"The Heart..."

 I sit here looking at the computer screen trying to process the day.  What a day...not one I care to repeat any time soon.  I had met with one of the nurses this morning, we both made the comment that it is Monday...a new day...a new week...hopefully we would not be repeating last weeks rough week.  But God had other plans for A Ward, which has become our pallative care ward.

The over head page came "Emergency medical team to A Ward...emergency medical team to A ward."  Immediately everyone on the medical team flies into motion.  Those not on the medical team know what to do...pray.

Last week Baby Annicette came back to us.  She was a with us in Benin last year.  Ani, was 14 months and only a former shadow of the thriving baby we remember her as.  For some reason she was no longer thriving...she was literally skin and bones...chronically malnourished.  The medical team suspected she may have had a metabolic disorder.

A few minutes later, my pager goes off.  "We need you to be with Ani's mom."  This is not good.  I go rushing down to A Ward and one of the nurses and I take Zenabou, Ani's mama, to a quiet room.  We sit with her, pray with her, cry with her.  Another nurse comes in and says "Ani is gone."  Quietly and gently we break the news to mama (who has already lost one child to this strange metabolic disorder and is currently four months pregnant)  "Ani is with Jesus."  We hold her.  Let her wail.  Feel her breaking heart.

This evening I go back to A ward.  I know a husband of a patient has come to see his wife.  She has cancer.  She is inoperable.  She is pallative.  He is hoping to be able to transfer her to France for surgery.  He is hoping his beautiful wife is better than the day before.

I had sat with her earlier today.  Her cold frail hand in mine.  Praying hard that the nurses, who were probing her feet, would find a viable vein to draw blood from would have success this time.  I look at her face.  She is so young, so beautiful.  I listen to her laboured breaths, thinking this is not going well.

As I walked into the ward tonight there is a flurry of activity going on.  I get one of my translators and we kneel beside the husband and pray with him.  Comfort him.  Pray peace over him.  The medical team is like an orchestra.  Each person knowing their part, each person playing their part...working in unity and harmony.  We take the husband to the same quiet room where Ani's mama was just an hour ago. 

The room is no longer quiet.  It becomes filled with the desperate pleas and cries of a man whose heart is breaking for the love of his life.  He shares with me she is everything to him.  She is more than his half, she is his life.  "Jehovah", he says "will not let him down...she will be healed."  I share with him that sometimes God heals on this side of heaven and sometimes on the otherside.

I relay messages back and forth from the medical team to the husband.  "She is on a machine helping her to breath" I explain to him.  "If it were not for the machine, she would not be alive" I gently try to tell him.  Hoping somehow to begin to prepare this man for the inevitable.  My team member continues to pray with him, I continue to wait for news.

"She is somewhat stable." I tell him.  "You'll  be able to be with her in a few minutes."

As I walk back to my cabin.  I am numb.  What a day.  I stare at the cursor on the screen blinking on an off like a heart beat.  The heart.  Two broken today.

"On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.  Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.  My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me." Psalms 63:6-7