I start the day recognizing and sitting with the powerlessness of yesterday magnified. Joe has spent last night in the bathroom and he will stay home today with these stomach issues. Sixteen is, after all, an age to get used to😉. I joke to myself but my heart is as diminished as the overcast light of the coming day. The sea is flat though shimmery. I open my Bible seeking to capture a bit of shimmer myself. I open to:
"Be strong in His mighty power" Ephesians 6:10
My shimmer acquisition lies in the arms and armor of my Savior. I claim His promise of strength in His mighty power and await the return of my shimmer as I trust Him with my day.
People line the length of the school waiting for us as we arrive. The school children are intermingled and wearing blue Adidas sweat pants with marroon t-shirts. Yesterday we had given out 100 numbers to people to return to clinic today. There are more than that here this morning.
I am rising to go to lunch when Kelly calls to me as she hurries out the front door. “Bring a liter of fluid, someone is down outside.”
Under a tree surrounded by the crowd, I find Dr. Vic, Dr. Ahmed and Kelly hovering over a pale older man who is sitting up and in obvious distress. A chair is retrieved and becomes a makeshift, rather flimsy transport to a small room off the sanctuary.
We suspect he is having a heart attack. He is pale, sweating and breathing crazy fast, while complaining of chest pain. I start an IV to give fluids, and we clamour around him doing various tests and urosepsis becomes part of his diagnosis though we write nothing down. Kelly asks about how to get him to a hospital and we are told that the nearest hospital won’t have what needs…not even oxygen. I think back to a line in the movie The Princess Bride: ” I do not think that means what he thinks it means.” They decide the military hospital will be a better fit.
An ambulance is called and … then we wait…and wait… two hours later a minivan of sorts rolls up. A young man wearing a khaki military uniform jumps out. After a brisk discussion with Dr. Ahmed, they walk our patient to the van. Dr. A goes with him and begins to rally the facts of the case. I remind him of all, or at least most, of what we did and off they all go. It is a bizarre but bush medicine at its probable best.
I return to my regularly scheduled programming. A concerned young man in a sharp green polo comes to me and he is a talker. Pascal listens but can hardly get a word in edgewise. I laugh to myself and imagine what he could possibly be saying. Every question I ask is answered with a soliloquy. Today, the providers have been asked to speed up a bit but I lean in and give him the listening ear he so obviously needs.
Shimmering. Z-Anne-zibar Wednesday, September 7,2022
Tripping with God: Stories of Faith and Inspiration 