"Harsh Reality..."

I read this post on one of our nurses blogs.  I remember seeing this 14 year old girl on the ward the other day....smiling and excited...then she received the news...

This is copied from Ali's blog...

"We couldn't do it.


The discussions went on through the morning, with doctors weighing pros and cons and reviewing x-rays and trying to see their way clear. But at the end of it all, the message was delivered to me in the ward. It's a no. We can't do the spinal, and her condition's not bad enough to risk it under general.

And yet again I'm faced with the reality that where you are born so often determines the course of your life. Because this little girl was born in a village in West Africa, there was nothing that could be done when her parents saw that her leg was twisted. Because Togo has just one doctor for every twenty-five thousand people, there was nowhere to go, no way to have it corrected.

It feels so wrong that we started to show her a way out, allowed her to hope maybe for the first time and then were forced to pull that hope out from under her and pray that she doesn't break when she falls.

I could see the tears in her eyes when she left today, dressed in her Sunday best, the clothes she had picked out to come to the ship for the surgery that she isn't going to get. I watched her walk slowly down the hall, her head weaving side to side with the broken rhythm of her walk, and I wanted to scream. To beat my fists against the walls and rail against the unfairness of it all. But instead I watched her, watched her walk away with her strange, jerky grace, and I prayed that I could learn to hold my head just as high as she did in the face of disappointment and pain.

And as her hand came to rest for a fleeting second on her still-flat belly, I prayed that she would teach her baby to be just as strong as she is."

This week we have faced many harsh realities of life in Togo.  Having to tell people they are HIV positive...a young girl she's pregnany and can't have surgery...crippling fear that sends you home before your surgery...

But when all is said and done, almost to the person that has been rejected for surgery for whatever reason, you ask them:  "How are you, are your okay?"  the reply will be: "tres bien" (very good).  I asked a translator why the answer is always  "very good" when the surgery that was hoped for and seen as a last chance can't happen...how can this be said?  The answer to me was:  "Because God is God and He is still incontrol and they have faith someday they will be healed."  I was humbled and challenged-to say the least!  The bottom line, no matter the situation, is that God is God and in control even in the harsh realities of life.