Upcountry Guinea

A couple of months ago, Dan had the opportunity of traveling upcountry in Guinea to help with the screening of patients.  As logic concurs, those that live farther from the capital, from infrastructure, hospitals, and pharmacies have a greater chance of suffering from medical conditions that could otherwise have been treated early on.

So, Mercy Ships has determined it is important to try to reach some of these remote areas and bring the screening to them. A doctor who has worked with Mercy Ships for several years did some initial screening in these uppermost regions several months prior and had scheduled appointments for these patients to be further evaluated by our screening team to deem if we could help them with surgery.  Dan was fortunate enough to be chosen to be a part of this team of nurses, navigators, survival specialists, and French speakers.

I won't bore this post with many words, but let the many pictures do the talking.  Guinea is made up of four regions:  Coastal Guinea (where we live), Middle Guinea, High Guinea, and Forest Guinea.  You get a little glimpse into each of these areas on this journey that covered more than 2000 kilometers and many, MANY days of driving.

trying to catch a better glimpse of the views

African signal flares to indicate a broken down vehicle

what's a roadtrip without a bit of car trouble?

Can you find Tracy, trying to get some privacy in nature's outhouse?

The team stopped at six different locations to screen patients during their two-week journey.

one of the screening sites where patients (and other curious onlookers) were waiting to be seen

Mama Hasanatu, whom had not been pre-screened before, but came out to the screening and we were able to watch transformed on the ship this past month!

Arriving at the Hope Clinic, missionary Jon Ericson's home base in N'Zao, N'Zerekore

the pharmacy at the Hope Clinic

the charges for the medical services at the Hope Clinic
7,100 fg = 1.00 dollar

the vehicle picked up a little bit of the road along the way

Ryan the Chicken Rangler

dinner to go

Fresh dinner, coming up

lots of interesting neighbors with loads on the road

 

Next post will be of the beautiful people that need surgeries that they were able to identify during this trip.

An Out of the Ordinary Day

Living on a ship that is functioning also as a hospital and has 24/7 work being done, means you never can really unplug.  Literally.  We have to keep our phone plugged in for safety reasons, and the pager is always within an arm's reach in case Dan is needed (as EMT leader and Dive Team Leader).

One day this week we overheard some unusual overhead pages.

What I mean is, not the normal: 

"Good morning, crew.  This is the captain.  You may experience a short blackout when we are testing the engines later," 

or

"Attention crew - we are now bunkering (taking on fuel).  All hot work must cease."  

Or the weekly Monday night,

"New Crew Orientation begins at 6:00pm in the Queen's Lounge.  All new crew are required to attend.  Please bring your orientation forms and the four forms emailed to you."

No, today we heard some different overhead pages.  The first was at lunchtime:

"Attention crew.  We have a patient scheduled for surgery tomorrow with B positive blood.  We are currently out of B positive blood.  If you have B positive blood and would be willing to donate, please come to the lab after lunch to be tested.  If we do not receive a donor, we will have to cancel surgery for this patient."

This will get you to pay attention during lunch! (and a great lineup of folks at the lab after lunch hoping to be able to help this patient).

Several hours passed with nothing out of the ordinary, and then we got our most unusual page yet:

"Attention crew, this is the Chief Steward.  We have discovered that some of the chicken in tonight's dinner is bad.  If you have taken chicken from the dining room, please do not eat it.  Not all of the chicken is bad, but again, if you have taken chicken, please do not eat it."

 (I do have to say, this is the first time I've ever heard any announcement regarding a problem with the food in our nearly 24 months onboard.  Our galley team and cooks do an amazing job preparing a variety of food and this was CERTAINLY a fluke).

But, I guess it was a good night to have a surprise birthday party planned for dinner - OFF SHIP!
Well, actually, it was sort of a default.  You see, Dan had come down with a cold the day originally planned for his birthday surprise and announced that night, "There's no way I'm going out to eat tonight.  Sorry. I'm going to bed."  So I had scrambled to find all 25 people planning to head out with us and let them know we were rescheduling.

Tuesday was our do-over day.  And what a fight it was to make it happen!  Dan didn't want to comply with the plan (go figure!).  He wanted to eat somewhere else.  He was hungry and wanted to eat early.  He couldn't figure out why we needed to watch Savannah and Kylie's video of their Nutcracker performance before dinner instead of after.  I was just being plain difficult!

Finally, we managed to delay sufficiently to allow the other guests a head start to the restaurant.  Finally, we got Dan out of the reception area so they could sneak off ship.  Finally, we checked out our vehicle and were on our way- just as scheduled.  Except Dan wanted to go to a different restaurant.  After some pleading and puppy-dog eyes, we convinced him to drive to the destination where his friends were waiting.

However, not half a kilometer away from the port our Land Rover chug-chug-chugged to a stop with no power coming through the pedal.  After several attempts of restarting the vehicle we had no luck.  We radioed the ship and had a conversation with the Transportation Manager who decided to head our way and take a look at the vehicle.  So, we waited in the vehicle.  At a standstill.  While 20 people were waiting at the restaurant - wondering what had happened to us...  And we waited.  And we waited.  You see, at a certain point in the evening, the traffic direction changes.  Instead of the road being a one-way out of the downtown peninsula (the way we had started), it switches to a one-way TOWARD the peninsula.  So, our wonderful Transportation Manager (aka Roadside Assistance) had to go around the peninsula the long way in order to reach us.

About 45 minutes after we started out, our Roadside help arrived with new fuel filter in hand hoping that would be the solution.  This was swapped out with the old and given a try but still, the power was not getting to the pedal. A bad batch of fuel was determined to be the cause of our troubles.  So, now it was time to tow us back to the ship and get a new vehicle.

Finally, 1 hour and 15 minutes after our guests had departed, we were AGAIN heading out for the restaurant.  Now Dan really wants to go to the other restaurant he can't get out of his mind- the one that is even closer to the ship.  Sorry, I just need to eat at Les Jardins de Guinee! (you'll forgive me later, I think...)

Greeted with a overture of applause, we finally arrive - putting an end to our guests' guessing game of what had happened to us.  The surprise was a success and the evening finally came together.

with the birthday party delay, my parents were able to be a part of it too!

Phew.

I thought this was the end of our in-ordinary day, but there was one more page to be heard jarring us awake:

 "Emergency Medical Team: Please report to A Ward immediately.  Emergency Medical Team: report to A Ward immediately." 

This 2:30am wake up call brings the whole ship to attention, not just those on the EMT that need to report.  Dan, as the head of this team, leaps out of bed and is out the door in less than 10 seconds to help assess the situation.  The rest of us our left in the dark - wondering what is going on, and praying for whatever the need might be.  In this case, we later learned, a patient had started bleeding again following their surgery and needed to return to the OR to contain the bleeding. 

I'm happy to say the patient is now doing well and the next day was quite normal, as least as normal goes here.

 "Attention Crew: If anyone has personal items on the Dutch container, please report to the cargo hold on starboard side to claim these by 10:30." 

doesn't sound weird to me at all!

You never know what to expect on this ship.  Some of it can be written off as: T.I.A. (This Is Africa), but most of the time the accurate acronym is: T.I.M.S. (This is Mercy Ships).