All This and it's Only 1 p.m.

I woke up last night wishing with all my heart I hadn’t eaten that second bowl of beans and rice at the American’s house then that little bit of food here at my hut. Oh, how I wish I could have just said NO! The beans and rice were so good and I was hungry so I ate, who could blame me?. Once I got back home (on the way back to my hut I didn’t even need to use my flashlight it was so bright out) they brought out supper for me, even though I wasn’t even hungry and I said so, but being a good mom, Teresa was like, “just eat a little bit” so I did. A small little bit. Right away I knew I had eaten too much. But I talked with the famil a bit more than went off to my hut for bed. I went to bed about normal, 8:30pm. Come about 12:30am I knew for SURE that I was not going to have a good night. On a positive note, I have gotten over my fear of using the facilities in a hole in the ground :o) and thank God that it was a drizzly night and my famil slept inside their hut so my flashlight didn’t wake anyone up. It was nice to go outside because of the cooler air; I had been really hot and sweaty in my hut under my mosquito net. At 2:30 it was getting a bit more wet outside, not enough to need my rain jacket but nice enough to cool me off and make me feel a little bit better. But by 5am it was raining/sprinkling and I had to put my rain jacket on. I decided then that I was going to go to the American’s house to get medicine so I could feel better. At 6 I got up again and got dressed to leave and told the famil that I was going to the hospital early. When I got to the house it was nice to sit on a porcelain chair ;0) Then I took about 10 charcoal pills, after all safety in numbers. I laid in their living room/dinning room all morning slowly feeling a bit better. They all teased me saying I had malaria but I assured them I only had a stomach thing.

So I slept for a few hours then when the generator came on at about 9 signaling that there was a surgery going on I decided to work on a project that I am hoping to help start here and then moved on to my French lesson for the day which I decided would be to read Steps to Christ in French. At about 12pm while I was making slow progress but was still working on the translating of a billion words I didn’t know I heard someone call my name, it was Christine and she had been in the surgery and very quickly informed me that they needed my blood, me being O-, the universal donor, so quickly off I dash with her across the house yard and the hospital yard to the OR, the whole while praying that I won’t pass out or anything terrible and wondering how they actually take my blood here. Once I was there Anatole, the guy I work with in the am passing out TB meds, comes and we get busy prepping my arm for the needle. They find the vain and I look away, everything is going okay, I’m pumping my hand and all, Anatole has to dash off to take a look at something else that is going on with another patient who just gave birth this morning and is still bleeding and Sarah takes over with holding the needle. I had been sitting on the stool but I told Sarah that I wasn’t feeling to well and she offered for me to sit on the floor. Before I knew what was going on I didn’t know what was going on at all, only that its really dark and I have no idea where I am, then I hear Liz telling me to move my toes and breath so I do. I guess I decided that was a good time to take a 10 sec power nap :0) I hadn’t eaten anything all day because of my stomach and I had barley drunken anything. But thank God he sent Liz into the room just as I was passing out because Sarah was still holding onto my needle and bag that wasn’t getting much out of my arm because of the small vain they used. I was able to sit up and try to pump some more but nothing was coming out, so someone went and got Anatole to see if he could stick me again in another vain or arm. Sarah would have but she’s only used to black arms and I have funny veins. By now Joe and Christine (Loma Linda med students) were able to help fan me because I was so hot and sweaty, and Joe went to get me some juice to drink. So we switch arms, and they look, and they look for a good vain. All the while James is still operating on this woman whose thyroid they are taking out, which from what I hear is a really hard operation. They poke me again and this time it’s in the fore arm and I wasn’t watching but they didn’t sound too impressed with it and take it out. They had been using an 18 gage needle, which in Sonya terms is a honk’n big needle; they were going to get another needle this time smaller. Sarah then went in to see if they could give the woman the blood that I had already given and come to find out the woman’s hemoglobin was okay and she didn’t need it. Least they didn’t have to poke me again. And at least I have felt useful even if they didn’t put my blood to use right then, I did something good. I’m the only O- person here and I know that God sent me here to give part of me, sweat and blood. I might be a social worker coming here to help develop programs, but I am a blood bank coming here to give of me to others so that they can live. For that I thank God, He is asking me to give all of me. So here I sit and type and it’s only 1pm and I still feel a bit funny in my stomach and I’m really hungry.

I’m glad I can be a donor of sweat and blood :0)