We brought Angeline's kids up from Dano to see her. This was a bit of an ordeal since the Father didn't want to let them all go. Besides the sickness itself this is another very sad side to this story. If Angeline doesn't make it, the situation with the kids will become extremely complicated. Her newborn would normally go with her sister, but her husband doesn't want to take her. Of the three others, the father of the two oldest, Ezekiel and Bruce, isn't around and the father of the youngest boy, Amos shows a lot of favoritism to him when he's there, but for the most part isn't really there to raise any of them. Be praying that these kids find a loving home regardless how this turns out with Angeline.
The latest on Angeline is that she's day by day if not moment by moment. I'm now in Ouaga with her just to hold the nurses and interns hands at the public hospital to make sure that we might be able to keep her alive until we can find out what's really wrong with her. She's so sick none of the private clinics will take her. She's being held together only by him who holds us all together. The normal platelet range for blood is 150,000 to 400,000. Angeline had 4,000 today! . . . When I pulled into Ouaga, Dr. Peter explained to me she wasn't able to stop bleeding and needed platelets badly. I got to the hospital at 4 to find that the platelets that were supposed to be there at 3, hadn't arrived yet. I went to the "desk." The guy said they were waiting on somebody - he didn't know who, so I offered to go get them - why wait? After they sent us all over the hospital on a wild goose chase in the rain, we found out we needed to go down the street to the blood transfusion center where they ordered the platelets. I get there and they said that it was very late and they weren't sure if they would finish getting them ready today. I tried to explain the severity of the situation. They warned me that I might have to wait several hours, and I told them I would wait. Thirty minutes later I walked out with the platelets and within the hour Angeline had received 4 pouches of platelets. We still don't know what's eating up her blood. We're just trying to give her enough time right now to find out what the problem is. Praying for someone THIS sick is often hard. We sometimes don't know what to pray (should we pray for her suffering to end or for healing). When I see those kids I know what to pray. Remember when Sarah, the golden girl, heard the Lord promise that she would get pregnant, she laughed. Even most of the nurses and doctors at the public hospital here, if not laughing, are at least very doubtful and cynical. "She's a hopeless case," they think and so they let stuff go and don't see what the big hurry is to treat her. But as God said, "Why did Sarah laugh, is anything too hard for God?"
Monday, April 26, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Please Help
Angeline has been our friend from the very first week we spent in Dano to this day. She has worked for us, cleaned our dishes, cleaned our toilet, washed our floors, baked our bread, and served us in many other ways.
She's always been grateful for the income we have provided for her, but was never satisfied to just work at our house and has always either sold ice or sacks of water in the market on market days and done many other little things to try and fight for a better existence for her three boys and now her daughter (see the picture above) whom she named after my wife, Andrea.
Her service to us in our home has made an incalculable impact on our ability to stay on the mission field and in the ministry to which God has called us.
She is currently in severe danger. We don't know yet what all the root causes for her disease are, whether it was somehow related to her pregnancy (she gave birth to Andrea Dorcas Some about 5 months ago) or something else. What we do know is that she has progressively gotten worse over the last couple of months.
She had a few pointless stays in the Dano hospital, and yet she still had fever constantly and was developing severe anemia and going into multiple organ failure when I rushed her to the hospital on Friday. The Belgian doctor, Dr. Peter van Dingenen, to whom I brought her quickly diagnosed a few things that we could treat, but knows that she is dealing with multiple issues.
She's now had 4 blood transfusions in the last few weeks and will probably need another in the next 24 hours. She has an enlarged liver and spleen. She needs lots of testing and lots of attention to get to the bottom of this, and Dr. Peter has volunteered to do lots of followup work on her, but even the public hospital in Ouaga is more than she can afford and is understaffed anyway.
She would not even be able to go there were it not for the help we and others are providing her. Even so, the hospital has let her go without prescribed medication and much needed testing because she thought the money wasn't there for it (we had sent her more, but it hadn't arrived in her hands yet).
The doctors at the public hospital cannot keep up with all their patients, and every time Dr. Peter has gone to check on her there is a different doctor there and Dr. Peter has to bring him up to speed. Dr. Peter will some day, by God's grace, have a more proficient clinic to deal less expensively with cases like hers, but suggested off-handedly to me that if she had 1,000,000 CFA (about $2,000.00) she could get into a private clinic and start getting more consistent and focused care.
They are testing for many things right now; the scariest possibility is some form of blood cancer. Regardless she needs everyone to pray hard right now that God would heal her body. We are also praying that if it will make the difference between discovering what is wrong with her and thus saving her life, that God would then call his people together to provide for her the means to pay for a private clinic.
Would you please join us in praying to God, our provider, the great physician, to provide all of her needs?
If you are able, please make a small donation to help us get Angeline the help she needs.
She's always been grateful for the income we have provided for her, but was never satisfied to just work at our house and has always either sold ice or sacks of water in the market on market days and done many other little things to try and fight for a better existence for her three boys and now her daughter (see the picture above) whom she named after my wife, Andrea.
Her service to us in our home has made an incalculable impact on our ability to stay on the mission field and in the ministry to which God has called us.
She is currently in severe danger. We don't know yet what all the root causes for her disease are, whether it was somehow related to her pregnancy (she gave birth to Andrea Dorcas Some about 5 months ago) or something else. What we do know is that she has progressively gotten worse over the last couple of months.
She had a few pointless stays in the Dano hospital, and yet she still had fever constantly and was developing severe anemia and going into multiple organ failure when I rushed her to the hospital on Friday. The Belgian doctor, Dr. Peter van Dingenen, to whom I brought her quickly diagnosed a few things that we could treat, but knows that she is dealing with multiple issues.
She's now had 4 blood transfusions in the last few weeks and will probably need another in the next 24 hours. She has an enlarged liver and spleen. She needs lots of testing and lots of attention to get to the bottom of this, and Dr. Peter has volunteered to do lots of followup work on her, but even the public hospital in Ouaga is more than she can afford and is understaffed anyway.
She would not even be able to go there were it not for the help we and others are providing her. Even so, the hospital has let her go without prescribed medication and much needed testing because she thought the money wasn't there for it (we had sent her more, but it hadn't arrived in her hands yet).
The doctors at the public hospital cannot keep up with all their patients, and every time Dr. Peter has gone to check on her there is a different doctor there and Dr. Peter has to bring him up to speed. Dr. Peter will some day, by God's grace, have a more proficient clinic to deal less expensively with cases like hers, but suggested off-handedly to me that if she had 1,000,000 CFA (about $2,000.00) she could get into a private clinic and start getting more consistent and focused care.
They are testing for many things right now; the scariest possibility is some form of blood cancer. Regardless she needs everyone to pray hard right now that God would heal her body. We are also praying that if it will make the difference between discovering what is wrong with her and thus saving her life, that God would then call his people together to provide for her the means to pay for a private clinic.
Would you please join us in praying to God, our provider, the great physician, to provide all of her needs?
If you are able, please make a small donation to help us get Angeline the help she needs.
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