Back in the USA

Well, this morning I am waking up to life in the USA. I tried to stay up late last night to fight jet lag and get back into the swing of hours in the USA, but I was sound asleep by 8PM, despite sleeping very well on both flights.

My departure from Kenya was surreal. I kept thinking that it was a bad dream, and I would wake up still there. My ride came an hour late (no big surprise), and then we drive through rush hour to make it to the airport. Despite the 2.5 hours drive, we got there very early. I had time to hang out in the airport, get dinner, and chat with some other missionaries while we waited for the flight. After boarding the plane and realizing that God had graced me with an empty seat next door, I fell asleep directly (the flight left at midnight Kenyan time). I woke up as we were landing in London.
I had a 2 hour layover in London, so I got a cup of coffee and a breakfast tart, and sat and talked to some other missionaries while waiting for my flight. After boarding that plane, I found that God's grace extends beyond my expectations, as there were TWO empty seats next to me, which meant I had a whole row all to myself. So I stretched out and fell asleep, missing lunch, immigration forms, etc. I woke up about an hour before landing. It was great. Customs was uneventful and my luggage was all there, not a thread missing. My ride was there waiting for me, and then I came up here to the AIM headquarters in Pearl River, NY. I am here today for debriefing, and then I leave at 5PM for West Palm Beach.
Over the next few days I will start uploading pictures from my trip. If you have facebook, I have pictures there, as well. And I will continue to write here, as I think of lessons learned or memories I think you might want to know.
If you can, pray for the weather today. There are storms all over this area (they call the Tri-State area...), which may mean my flight is delayed. Bummer, dude. All I want is to go home, which may be delayed. Pray that those storms pass early, so that there is sufficient time to get back on schedule before my takeoff time, which is 5:10PM.
Thanks again for checking in on me. And thanks for your faithful prayers while I was gone (and now as I am back). One lesson I learned was the power of prayer both to be my strength and my comfort when the answer is yes, and especially when the answer is no.
Talk to you soon!
Jill

Leaving Kenya

Well, right now I am home, packing up my last minute things and getting ready to leave. My ride comes at 4PM, and then after a short trip to drop off my borrowed belongings, we will be off to the airport. I don't know what kind of contact I will have in the airport, so you may not hear from me. But I am out there nevertheless.

This has been a most wonderful trip. There were several who asked today if I would stay for another month, something I gave serious consideration to. But, there are requirements of me in Atlanta, like applying for residency and finishing up medical school. I have a heavy heart as I prepare to leave, and a belly full of traditional African food, thanks to my OR team who spoiled me with lunch and breakfast this morning. I will miss the simplicity of life here, the patients, my awesome operative staff, the teaching and learning from all avenues. Of course I will miss operating. I won't operate like this again until I am well into residency. Unless I come back here... which will most certainly happen.

There is so much to say, and then again, so little. I have fallen in love with this place, and I plan to come back soon. I love the Kenyan way of life, though at times it has frustrated me.

Well, I do suppose that is all for now. Please pray for me as I leave, as I travel, and as I arrive back to the USA. I will land in Newark airport tomorrow at noon, as long as all goes according to plan (no delays, etc). After that, I am in NY for a day debriefing, and then home to West Palm on Thursday night. So look for pictures after that, but probably not before that.

Thanks again for checking in on me. This has been a great way to talk with you, and I'm glad we were able to keep in touch this way. I hope you were able to journey alongside me to some extent.

Talk to you again soon!
Jill

last Sunday

Well, today has been a great day, although I am aware that it is my last Sunday here in Kijabe. I got up and went to church with my roommate, Laura. We had a nice time, though she was paged out of church to take care of someone in the ICU. After church we had a lazy afternoon, punctuated by an American lunch of hamburgers and macaroni and cheese. Then we played some Rack-O, and I think this copy came out before either of our parents were born! Right now she is over our neighbors house negotiating to borrow Scrabble, so that we can have a fun linguistic evening.

I packed up most of my stuff this afternoon, with Laura's help. I came here with two suitcases packed full and weighing the exact limit. I am going home with only one suitcase, and I doubt if it comes close to the weight limit. I am leaving a lot of things here, not the least of which are my personal belongings. I am leaving a lot of love here as well (cheesy as it sounds), as well as some great opportunities. I wish I could stay longer, but I have things to take care of on the other side of the ocean. I know I will come back, though, which is my hope as I prepare to leave.

Tomorrow I have a full day in the OR, which is why I wanted to pack up tonight so that I could enjoy the day tomorrow and Tuesday. My ride for the airport leaves at 4PM on Tuesday, which means I get one last day in the OR. That will be nice.

I guess that is all for now. I will try to write a few more times before I leave here, because then I will likely be silent for a little while as I make my way back to our side of the world. Then I will be back in business.

Thanks for checking in! Talk to you soon!
Jill

Shopping

Today I went shopping in Nairobi for some last minute things as I prepare to leave here. It was fun, but I am so tired! We went to an open-aired market where people were selling their goods. The goal was to bargain for the prices that you wanted, a venture that I was weary of shortly after we began. The thing is, I am just not good at negotiating, and these people were asking VERY high prices for their wares. It was an exercise in frustration for me. Luckily my roommate Laura came along, which was AWESOME! She is great at negotiating and really helped me get some nice things for more reasonable prices. We had a very nice time all together.

Things are winding down here for me. I am going to go to church tomorrow, and then I think I will start gathering my things and packing. I work a full day Monday and Tuesday and leave Kijabe on Tuesday at 4PM to get to the airport in time to catch my midnight flight back to the USA.

This has been a most amazing journey for me, and I know there are still lessons to be learned as I finish this leg of the race. That is all for now, talk to you again soon!
Jill

Operating...

Sorry I haven't written in a few days. Things are going exceedingly well for me here, and I am getting very sad about having to come home. The safari was a real launching point for me, as I made some great friends and had a wonderful time. Since I got back, I have a new roommate, which is working out very well. It is so nice to have someone to talk with at the end of the day, and someone to share my joys and fears with. I have also been much more social with the other people at the hospital, with my social calendar filling up rapidly. The other night we had guests over for dinner, and then last night a bunch of us went out for dinner at the local restaurant. Tonight I was invited over for dinner at my neighbor's house. And this weekend my roommate and I are going to ride into Nairobi for the day on Saturday to do some shopping and see what Nairobi has to offer. It will be nice to go there and check things out, and it will be very nice to have a friend to come along with me. Life is so much better when it is not lived alone.

I have been operating more and more in the theatre. Yesterday I did a circumcision all by myself, which was cool. Today I did half of a VP shunt, which drains excess fluid from the head to the belly. That was neat as well. Tomorrow we are doing a pediatric hernia repair, so I have to read up on that so I can be prepared.

I guess that is all for now. I am having a wonderful time, and while I do miss you all, I am going to have a VERY hard time saying goodbye to this place. I know it will be a "see you soon" rather than a true good-bye, but it will still be very hard. I can't imagine not waking up here everyday and going to the hospital to operate and really help people who can't get the help otherwise.

Talk to you again soon-
Jill

Safari weekend

Well, I had a most wonderful weekend on the safari in Masai Mara. The weather could not have been more beautiful, with cool evenings that made you want to cuddle under a blanket and warm days that left your cheeks sun-kissed and your heart in a flutter. The animals were majestic; there is no other word to describe them. I saw lions, including lion cubs, three of them, just sitting by the road. The momma lions had evidently just feasted on some of the migrating wildebeests, as they were basking in the sun without a care in the world. Guess that's an advantage of being on the top of the food chain... I saw a lone cheetah, just stunning, sitting with its face in the sunlight. I saw many families of elephants, with babies and adolescents. I saw warthogs and hyenas, as well as prairie dogs. I saw impala and gazelle, zebra, ostrich, buffalo, hippos, a crocodile. I saw antelope and more wildebeests than I thought possible migrating across the savanna. I saw the most gorgeous sunset and let my face take in the beauty of it all. I saw baboons. I think that may be all, but I am probably forgetting something. In all, I took about 250 pictures, and then we combined everyone's pictures together, so that I have over 1100 pictures of the weekend. So I will be able to choose the very best ones to upload onto my blog once I get home. The pictures are wonderful but already fail to do justice to the majesty that I saw. You see the pictures and you think - wow, that's nice. Sure looks like they had a good time. Because you can't imagine it unless you have been there yourself. The pictures look a dime a dozen, unless they are your pictures because you saw those animals live and in person. Nevertheless, I will upload some pictures when I get home.

I can't say enough about how wonderful our trip was this weekend. I really got to know the people on the trip with me, and I will remember them for a lifetime for the great time we all had, laughing and joking and experiencing God's glorious creation together. While we were on this safari, so many songs came to mind... That one from NewsBoys, about all God's children singing glory glory, hallelujah He reigns. And the part about the worship rising from the African plain. Yeah, I was there, watching the worship rise to the King. And when I saw the lions, I thought of the song- Hail Hail Lion of Judah, how wonderful you are! How powerful you are! Then I thought of the passion song - salvation spring up from the ground. Lord, rend the heavens and come down. Seek the lost and heal the lame. Jesus being glory to your name! Then I thought of some scripture as well, thinking of the majesty of God, and how creation is an expression of how glorious our God really is. I thought of Psalm 145:

Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
One generation will commend your works to one another;
they will tell of your mighty acts.
They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
They will tell of the power of your awesome works,
and I will proclaim your great deeds.
They will celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.
The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.
The Lord is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made.
All you have made will praise you, O Lord;
your saints will extol you.

Anyway, it is too long to put all right here, but you should check it out if you get a chance. I was thinking about it while we were on safari. Or better said, the Shane and Shane song called Psalm 145 was stuck in my head. I don't really know that whole thing. Don't think more of me than you ought...

Anyway, I was overwhelmed by the amazing sights of the weekend, and walked away wanting to go back, just to feel the safari sun on my face and the smell the scents of those animals.

Today back at the hospital was great as well. I am taking more responsibility for our service, and getting more opportunities in the OR. Today I got to open an abdomen and close it, too. And I got to do an external ventricular drain, which is neurosurgery. And I got to do a circumcision. It was awesome. Well, not the circumcision, but the whole experience. They are teaching me a lifetime of knowledge and skill, a foundation for a lifetime. It is amazing.

Today I realized that I leave a week from tomorrow. A fact that made me VERY sad. I can't believe my trip is almost over. On some level I feel like it has barely begun, though on other levels I feel like I have been here for a LONG time. Strange how we want what is on the other side and then realize as this side is ending how much it is going to be difficult to leave the side that you tried not to love the whole time. I really have fallen in love with this place, despite the downsides. I have fallen in love with the Kenyan people, the Swahili language, the whole thing. I can't imagine not being able to talk to my friends in my very broken Swahili and then have us all laugh at my terrible rendition of their beautiful language. And I can't imagine not being able to see everyone's smile every morning. It has been a life changing adventure, one that I know will continue throughout my life. This has been a tremendous adventure - the best word to call it. I came out here alone, knowing one person in this whole place, and only having met him once and exchanged a few e-mails in preparation. I came out here in response to a call, and that call has been confirmed and encouraged a thousand-fold.

Sorry for being so nostalgic. You may have quit reading by now... That's OK. I just want to remember this when I get home. And I want you to know how profoundly this place has impacted me.

I will go now. I am getting tired, and I need to get some rest. Plus I want to do some reading before bed. Thanks for checking in on me. Talk to you again soon!
Jill

Rounds today

Rounds this afternoon were very sad. We have a group of Somali refugees here who were brought by a NGO to be treated for their various congenital abnormalities. One had an imperforate anus, which requires two, sometimes three operations to completely repair. One had already undergone the first of three operations for his imperforate anus, and subsequently developed a fistula from his urethra to his rectum. (which we fixed). The third is probably the saddest. The child was born with ambiguous genitalia and was mocked horribly in the refugee camp where they live. Kids pulled down his pants, etc. to make fun of him. The child was given a female name and presumed to be a female. But in reality, he has testes, and after genetic testing, he was found to be a boy. So we operated to create a penis out of his ambiguity. It is now time for him to go home. But the mother is worried about 1) how they are going to get back into the refugee camp, since the child now has a new name (male now), and 2) how they are going to deal with the mocking, since his, too, is a three stage operation, only one stage of which is complete.

This was heartbreaking for me. We had a translator there who was able to go from Somali to English, which was a God-send. Listening to these people talk about their lives in the refugee camp made me want to cry and be angry all at the same time. I wanted to never send them back there, to let them stay at Kijabe until all of their surgeries were complete. But I know that is impossible. Their fate is to return to the refugee camp. Their fear is being forgotten. Each one of them expressed a profound fear of going back to the camp and then never hearing from us again. It was heart wrenching to hear them beg us not to forget them. They were not afraid of going back to the camp. They were afraid we would forget about them.

Anyway, it is time for me to take a nap. While call last night was a breeze, I do want to take advantage of this afternoon and take myself a nice nap. I am headed to dinner tonight at Gary and Leanne Finke's house, who are two young missionary doctors here for 2 years after just finishing residency. I am interested in talking to them about their experience so far, what they think, and if they are formulating long term plans.

Tomorrow I leave for Masai Mara. I went to the bank today and got enough money to pay for my trip. Now all that is left is packing. But at least all of my clothes are clean. Which is nice, because I have the whole of my limited wardrobe to choose from.

OK, that is all for now. I thought I would share with you some of the heartache associated with being here. I think sometimes it is easy to forget the plight of the patient when they are prepped and draped in sterile fashion, unconscious and waiting to be cut open. But when you round, you remember that they are individuals, dearly loved by God and their families, and desperately wanting the best for their lives and their children's lives. Not so different from us after all.

Talk to you again later-
Jill