Dr. Sawyer Serving with Samaritan's Purse

Dr. Sawyer Serving with Samaritan's Purse
Papua New Guinea

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Under the Veil

Honestly I didn't want to know what to expect going to serve in a predomintly Muslim area of the world and in this particular area of northern Togo.  How open would these patients be seeing a male gynecologist?  Would they be open to a Christian physician praying in Jesus' name for them?  Would they talk to me?  Would they allow me to examine their most private parts?

Well, I was in for a very pleasant surprise.  Typically as soon as these veiled women walked into my examination room, the veil that covered their faces would be lifted.  Although their husbands typically answered the history questions for them, this was usually due to necessity, as frenquently their husbands could speak French and the women could not.

I was even more surprised that after I had completed the history taking and needed to do a gynecologic examination, that there was not even a hint of hesitiation.  I would turn my back to put on my headlight and my examination gloves, and would find the patient disrobed to an appropriate degree, and completely willing to allow me to examine them.

But even more remarkable to me was, at the end of the visit, I would always ask through Sylvie, my medical assistant and interpretor, if I could pray for the patient.  Not a single one refused.  It was nearly always a very simple prayer, but the effect that these prayers had on the patients was remarkable.  Often the husband would extend his hand, and do the typical regional handshake (grasping the right hand like a normal Western handshake, then reaching above the thumb to the wrist, then back down to a normal shake, then pulling hands apart down to a snap against each other's fingers, following by pulling ones' hand back to his own chest).  At this point these men always had a huge smile on their faces, and typically would say, in English, "God bless you."  These men were so grateful that I was helping their wife.  One man inparticular, after I cared for his wife, brought in his sister and his second wife to see me as well.  (Did I fail to mention that this is a polygamous society?)

On that same point, one of the women that I did a prolapse surgery on, at the time of discharge she had a huge smile on her face and said, in English, "God bless you!"  She was from Burkina Faso, and did not speak English or French, but she had memorized this phrase in English to say to me out of gratitude when I discharge her from the hospital.  I was really touched by this expression of gratitude.

Patient Patients

Togolese people have to be the most patient people, exhibiting patience rarely seen.  These patients will show up at the hospital at 6 o'clock in the morning and wait all day to see the doctor.  My day would start with rounds at 7 AM followed by surgeries sometimes filling the morning.  In between surgeries I would run over to the radiology department to do a hysterosalpingogram on an infertility patient to see if her tubes are open, then return to the operating room.  Often it would then be time for lunch, followed by ultrasound clinic starting at 1 PM and then I would finally get over to the gynecology clinic around 3 PM where the patient patients had been waiting all day to see me.  They would just be lined up on the benches outside of my room, which was room 9.

There was never ever a hint of anyone being frustrated about waiting all day to see me.  Often it was me that was feeling frustrated by a stack of charts, each representing a patient along with their family and translator sitting outside of my door.

Inside the clinic room the following scene would unfold, with Sylvie (my medical assistant and translator) translating my history from English to French and then another translator translating from French to the patients' heart language.  Fortunately much of the history had already been recorded in the paper chart, but sometimes even these notes were in English rather than French.

Word had gotten out prior to my arrival that the specialist gynecologist was coming to the Hospital of Hope.  One common problem here was the result of these women having so many babies.  The pelvic floor prolapse problems were the worst that I have ever seen.  Many women came into the clinic with their genitals completely inverted inside out.

It seems that once I did the surgery to fix the first two of these, then the word really got out.  On the last clinic Friday that I was serving in Togo, a woman came to the clinic begging to see me.  She managed to first get in to see the pediatrician and explained that she had been to the government hospital nearby and had some type of prolapse surgery three years ago.

Dr. Kelley Faber, the pediatrician, sent her immediately over to my clinic room and was the next to last patient to see me in my clinic that last Friday.  When I examined her I realized why Dr. Faber had referred her urgently to me.  This patient also had a complete genital prolapse, with her insides hanging out.

I knew that elective surgeries were not done on weekends, but I was not scheduled to leave until Monday morning.  I wondered if there was some way that I could schedule her for Saturday morning, the next day.  I spoke with the physician's assistant in charge of the hospital "Doctor" Todd DeKryger.  He made some phone calls and got the permission of everyone so that this patient would not have to wait until the next gynecologist came along.

We put her on the schedule for Saturday morning, and I did the surgery in about 90 minutes, doing a vaginal hysterectomy along with a surgery that tacks everything back up inside to a ligament called the sacrospinous ligament.  The surgery went beautifully, and when I saw this patient on Sunday morning before I went to a French speaking church service, she was all smiles and incredibly grateful.

As I reflect on my time at the hospital, I am still amazed at the degree of patience that these patients exhibited, without any tempers flaring.  Their patience was only surpassed by their gratitude.  I was humbled by both.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Better Late Than Never

Let me apologize for those of you trying to follow my blog posts from Togo.  The intermittent and slow internet here has made it much more difficult to post blog posts than to post on Facebook.  I will be making more blog posts after I return to the states, but in the meantime, please friend me on Facebook if you have not done so already.  I have been able to post a lot on Facebook.

Also, Jana Cunningham, an NICU nurse from Banner Good Samaritan is on our team, and she has been writing wonderful blog posts.  You can find her blog at nicunursegoestoafrica.blogspot.com.

Several months ago a doctor arrived at the Hospital of Hope for a short term assignment.  The first weekend she was here, Dr. Kelly Farber said to the short term volunteer doctor, "Go get your bathing suit and let's go for a swim in the pool."  The visiting doctor replied that she hadn't brought a bathing suit.  Dr. Farber said, "Didn't you know we have a swimming pool here?" to which the doctor replied, "I thought you were joking!"

I must admit I could just not grasp a swimming pool in northern Togo, but sure enough, there is a beautiful L-shaped swimming pool behind a 10 foot wall.  A pool company from Texas had donated all of the equipment and manpower.  Alain Niles, one of the long term missionaries here, had dug the hole in the ground with the tractor.  The only difficult task with this is that unfortunately they built the wall before he dug the hole, which made the task far more difficult.

The result, however, is this beautiful pool for the families here to gather and enjoy a chance to cool off.  It was designed so it just gradaually starts off shallow and then gets deeper and deeper and deeper.  I have especially enjoyed going out late at night and cooling off before going to bed, as the pool is just across from the guest house.
Most of my surgeries have been gynecologic surgery dealing with horrible prolapse problems.  Unfortunately the photographs and descriptions are not amenable to publishing on a blog or on Facebook, but these women are so incredibly grateful to be restored to normal anatomy.  One woman who didn't speak French or English went out of her way to learn how to tell me "thank you" in English when I discharged her home from the hospital following a successful surgery.