balloon soccer & tangible hope

Over the past few months he has been getting stronger and stronger. His little crutches have become one with him. His once unstable gait has vanished and has been replaced with a near run as he cruises around on his one leg and two supporting crutches as if he had perfectly healthy legs and no crutches at all. He has been working very hard with our physical therapy team. He has come so far. It seems like just yesterday that he woke up from his first surgery and “asked for a balloon.” The days when we had to give him multiple medications to deal with the pain from his exercises are long gone. And it seems like it was years ago that we were using tough love to force him to lie on his stomach to stretch the stump that was left of his leg; knowing if we didn’t make him stretch he would never be able to wear a prosthetic leg in the future. I am so proud of him!

A few weeks ago our little patient, that I am so proud of, our plastic surgeon and physical therapists took a small road trip across town to a soccer field. The exciting part of the road trip was not that the trip destination was a soccer field because soccer fields in Freetown are just like Starbucks in Seattle! No, the awesome part of the field trip was who was playing on the soccer field itself. Our little friend got to see the Sierra Leone National Amputee Foottball/Soccer Team play! Our small patient and my co-workers watched the professional soccer players with wonder and awe. The athletic army with crutches played a better game of soccer than most of us with two perfectly formed legs could ever hope to play. I can only imagine what my little friend/patient was thinking as he watched a soccer team of amputees, people just like him doing what all little African boys love; playing soccer.

Although his road hasn’t been easy and the only soccer game he has played lately was a game of balloon soccer with our physical therapy team, I trust my patient’s future is bright. He has been fit with a prosthetic leg and just three days ago he was discharged from Mercy Ships’ care. I know the world around him will tell him what he “cannot do”, that he “will fail”, and “that he is different and can never fit in.” But, I believe it won’t be long until my little patient leaves behind games of balloon soccer for more. I saw it in his eyes as he gave me a high-five good-bye and was ushered off the ship after receiving a round of applause and roar of encouragement when he was paraded through the dining hall during lunch to wave good-bye to the rest of the crew. He will remember the days he spent with us, the days he saw his healing come, and the day we showed him hope for his future on a simple soccer field; a field of dreams.

“In order for hope to be credible for the future it must be tangible in the present” (US Ambassador Robert Seiple). Thanks Lord for your Hope & for Healing.

just a little of what I did...

I rounded with the doctors, handed over to the nurses, assisted the nurses under my management with dressing changes, went to bed meeting, made patient assignments for the next shift, ran to the pharmacy to seek their guidance in figuring out how to give an IV medicine orally because we don’t have the oral form of the medicine. I prayed with my patient who is discouraged that it is taking so long for her wound to heal. I discharged a few patients from my ward, admitted a few into their vacated spaces.  I attended a quality assurance meeting with hospital management. I answered emails from previous surgeons. I was called into the crew clinic to consult on a case where the crew physician wasn’t certain what the patient had.  I diagnosed the patient with one of the tropical diseases I had learned about in my course of tropical diseases and I prescribed treatment for the patient. I went back to the ward and welcomed a group of guests from Belgium to my ward, explaining to them what types of operations we do and explained the basics of how things work on the ship, among the visitors was Miss Belgium.  I chased a few of my chocolate children/patients around the ward and down the hallways when they escaped from the ward.  I kissed all the babies I could.  I gave one of my longer term patients, a four year old, cheeky, little princess, a mini syringe for her to “medicate” her baby doll that she has named after one of the nurses, “medicine” for the doll’s bandage change. My little patient smiled, giggled, and ran off to play with the other little ones in the ward.  I ran out to the dock to give one of my plastic surgery patients TB (tuberculosis) medicine, as she was recently diagnosed with TB and needs to learn how important compliance with treatment is so that she can be cured and not have complications, thus she has to make contact with us daily to take her medicine.  I carried around one of my patient’s babies strapped to my back so that the patient could focus on her physical therapy session. I could go on forever…but that’s just a little of what I did in one shift as a nurse manager on the Africa Mercy, the huge hospital ship floating off the coast of Sierra Leone, the place I am so blessed to work and proud to call home.           

Ground-Nut & Pumpkin



My little ground-nut! You know how we call cute, small babies, "peanut" in
the Western World? Well, in Sierra Leone, they call peanuts- ground-nuts so
I decided we must call this precious little one "ground-nut!"



I love this kid! We call him Pumpkin! His little cheeks are so kissable
and he is so round and chubby, like a precious little pumpkin!

Fishing Boats & Towels

It breaks my heart and I hate to admit it, but he has been on the ward with us since we removed the small football sized tumor from his shoulder more than four months ago. The surgery to remove the tumor from his shoulder went extremely well. The skilled, South African, surgeon that removed his tumor grafted new skin from his right thigh to cover the gaping wound that was left in his shoulder after removing the mass that had protruded from his arm for far too many years. A few weeks after his surgery his skin graft had taken and his shoulder was healing. He started to learn shoulder range of motion. He was ecstatic when he got to use his regained shoulder range of motion to wave at his brother, who was in a fishing boat that randomly passed by the ship one afternoon during the patient’s daily trip outside to deck seven of the ship. We loved watching him stare at the clock each day waiting in anticipation for the daily patient trip outside. Another day he randomly saw another one of his family members float past the ship in a tattered fishing boat and the smile on his face melted our hearts. We got so excited for him and his “family sightings” from deck seven, that we started making nursing notes in our charge nurse handover notes about who he got to wave at each day. His happiness added to our happiness.


Although his shoulder was healing well, the donor site on his thigh that we grafted skin from was not healing well. Then it got infected. As soon as we thought the skin was getting better, another area of infection would appear and the fragile skin that was healing would once again break open and pus. This cycle of almost total healing, then wound breakdown has continued and despite our best efforts, his years of malnutrition and poor skin condition in general have made his healing process extremely lengthy and prolonged.

He has been sad, depressed, discouraged, and questions why it has taken so long for his leg to heal. We ask the same questions. He misses his wife and kids; the waves from deck seven of the ship aren’t enough. He needs his family, but they live too far away and cannot travel each day to visit him. We are discouraged, but know God is big enough to heal his leg. And praise God, just this past week his healing has sped up and we pray that soon he will be able to go home.

Yesterday, he asked to speak to me and I hate to admit it, but I tried to avoid him, not wanting to tell him once again that he was not ready to be discharged. He started to speak to me in Krio, the main language here in Sierra Leone. I understand most Krio, but wanted the support of a translator to help me explain once again to my patient that I didn’t know why his leg wasn’t healing, but that I was praying with him for it to get better, and that we weren’t giving up on his healing. He agreed to wait for me while I found a translator. I prepped my translator, telling her about the situation before we approached my waiting patient. With a heavy heart, we approached my patient once again and I had my translator start to explain to him that it wasn’t time for him to go home yet.

She started speaking in a local tribal language and smiled at me and was laughing with the patient. I was confused and interrupted her, telling her to tell the patient what I asked her to tell him because I was certain if she had really told him that he couldn’t go home, that he wouldn’t be laughing. She stopped me and said, “No, Laura, it is okay.” I was dumbfounded. It wasn’t really okay. My patient has been here more than 130 days and his wound still isn’t better. She said, “No, it really is okay, He just wants to know if when he finally goes home if he could take a towel with him. He doesn’t have one at home.”

All the heaviness that had been on my shoulders lifted. I breathed a sigh of relief and told my patient he could most definitely have a towel when he goes home. He smiled from ear to ear, shook my hand, and thanked me for all we are doing for him, and walked back to his humble bed, in a busy ward, to wait for his healing, but somehow comforted by the idea that he would have a towel to take home.


Dear Father in Heaven! Thanks for my patients. Thanks for the healing YOU WILL BRING THIS PATIENT. Thanks for the chance to be here & thanks for simple things like towels. (Next time you use a towel- please pray for my patient, that he will soon heal & be able to take home the towel I promised him).