Two Miracles
We see all kinds of amazing things happen at our
little hospital. But two cases occurring almost simultaneously, have stood out
in our minds during the last 2 weeks. We are always thankful to God for his
Mercies and bountiful blessings and for continually using us as his vessels to
bring healing to the sick, hurt, weak and broken.
The first case is that of a 57-year-old male who was
referred to our hospital from a smaller clinic about 45 miles away. Initial
assessment revealed hypotension, hypoglycemia and high fever. He was almost
comatose. After successful resuscitation, he informed us that he had generalized
abdominal pain, nausea and had been vomiting for almost 24 hours. He was diagnosed with acute abdomen after further
assessments and this diagnosis warranted an emergency exploratory laparotomy.
The surgery was desperately needed because he was on the brink of death. Fortunately,
we had a visiting surgeon at the hospital who was performing a prostatectomy at
the time our patient was admitted. We discussed the case with him (surgeon) and
he agreed to do the surgery. The only problem; the surgery had to be performed
with general anesthesia and this meant that the patient had to be on a mechanical
ventilator during and after the surgery. Unfortunately, we don’t have a ventilator
for post-operative care at the hospital and the one used intra-op needs some
serious upgrade. However, transferring the patient to the big teaching hospital
wasn’t an option because he would have lost his life on the way.
So the surgery was performed. It was almost 7pm when it
started. The surgeon discovered a 2cm abdominal wall perforation. He fixed it
and cleaned out the abdominal cavity. The whole procedure took less than 30 minutes.
Now it was time for the patient to breath spontaneously and get off the
operating room ventilator (this vent was not movable and it was impossible to
give post- op care in the operating room) so he could be transferred for
post-op care. Initially, he struggled to breath and the anesthetist had to
decide whether to extubate (take of ventilator) him or not. After observing him for about 2 hours
after the surgery, he was extubated. Miraculously, he was able to sustain
spontaneous breathing. We observed him for 2 more hours. He didn’t recover from
the anesthesia until 5am the following morning. He woke up then and began answering questions.
We were relieved to learn about that because
it took an act of God for this patient to recover from the surgery and initiate
spontaneous breathing. Our lack of adequate resources compounded the problem. Difficult
medical decisions had to be made but I am glad he agreed to the surgery because he is alive, healthy and his family can see him every
day. It was also a miracle that the visiting surgeon happened to be there when
we needed a surgeon for an emergency surgery.
The second case is that of a 6-year-old male who was
also referred to our facility 2 days after the acute abdomen case. Although our
facility is an 81 bed hospital, we get a large number of referrals since it’s
the only “big” hospital in the district (a district is similar to a county). Thus,
all the smaller clinics and health centers send their challenging cases to us. Anyway,
this patient presented with bloody diarrhea, fever, and convulsions. Also, he
was in a coma. We knew this was a case of severe malaria and his blood tests
confirmed our suspicions. He had a very high parasitic load.
We began aggressive malaria treatment,
administered anti-convulsants and waited for him to come out of the coma. At the
end of the first day, he was still in a coma. He was in the same situation for
the second, third and fourth days of admission. He opened his eyes on the fifth
day of admission but did not speak. On the sixth day he was well enough to eat
and amazingly, he began talking. After seven days at the hospital he was walking,
talking and being himself. He even gave me a high five when I requested it. It
was a miracle that he survived his ordeal with malaria. We were happy to see
him bounce back from his terrible ordeal with malaria. He has since been
discharged from the hospital.
We are currently in the malaria season (correlates
with the rainy season) in Ghana and the case load has increased tremendously
for us at the hospital. Children are the most vulnerable and the most impacted.
We pray to God for strength to help those who need it during these hard times. Malaria
is a serious, scary and deadly disease…
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