farewells

The past two weeks have been really busy. 

For one, our volume of eye patients has multiplied.  We have been working with Dr. Glenn Strauss and Dr. Joseph Park, so instead of having one surgeon doing 8-10 patients a day, we have two surgeons doing about 30 patients a day (and finishing earlier than usual).  Dr. Glenn can remove a cataract in under 10 minutes, so needless to say, he is pretty speedy.  I went into the OR to observe him and the surgery was over before I knew it.  

Since my teammate Shannon is gone on vacation, I have been taking over for her duties.  Even though her title is "Scheduling Coordinator" it should just be "Eye Team Troubleshooter," because all day you just take care of all the little issues that arise.  I actually enjoy doing it--constantly running between the ship and the Eye Team's dockside unit, dubbed "The White House" (it's a big white aluminum modular structure), finding missing charts, scheduling and rescheduling patients, doing data entry on the hospital databases, playing with charts again, and generally making sure that everything is running smoothly for the team.  In addition to all of this, we had a little excitement in the White House this past Tuesday.  I was in one room talking to a day volunteer, when I heard a thud in the next room over.  I glanced through the doorway and saw a patient lying on the ground.  My first reaction was "Do we need to call the EMT??"  On the ship, the EMT is the Emergency Medical Team.  It consists of on-call doctors, nurses, stretcher-bearers, and other personnel that will respond to any emergency at the ship.  Anyway, I ran to the counter only to find that our cordless phone was not on it's base.  I instinctively bolted out the door to the Admissions tent next door, grabbed their phone and dialed 1000 for reception.  "This is Seth, we need the EMT to the Eye Building NOW!"  I run back to the White House only to find that the patient is now awake and drinking some water.  Another eye team member says "Oh, I don't think we need extra help."  Catching my breath and somewhat exasperated, I run back to the Admissions Tent to cancel my EMT call, knowing what would soon happen.  But before I could get back in touch with reception, I hear the overhead page: "Emergency Medical Team, please report to the dockside eye building immediately.  Again, Emergency Medical Team, please report to the dockside eye building immediately.  Thank you."  Knowing that an EMT page is broadcast to the whole ship, even inside the cabins, probably waking up all the night-shift workers, I let out an "oh well" sigh.  I walked back to the White House and watched as our team leader, Woody, is the first to race down the gangway.  Much to my chagrin, I tell him it is a false alarm, and then I see a whole cascade of crew running down the gangway.  The crew physician, the hospital physician, about three nurses, the ship's captain (!), a few stretcher-bearers, the programs administrator, the programs assistant (Woody's wife, Robin), the patient services coordinator, an anesthesiologist, an anesthetic assistant, and some other people presumably from the OR, because they were wearing booties and caps.  As some of these people go in to check the patient, I embarrassingly explain the situation to everyone else.  Everyone was very understanding and reassured me that it is always better to call the EMT and then not need them than to not call and have an actual emergency.  The captain even commented "Oh, well this was definitely a good drill!"  Never a dull moment on the Africa Mercy!  

In other news, we are still having some issues with finding enough cataract patients.  In years passed, we would have been a few months ahead in scheduling cataract surgeries, but right now, we are only 2-3 weeks ahead.  At our Monday screenings at Kissy, we only get about 30ish potential surgical candidates and similar numbers at our Friday screenings.  But the Lord has recently blessed us with two specific things.  This past Monday we pulled a double and went to a church to screen after finishing at Kissy in the morning.  Our hard work paid off, as we identified 63 potential cataract patients that day!  More than double our usual numbers!  Also, next week, we do not have surgeon, which will allow us to do screenings on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, so hopefully we will find a lot of patients to fill our appointment book.  

You might be wondering why I titled this post "farewells," and it is simply because now that the summer is starting, people are leaving in mass numbers.  There are several families and individuals that are leaving for 1-2 month vacations, but more importantly there have been several long term crew members completing their service with Mercy Ships.  Even though I haven't know a lot of these people for a very long time, it is still tough to say goodbye to people that you like.  It will definitely be weird to have fewer children running around the ship, and it will take time to adjust when new crew members fill the empty spots.  On the bright side, when crew leave the ship, it means there will be ice cream (see previous post) and someplace new to visit once I complete my service.  In all seriousness though, the crew turnover is one of the hardest parts of serving with Mercy Ships.  People come and go every day, and even though there are about 400 crew at any one time, the ship may see closer to 1,000 different crew during one field service.  I am definitely thankful that I am able to serve for the time that I am--I couldn't imagine just serving for two months or even two weeks.  

I'm not sure where I got the idea to do this, maybe because some really great couples/families will be leaving soon, but next Friday, I will be hosting a "Not-So-Newlyweds Game" in our International Lounge.  I've been recruiting couples to be contestants and I'm expecting a nice turn-out for the audience.  Things are still in the planning stage, but be assured that I will fill you in next weekend.  

I'm overdue for a few shout-outs: THANK YOU to Hypes, MK, Carolyn and Jamie, and Ashley for your wonderful entries to the Mix CD contest.  I'm not the only one who is enjoy your music, as I have a few friends who are always inquiring, "Did you get a new CD yet this week??"  CONGRATULATIONS to Ben and Joanna Sutton, who were happily married two weekends ago in Florida.  I interned with Ben at Rockbridge in 2009 and became friends with Joanna over the past year.  Also, a congrats are in order for my high school classmate Felicia Jones as she will be married to her fiance Tristan TOMORROW.  I know how excited Felicia is and I wish you all the best of luck!

Whoever and wherever you are, take care and thanks for reading!