Easter (and beyond) update

Life continues to be rich and full here in Enoughsville. I was deeply glad, early this week, to be able to have the time and space to celebrate Easter with my church. (He is risen; He is risen indeed!).  Amid all the turbulence that is always April-in-Academia, this reminder of hope and love and promise is like a rock under my feet and like a beacon shining a path forward, both at the same time.  

Nature agrees. Thursday, I awoke to pink light streaming through my bedroom windows, because the branches just outside had exploded with cherry blossoms.

The view from my bed is lovely.

Things are just bursting into life here on our campus, also: what a difference a few days has made! 

The same tree, twice.
Above: March 30; below: April 10.

Walking around outside this week has brought constant reminders for gratitude and joy; when I greet students or colleagues or strangers, we all remark with delight about how fabulous the weather has been.  And indoor spaces have also gotten some nice spring bling, as well.  Inkling prepared for the Easter holiday by knitting up a surprise for the owners of the yarn store where she works: an Easter egg hunt!  

The yarn eggs she made.

The hunt.

Adorable, no?

I've also gotten some much-appreciated updates from Y.  She'd been in her medical residency in Georgia, which was challenging for many reasons.  I was glad to learn that from there, she'd gotten the chance to do what she'd really wanted to start working on: medical missions overseas in Honduras.    Some excerpts from her letters:

 Llegué a Loma De Luz! ("I arrived at Loma De Luz").
The suspension bridge behind me is my daily commute.
Beautiful motmot birds fly past it because their nest is nearby.

My first day was great- woke up, instant coffee, devotional, suspension bridge, orientation with the CMO, and then a patient was brought into the emergency room (which is literally a room) so I just jumped in with the Honduran doctor. We made a good team- he taught me how order things and follow through, and I taught him some relevant pathophysiology and ultrasound.   

 The hospital basically closes at 4pm so afterwards we were invited to celebrate a missionary’s 10th birthday party! I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to share in her celebration- I felt a kind of community that reminded me of Enoughsville. That was healing for my soul today.

She has sent us further updates on Easter day itself. 

I only got to hear part of the sermon today because the hospital was busier than expected, but I thought serving patients was also a godly thing to do on Easter. I thought you would want to hear about these patient prayer requests…

1. Wendy, a 30-something year old woman with a 6 year old child at home who was bitten by a poisonous snake (Bomba Amarilla) on Thursday night. She is in acute renal failure from rhabdomyolysis (see photo of her urine). I am very worried about her because her labs and clinical state are worsening despite medical intervention. If it doesn’t turn around soon, she might die if she doesn’t get emergency hemodialysis, which essentially a type of life support where a machine cleans the blood instead of failed kidneys. The closest hemodialysis is 1-2hr away in the city La Ceiba, and even they do not do this on a regular basis… Please pray for her, that God would cause the kidneys to heal as soon as possible, and that He would cause her to survive illness.

2. Gabriela, a 12 year old girl who had anoxic brain injury at birth leaving her paralyzed on the R side and with epilepsy. Today she had her breakthrough seizure in over a year. I believe this is because they ran out of her seizure-suppressing medicine, Dilantin. While I had her in the Emergency Room, she was able to wake up and tell her name and point to her momma, which is reassuring, but she feels terrible. My hospital has some medicines but not the one that she uses, which is usually best in these cases. Me and the Honduran pediatrician came up with a plan together to write the prescription for the medicine so the family can go to every pharmacy in town and even 2 hours away to the city to buy the medicine and bring it back. This family clearly is so concerned and loves her so much, and has done a lot of good work to keep her well over the last 12 years. Please pray that there is a pharmacy that will sell them Dilantin injection and oral pills for us to administer as soon as possible. Pray that the Holy Spirit would protect her heart, lungs, and brain from significant injury if she does have another seizure before the medicine is obtained.

This all sounds so scary; I'm so glad that Y can be there, and that these experiences will lead her toward a life of helping even more people.  My own volunteering this week (serving breakfast at our local homeless shelter) has been much more prosaic and much less dramatic, so I'm grateful to Y for letting me peek at her experiences, and that she is the one to find giant tarantulas in her room.  [See update at the end for why I say this!]

I untangled a bunch of (tarantula-free) aprons
that had gotten knotted together in the dryer.
Go, me!

As we head beyond Easter, I'm getting ready for a nifty Peep Diorama event that my registrar's office will be holding next week.  To lay in supplies, I asked my husband to purchase a bunch of marshmallow peeps:  "8 rabbit peeps, 6 chicks (not blue)".  He kind of lost the shopping list, and kind of remembered it  . . . aaaannnd, so . . . he got 6 boxes of blue rabbit peeps, and 8 boxes of (yellow, at least: not blue) chicks.   So now I'm rich in marshmallow peeps, which my sister calls "marshmallow yucks".

Stay tuned for what may or may not turn out to be Peep-Pirate-Ship awesomeness.  

I finished up the week in an even greener place: Memphis, Tennessee.  I talked about math here, and listened to other cool math talks.  I walked through a beautiful forest in the middle of the (admittedly, very sprawling) city, and I walked across the Mississippi River into Arkansas, where I did not get to see Bill Clinton, and then I walked back across the river into Memphis again, where I did not get to see Elvis.  But I did get to see the stage where Elvis first performed, so there's that.

Rhodes College, Overton Woods
Big River Bridge, and the Overton Shell

And that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.

Extra, late-breaking update from Y:

Speaking of encountering God in between, thank you for going to Him in prayer for the patients in the last update! The family of the 12 year old girl with seizures found her medicine in the city, we administered it, and she safely discharged home! The 33 year old woman with a child at home started to recover some kidney function without emergency hemodialysis, and discharged home to continue to heal and see me in the office this coming week! I hope she makes maximum recovery for her future bodily wellbeing.

 

Outside of work, I have really enjoyed new friendships here. It’s only been 2 weeks, but I feel very welcome and connected to the 4 Honduran doctors (my age) and CMO’s family (wife, 3 kids below age 10). We spend time together and talk about medicine and life pretty much every day. For example, last night at 9pm I had to call Dr. Gerardo and Dra. Osiris to come kill a tarantula in my room! They said it was the biggest one they’d ever seen  But they did come help me even that late at night so I was less afraid. This morning, all 8 of us went to the beach to enjoy the calm waves and winds.