Screening

Today I helped with screening. This year instead of doing one big day of screening where thousands of patients show up we are doing multiple small screenings every week. I think the members of this team have some of the hardest jobs on the ship.

So this morning I had signed up to go along and help. My job was to stand at the front of the line and direct the patients to the next available screener. The patients are seen by nurses at this screening then if it is thought they may be possible surgical candidates they are given a card to come to the ship and be evaluated by the surgeon who then makes the final decision.

What makes this day so hard is the nos. I don't know the numbers for sure but we maybe saw 100 or so patients and gave less than 10 cards to come to the ship. I know that we cannot help everyone, I know that.... but it still doesn't change the fact that I want to. The girl the same age as me with severely bowed legs who is too old for surgery, it would simply take more time than we have for her bones to heal even if we did have a surgeon and a surgical space for her (which we don't). The mama who brought her 8 year old boy who has some sort of palsy with severe delays in that he cannot walk or talk, even though he does crawl around and laugh and interact, we have nothing we can do surgically. The women with the goiters growing from their necks, who we must say sorry unfortunately we cannot help you because their goiter isn't big enough to be life threatening.

I keep coming back to the fact that we are helping those we can. The precious little one only a few days old with a cleft lip and palate who we will begin on our feeding program and hopefully will grow to be healthy enough for surgery. The little girl with a leg that can no longer straighten after a burn where the skin grew back holding the leg permanently in place bent at the knee. Another precious little boy who had surgery for a large tumor on his face in another country and they took away part of his jaw bone, not bothering to replace it with anything, and now his mouth just hangs open, he cannot speak or eat well and he drools constantly. I know God has all his little children in His mighty hands and we will help the ones we should but even resting in this truth... on days like today it just simply doesn't feel like enough.