Saturday April 25

How much more different can the weeks be? This is one of the things I love about being here. So this week has seen me transform into an anaesthetic nurse for the week and a thoroughly enjoyable change it has been.

I have spent most of the week working with an American anaesthetist who specializes in paediatrics. As one who has not seen children under the age of three years as patients for a VERY long time this is quite a shock to the system. But God has been very good in giving me someone who loves to teach and who likes to drink black coffee. What better combination could there be? We have managed to work together exceedingly well considering the circumstances here and without all the cases being straighforward. I have twice done a "Starbucks run" which has met with great approval.

It was probably a good time for me to remind myself of the skills I need to practice once in a while to maintain my own professional practice.

One of the ladies with whom I travelled to Parakou and Natitingou right at the beginning of our time in Benin has left this week to return to the UK so off we went to the local Lebanese restaurant for a meal, all 11 of us. it's a great little place right on the beach with a view of the ship. The food was OK but the company better. Just as well as it's the place I've chosen to go for a meal next Friday to celebrate my birthday.

The general fitness levels are keeping up OK. I've been out running about 5 times this week - just as well with these meals out. The heat and humidity do take some getting used to though.

The other real fun thing I've done this week is to celebrate St Georges Day. Having a conversation about 3 weeks ago with other English folk onboard I suggested we ought to really try and mark the day so tea and scones - all 9 dozen home baked - were produced on Thursday evening after the community meeting along with strawberry jam and cream. we decorated the midships lounge with flags and balloons and even had a Lord of the Realm with us for the occasion. Hopefully the image is on here of all the people who turned up. One or two weren't actually English but have lived in England for quite sometime so we let them in! we heard the story about St George and then sang the National Anthem. It at least raised an awareness of the day (which is also Shakespeares birthday).

So yet another busy week, next weeks promises to be even busier.....

Sunday April 19

The view has changed from where I am sitting typing into the computer. We have moved the ship all of 400 metres or thereabouts as we needed to fill up the tanks with fuel. Rather like going to the petrol station but a rather slower process since we have to take on about 700 tonnes of fuel. For those who hadn't been on the sail from Tenerife it was all rather exciting. It was a good opportunity to hang over the rail and chat. Some of the crew had decided to leave the ship overnight and were off by 8.15am. Others of us decided that we would move our usual Sunday morning run to Saturday morning so I was out running out 7.00am.

However I'm rushing ahead. The week was again different as Monday was a ship's holiday it being Easter Monday. It was also a holiday in Benin. A trip to Casa del Papa in the back of a 4x4 with new crew was great fun. It's a good way to meet new staff, bumping along the beach road. The weather was typically English - raining. However our spirits were not dampened as we found the sheltered part of the resort and spent time chatting over coffee. Since one of my reasons for going was to be able to swim in the pool there, I duly changed and swam, after all I would be wet anyway and actually swimming in the rain was not an unpleasant experience.

Crew are always coming and going and this week saw a crew member leave who had become a christian whilst serving on the ship. This is not as uncommon as one might think and is always a source of great joy to the other crew members.

I spent Friday morning at the eye clinic at the hospitality centre. This is a converted warehouse about 15 minutes walk from the ship. Patients are housed there overnight and this has relieved the pressure on beds in the hospital. We have the same problems of bed occupancy as the NHS! But we also see the eye patients there post operatively and so Friday saw the first patients coming for YAG laser treatment to their eyes following their cataract surgery. This treatment helps to prevent the formation of a secondary cataract. Thankfully there is an air conditioned tent up in the warehouse so the room for the laser treatment is cooler. The tent would normally sit on the dockside but this is not possible here as the dock is narrower than Monrovia and lorries rumble up and down the dock passing very close to the ship. It would simply be too dangerous hence the reason for having a tent in the hospitality centre.

And then it's Saturday again with its chores of washing and ironing. I also made with 9 dozen scones in the afternoon with some help from one of the English ladies on the ship. We are celebrating St Georges Day with tea and scones, complete with strawberry jam and cream. I have some flags and balloons to decorate the area where we shall simply have a fun time together on Thursday evening.Watch this space and if I remember to have my camera out I shall post a picture next week.

Sunday April 12

I thought you might like to share in my easter Sunday thus far. Having set my alarm for 5.40am and I know that for some of you that does simply does not exist...I went to help finish setting up the dining room for the easter brunch which was served at 9.30am. The ward staff who would not be able to get to the brunch had the usual breakfast made available to them since the brunch was served much later than the normal weekend time of 7.30am.

We had a sunrise service which commenced at 6.30am and this is the view I had of the sunrise this morning from deck 8 of Africa Mercy overlooking the sea at Cotonou on a ship which has noticeable movement.

I left for church with Christian at 9.00am and there was a visiting speaker from Nigeria. He was the pastor who started the Four Square church in Benin. But the best part for Christian was that the Nigerian pastor preached in English! So he only had to translate a small part of the service for me. In addition the worship group started by singing a hymn in french but to a tune I knew. The words were not a translated version but I was able to sing and probably knew the tune as we ll as anyone else at the service! The Nigerian pastor also broke into a couple of english choruses which I also knew. He is Lord and one other. On the way home from the service we stopped to have a coconut each. For the princely sum of 30pence we each had a coconut. the girl cut off the top, we drank the Juice inside and then she split the coconut open, fashioned a spoon out of the "lid" and we ate the soft part inside - very refreshing!!

Saturday April 11

I am well aware that for those of you following my blog it has been way too long since I last wrote. But at least i have a couple of interesting stories to share this week. So why have I been unable to write - mostly just too busy!

The work has continued at a pace. We now have both of our translators learning to scrub for our eye cases and we planning on teaching a third member of the team too. Keeping an eye on them plus having new staff who have not previously worked in the eye rooms or even seen such operations along with eye surgeons coming in to learn the new techniques presents several challenges in the day. Add to that the need to also be the anaesthetic nurse for general anaesthetic cases and there you have my roles sorted. Teacher, mentor, theatre sister and most importantly showing the love of God in all I do in some way , shape or form.

Last week was fairly quiet for us and the rooms ran much as always. By last weekend I was ready for a break and spent Saturday at Bab's Dock with several other "Mercyshippers". This included a game of volleyball of about an hours duration. I was the oldest player by at least 12 years. No points were counted although we played approximately by the rules but its hard to judge what's in or out when the court is in water! Thankfully only knee deep but it did mean that falling over was less painful - just wet and even that was great since it helped with the whole cooling off process. In the evening the "eye team" which includes the surgeons, staff who run the clinics as well as theatres and the npost op staff all went for dinner at a local Indian restaurant. I found it easier to simply read the menu than the french translations provided. I know what Rogan Josh is and yes, it tasted very good. Sunday I was on call so attended the ward service and caught up on one or two bits.

Monday mornings we always begin with our own prayer time in the eye rooms led by Glenn Strauss. It's a time to meet new staff and surgeons, find out which surgeons should be visiting and just ask for Fathers blessing on the week. Tuesday afternoon we had an emergency case that took up the whole afternoon. A five year old girl had fallen over a couple of days earlier and a stick had penetrated her eye. Not an unusual problem here but because she had been taken to the clinic early one of our visiting surgeons was able to operate on her eye. She had ruptured the globe of her eye so it took sometime to stitch everything back in place and the decision was made to remove her lens since it was broken in several places. We have a phaecoemulsification machine which we don't use too often since it will not cope with hard lenses but in this young girl the lens was soft. So out it came and we irrigated and aspirated until the lens was out. It may be possible at a later date to put a new lens in to the girls eye. This may seem like radical surgery but it is more usual here to see an eye that has died because the injury is left unattended for too long and that then requires the whole eye to be removed. So that took us till 5.00pm to complete so for us a late finish.

Thursday saw another unusual day. We don't operate on Fridays because we do not have clinics for 1 day post op patients. Good Friday brings this a day earlier as it's a ship's holiday so we would not normally work on Thursday but we had 4 general anaesthetic cases, all children. What made this even more different was that 3 of the children were from the same family. Aged 1,3 and 7 all 3 were either completely blind or had very little sight, being able to distinguish light but no more. We could only imagine the anguish of the mother as she had all 3 children operated on in one day. The little 3 year old stole my heart. She was given a pre-med to make her sleepy but in fact all it did was to make her act as if she were drunk. She soon stopped crying as I picked her up and gently rocked her, talked and sang quietly to her. Tickling then worked well and giggles ensued, so much so the anaesthetist wondered what I had done to her! Patches come off the next day with our patients and I went to the ward yesterday morning to see her patches come off and watch her reaction. Mum was ther and happy for me to pick her up and although upset initially, as soon as I started talking to her and rocking her gently she obviously remembered me and stopped crying. I was greatly privileged to be able to remove her patches and see her trying to work out what was different. I had a small red brick in my hand and by the time I left her she had picked up from my outstretched hand several times. Her eyes had been checked while I was cuddling her as I crouched down with the eye surgeon behind me using a mobile slit lamp. The event put a whole different slant on Good Friday for me as for her this was indeed Good Friday as she will be able to see. I hope to be able to follow her progress through with her 2 and 6 week visits to the clinic.


....as for the little girl with the dreadful eye injury...she will need to wait at least a month before we know if anymore can be done for her but at least she will have a normal looking eye which is so important if she is to marry. These things matter here in West Africa.

I shall be at the sunrise service on deck 8 of the ship tomorrow morning and then helping to prepare the brunch which is being served. Tomorrow night after an early service there is "open house" or rather more aptly "open cabins" for which I have baked - so no surprises there. Monday is also a holiday for the ship and I am joining others in going out for the day - to a pool wher I can swim to my heart's content. "God is good - all the time and all the time God is good" I pray that you will have blessed Easter time.