Hope

The Hope Centre is a place of healing, waiting and hope before and after surgery. Patient wait there after their surgeries for outpatient appointments if they live far away, patients wait if they are not strong enough or healthy enough just yet for surgery and patient wait there after they have had extensive surgery such as Tamba who walked on top of his feet...his toes were facing backwards and now they are completly up and straight and pointing the right way! He is going to continue with physio for the near future and no matter how much pain he seems to be in he continues to smile big and laugh the most gorgeous heart felt laugh!



















Notice the little boy standing beside Andreas, He is the little one i mentioned who has the tumor. He is waiting for surgery which will hopefully be next week. The boy on the right has

also had surgery for club feet and is almost ready to go home!








You always end up with a child on your back, knee or generally just hanging out of you when you get to the Hope Centre but it is such a fun place to go on a day off!

Screening

I joined the Max Fax team on Monday morning for screening and to see how they decide who and when people have surgeries. It was fascinating to see what came through the door. My day started by running down the gangway into the little white cabin outside to avoid the monsoon rains, we prayed together for wisdom and guidance for making tough decisions and then started bringing people in one by one from the tents the were sitting in outside.

I saw ladies and men with parotiod tumors- swellings and lumps under their ears which cause discomfort and stigmatisms in their communities. These surgeries can take up to 3 hours so it was not possible to accept the 7-8 people we saw. These growths can also sometimes be a sign of HIV so these patients went for a counselling session before having their blood drawn so they understood that we would have to wait for the result before making a decision about surgery. So many people wanted to know straight away if they would be accepted and some were upset when they found out that we would be screening them for HIV (if positive many would be ex-communicated from their communities).

I saw a little girl, 6 years old with a golf ball size lump on her chin. A man in his 60's that lived with a lump the size of your fist on the back of his head, another man with one on his forehead. I saw a man with a lump over his eye that was starting to push his eyeball back into his head causing pain, a little 2 year old with a big growth behind his ear and the only way to entertain him and get a good look at the tumor was by doing the good old blowing up a glove trick and drawing a smiley face on it!He managed to burst it before he left after chewing it and bopping all the chairs and kicking it around the room!I almost brought him back into the ship with me, so so adorable! We had another little boy come in who nose was completely blocked after an attack of scabies so he found it difficult to breath sometimes, a 13 year old boy with a big tumor on his face which he found very distressing and difficult to fit in among his friends. All very strange and i do wonder how on earth all these growths develop but i am seeing it in such a condescended amount of time and space. I'm sure most of the lumps that develop in England are caught while they are still tiny which is why we don't see such extensive lumps and bumps like we do here.

These patients will hopefully have clear blood tests and as long as we have theatre space we will schedule everyone in if they are fit and well. It was a good day to see how the process works in Mercy Ships and how the screening process goes. It is a hard decision for the doctors and nurses down there every week and i don't envy them their job but they do it with such love and gentleness, it was a blessing to see them at work! Good job Jane and Missy :0)

Kusheh

How de bodi?

Na mi name hannah. Na mi na u nurse tida. If u want anytin call me i go cam.

Grap wit u elbow. Hol tight wit u side. (What i say to hernia patients)

U wan Drink wata?

U wan fo wet? (No.1)

U wan fo toilet?(No.2)

I da try fo tok Krio small small!!!

I am still learning but i can just about say all this...its grasping the african accent i'm struggling with but hopefully it will come.

Team B!

These are a few photos of my colleagues and I at 'work'!We had a quick break to have some photos taken! I havent had any photos taken with patients but hopefully i will next week so you can see what and who I look after!

PodaPoda bartering.

So if you want to go somewhere in Sierra Leone and you don't have your own transport you need to allow at least 2 hours if not more to give time to barter for a PodaPoda (taxi). We set off on Saturday morning at 12 up BadBoy lane (road to the dock,don't worry apparently its an old name) to aquire the services of a PodaPoda. Little did we expect it would take us so long...

You need to have a price in mind and be willing to move up or down about 20,000 SLL at a time. So if you start at 100,000 and get a PodaPoda for 120,00 (17 pounds) then that's not too bad. Bearing in mind we are still paying at least twice what an African group would pay. However, the price we were offered was no less than 600,000 SLL. (85 pounds). Someone from the ship had paid this price before so it was expected and word was on the street that the white people from Mercy Ship pay big money! (10,000 is about 1.40 pounds) White skin triples or quadruples the price!

We proceeded to barter which is a custom and must be done in Sierra Leone. Everyone barters!Its expected of you. So, the big group of white girls managed to gather a nice little group of maybe 20 + people who all got involved in the bartering or they just stood and started at us until it wasn't clear who the driver was and who we were supposed to be bartering with!TIA- This is Africa! After at least 3 bartering attempts, each of which lasted at least 20 minutes each, we managed to find a PodaPoda for 100,000 just like we wanted in the beginning! Unfortunately we had become so exhausted with the whole 'arguing' process that we ended up taking a PodaPoda that seats 8 and we had 11 in our group! Finally we set off at about 14:00 that afternoon!
We become quite close that weekend!lol!We piled in, rucksacks and all including a random guy which added to our number making it even cosier!

We had a great time at the beach again and made some little friends with some beach kids who had lots of fun in the sea and showing off doing cartwheels.

We did all get food poisoned or had some bad water or something so have been suffering for the past few days and i have had two days sick off work and i finally managed to have a proper meal today but i suppose that's what you get for eating off the ship!Wont be doing that again in a hurry!But the beach was amazing and i had an awesome weekend! Bring on the third week on Mercy Ship! :0)

Holiday!

Today is a ship holiday so everyone gets an extra long weekend!Think it is well deserved by those who work 5 days a week all the time...us nurses get afternoons or mornings off depending on our shifts. So a group of us girlies have decided to go to the beach tomorrow! AND we're goin to stay overnight in mudhuts!Bring it on!!SO excited....It is monsoon season though. Everyone was dressed for sun this morning and suddenly the heavens opened!The sun is out again now but there is no knowing when the next thunder storm is coming :0)! Bit like Ireland really, except its lovely and warm!

We had a manic day yesterday with unexpected admissions but thats the way things go in hospitals and the ship is no differant. We had amazing teamwork and sang our way through and played with children in the middle of the chaos!Team B!!!I absolutely love working here!Please pray for some men who have come back with wound infections. It is so difficult to manage wounds on Africa and no matter how much advice is given or instruction about how to keep the wound clean, some people do end up back with us. We also have been battling with high temperatures for no apparent reasons. Blood cultures, wound swabs, HIV tests and Malaria tests are all negative. Its a mystery!

We have a moment for praise though. A crew member was diagnosed with cancer a few weeks ago and needed emergency surgery. The ship crew were devestated to hear that a beloved crew member would have to leave the ship and go through gruelling amounts of treatments. I arrived the night she left and we prayed for her and her family. She was flown back to the UK where they have now found she has NO cancer!How amazing is God!She may go through some chemo rounds just to ensure the cancer is gone for sure but that is down to the consultants who are treating her now.

Right well i'm off out to the Hope centre for a few giggles and cuddles and bubble blowing with the kids before i go to work!Hope your all having a good day x

Bubbles!

Some of the kiddies here have never ever seen bubbles!I just struggle to understand it but it does make sense, why would they spend their precious money on something so unnecessary? But it has proven a good way of making friends with these little ones who are terrified when they come through the door of the ship. My little one yesterday would not smile. I tried books, puzzles, balloons and stickers!None of them worked so i got the bubbles out :0) He loved them! He spent a good half hour catching bubbles with me and trying to blow some and when he did he looked so proud!Such a simple way of showing love to these children and I am enjoying every moment!I don't have any pictures but those moments will be in my mind forever!Hopefully you can appreciate how special it was.

The weather is not amazing here. Its cloudy and overcast most days, it is rainy season so don't worry I wont come back with a really good tan! :0) The ship is rocking a lot today!It a very strange sensation to constantly feel like you are moving even though we are strapped tightly to the dock. Its not ideal to close your eyes and try to stand still....you just fall over!ha ha!We pray before our shifts holding on to any item near us so we can keep balanced!

I looked after some men today with hernias, hydroceles and a lady with a hernia also. These people carry such heavy loads its not surprising that they come in with such problems. When we discharge them and explain they cannot carry an 'evi lod' (heavy) and have no 'man or ladi bisness' for 6 weeks. We regularly get blank 'whatever' faces! We all know it is not possible for them to follow these instructions but we try to encourage them!I am slowly learning Krio. It is basically broken English with a few words added. I still sound weird but hopefully before I come home I will be able to conduct a whole conversation in Krio!

I am spending the afternoon doing laundry and reading and maybe uploading some photos if the computer decides to work for me! The only Starbucks in Africa is on this ship so i might wander down and have a hot chocolate. I hope you are having a great afternoon where ever you are!

x

Hey, How d' bodi? (Its going to be a long one)

Another week has flown by and i am struggling to think about what i should write as so much has happened. Life is going by very quick on the ship and I am now here two weeks!!I am working 5 days a week, 8 hour shifts (Early's and lates) and then off at weekends for now which is great for getting to the beach and out into town for some shopping. I haven't been sleeping very well but that's life living in a cabin with 6 people. We have little pods with two people in each. My roommate and I are on opposite shifts most of the time so I either have to tiptoe out in the morning to work or tiptoe in when she's sleeping after a night shift. I have a week of nights coming up soon so maybe I'll get some sleep then...

I have managed to get out most evenings to sit on the dock and watch the sunset which i have to say is 100 times more amazing than Hatfield! It is so relaxing to sit listening to the water, kids playing on the shore beside their homes and looking back at the big huge ship which i call home! I will be uploading photos i promise but the Internet connection is not great and quite slow. I don't have the patience to upload one at a time just yet!

I got out into town the other day with one of the day volunteers (translators) from the ward and went fabric shopping which was an experience. I almost got run down at least 20 times by PodaPodas who just don't look where they are going and i got very very muddy but i enjoyed finally getting off the ship to walk and get 'fresh' air! If you can call car fumes and goodness knows what else they burn around here fresh! We finally got the market where we were mobbed by traders trying to sell their goods. Fabrics, bags, flip flops, necklaces of every size and description. My name was mentioned at the beginning of the street of shops by accident by one of the ship friends and i heard it the whole way up the street by every market trader in every shop until we left!Kind of wierd and made me realise what a keen sense of hearing they have so we made sure we didn't say anything else that they could use to try and entice us to buy something!!We learned how to barter which i still find difficult but i know Andrew (my brother) would be in his element! I finally settled on some beautiful fabric which has Sierra Leone colors in it and then got told i paid too much! (5 pounds for 4 yards) Not bad i reckon but apparently i could have got it cheaper!You live and learn here!

One of the days (cant remember when) I went to the Hope Centre with some friends from the ship. It is a place set up by Mercy Ship for people waiting for surgery or who have had surgery and will be coming back for their outpatient appointment the following week but it is too far for them to travel from home. Some of my patients were there who were happy to see faces they knew and they were keen to have 'snaps' taken with us. The children were SO excited and i came back with made muddy and sweaty hand prints all over me! They have no boundaries i tell you! No part of you is safe! We met a precious little baby who is severely malnourished due to a facial tumor and was sent to the Hope Centre for a month until she had put weight on before her surgery. We will find out tomorrow if she is fat enough and healthy enough to have her surgery. Pray that she is as her mum is desperate for her to have her face healed.

This week we had a very sad admission of a little girl with a huge facial tumor which was pushing her eye of of its socket and her teeth were all displaced due to the size of the tumor. She had been kept in a chicken coop and treated so badly by her neighbours and family. She was difficult to look after and the nurses involved in her care found it very distressing as she would not calm down or let them take care of her. She has now started calling some of the nurses her friends and has started to respond to our love and attention but she is still convinced that she is a witch and she is evil. Please pray for her healing spiritually and physically. There are many children in her situation, we just haven't met them all. It makes me sad to think that it is true but maybe before the ship leaves Sierra Leone they might come for surgery! We have some fun patients too. We have a little old man who just gets too warm in the ward and cant understand why we don't want him walking around naked! It is a challenge to get him to keep his clothes on but i think we are starting to win! I have also had some cute little kiddies to look after which scared me half to death at the beginning as i have no idea how to look after kids but the nurses on the ward are so supportive and helpful and answer any worries or questions!We have also had the worry of telling someone he may have HIV but the lovely thing is that we can pray with him and offer him so much support. He had been spiking a temp for days with no sign of malaria which most people get a few times a year but the test came back negative! It was such a relief being able to tell him this as such a stigma is attached to having HIV here.

Life is indeed interesting and unique living in this big white bubble and I do miss my friends and normality of having a cup of tea and a biccy while watching a bit of telly but I am content knowing that I am here because God wants me here and I am serving Him in what I do! I am enjoying many other things like icecream on friday nights, hot chocolate from Stabucks,numerous card games, movies and sitting on the deck or dock watching sunsets or lounging by the pool on Deck 8 and making new friends! Life is chilled and relaxing when i'm not at work and i could get used to it :0)!

Love to you all x

D' Bodi fine!

Hi one and all, Very sorry for not blogging sooner but i actually cant believe that a whole week and one day has past since I left London! The journey was grand, slept most of the way and managed to meet two people going to the ship so i didn't travel alone. It took only 12 or so hours which I'm told is very reasonable as some people take double that to get here! Went form London to Brussels, Gambia and then Sierra Leone where we got a car to a ferry and then a jeep to the ship! Very efficiently done with hardly any delays!

I had two days of very detailed orientation which set me up nicely for two days orientation shifts on the ward. Got told that as i work and live on a ship and live under maritime rule, I am technically a sailor or seaman!!! So you can refer to me as Sailor Hannah from now on :0)

This week i am now a fully fledged Mercy Ship ward nurse!!!!I will be working on general surgery which can be anything from facial tumors to hernias, hydroceles or growths in weird places. My surgical nursing skills are proving very useful and I am very happy and comfortable with everything I have had to do so far! Wound care, obs, teaching (don't touch the wound, how to roll out of bed and not pop their stitches and make sure they wash their hands regularly!) I am slowly learning Krio which sounds like English until you try to speak it and then you just sound weird! :0) It will come hopefully...the most common phrase is 'How d bodi?'.....'D bodi fine'! Lots of nodding, smiling and pointing have become my way of communication. We have day volunteers who translate and are from Freetown so they are happy to start teaching me and take great pleasure in teaching us! But over all, working on the ward is an amazing honor and i am so happy i have finally managed to get here to Mercy Ship and do something i have wanted to do for so long. I have met so many amazing peple and people from EVERY nation. Americans, Koreans, Swedes, Dutch, Canadians, English and Germans! I'm sure there are many many more but its only been a week!

I have met some precious patients with some very sad stories and very sad lives but i have been so humbled by the love and generosity shown by the nurses and doctors on the ward. It is so nice to start a shift covered with prayer for the day and I love having the opportunity to sing and praise God with the day volunteers and and patients! They sing and clap very LOUD!! I feel so reserved around them which i didn't think i was! We have very busy days but it is all made less stressful by the fun and loving atmosphere around us! We get the opportunity to sit and talk to patients, pray with them and laugh with them which i have been craving and longing to do for so long before i came here! Once my Krio is better i will be more confident to do it on my own but right now i have a translator with me most of the time.

I managed to get to the beach at the weekend which was amazing! We spent the day playing cards on the beach, laying in hammocks, reading and eating freshly caught fish and freshly cooked cassava chips! They were cooked over a homemade fire right in front of us! It tasted SO good! We were all ready to leave at 3 when we found out our PodaPoda (taxi) wasnt going to come so we had about 2 1/2 hours wait until we got home but while waiting we got to sit and watch a tropical rainstorm and watch the ducks waddling around!Yes, they have ducks and chickens at the beach, think its for when they cant catch any fish ;0) lol! I am hopefully going into the market this weekend but life changes and plans are so flexiable around here so it may well change!

I will hopefully manage to get some photos up soon but my computer is not connected yet!

Thank you all so much for your messages andemails of encouragement! I am very well and safe and there is no need to worry for me! But I do like to hear how you all are and hear all the news from home and England!

Love always
Sailor Hannah and Mercy Nurse :0)!(Never thought this day would come!!!yay!!!)