immediate surgery. What a place for his hernia to strangulate… only a few hundred feet from a hospital ship!

I was talking with the surgeons last night about this patient, and they had said that if he had been delayed even another 30 minutes, his bowel probably would have died. Amazing that, first-off, he was HERE when that hernia strangulated, and secondly, we were ready and able to give him his surgery in the nick of time! Praise be to God for how he has been answering our prayers to bring just the right patients we need to help here in Lome, Togo! A5 is doing very well now and will probably go home Monday.
Our other miracle man was A4, a man who came back to A Ward after his surgery two nights ago. The evening of his surgery, his nurse and I noted significant increase swelling in his surgical area. It was alarming enough that I paged the surgeons to come and see him. We all examined him and talked about if surgery was needed. It was decided to try and wait until the next morning to take him back to surgery. That night we prayed that the Lord would work to heal him through the night, that we wouldn’t have an emergency surgery during the wee hours of the morning. The next afternoon I came back to work, expecting to see A4 back, fresh from surgery. Instead, he was comfortably sitting up and enjoying his regular diet meal! Somehow, by a miracle I believe was from Jesus himself, his swelling had gone down by HALF; enough so, that the doctors said they didn’t think he would need any further surgical intervention! Franck, one or our day workers/ward translators, reminded me today how important prayer is to the healing of our patients.

I’m passing on this reminder to you and me as well! Let’s remember to keep praying for all the patients of the Africa Mercy, for their healing and divine intervention during their time here with us and that their physical transformation would spur on transformation in every way in their country of Togo!