DO I HAVE A STORY TO TELL!
Many of you know I am a diabetic. Just before we left camp last evening I took an insulin shot because my blood sugar was a bit high. Little did I know that we would be caught in a traffic jam for over 3 hours. After several hours of travel I began to feel the effects of low blood sugar. I looked in my bag for some sweets, but there were none to be found and no one in van had any either. I thought “I will just tough it out until we reach home and then have a soda”, but somewhere along the road I passed out. Problem was, no one in the van knew I was passed out for a half an hour. When we reach the Worldcomp house and they tried to wake me I was unresponsive. I opened my eyes when they pulled on me but I was unconscious. Everyone freaked out. Women and children were crying everywhere. They quickly rushed me to the hospital, carried me up the stairs and put me on a gurney. When they picked me up I instinctively struggled with them, making their job much harder. I remember part of it in my head like some terrible nightmare. Finally they had to give me an injection to calm me down. Following that they put me on a glucose drip and in about 15 minutes I came to and responded. I felt so sorry for all my Kenyan friends, because the event was a serious trauma for them. One of them said “I hope this is not what has to happen to get us to pray for you, by the time I woke the news about my situation had reached all over Kenya. So today I have been at work reassuring everyone that I am O.K. I feel perfectly fine now but never again will I be unprepared!
One thing about the hospital; When they saw I was a white foreigner they took the liberty to perform about 25 different blood tests and several other unnecessary tests. Dr. George said; “It’s there way of letting foreigners know that they appreciate their cash”. After I was completely recovered a nurse came in and said; “We can’t give you any food because we are going to do a CAT scan on your brain”. I immediately said “I am sorry, but I have to refuse it! This is a completely unnecessary expense”. When I announced that I was “Checking myself out” in a few hours, I was informed that a person cannot just “Check themselves out in Kenya”. You have to be released by a doctor. I informed them that I was indeed going to check myself out so please prepare the bill. After a bit of wrestling they realized that I was not going to be intimidated, and they relented but they went into “slow motion” and took 3 hours to prepare the bill.
I have to laugh! Oh what fun it is to have experiences like this. It’s great material for the book I should write.
As far as medical camp goes, today was another great day. Our final camp for now! Dr. George and the team will now inventory the left over drugs for the mini-camps that we will have in the next few months. Some of the drugs will be donated to our network partners who work together with us in our camps. With each passing camp more and more medical professional are becoming “members” of Worldcomp. Becoming a member means that you are signing up to work with us on future projects. Our list of volunteer medics is now over 200. We also have two completely different groups now, one for Nairobi and one for Western Kenya.
God is so good! In spite of last night’s bizarre events, I am so blessed and thankful for all that has been accomplished. And I am so proud of our Worldcomp Staff. I have no words to describe their commitment to the work of the Lord.
I’ll be sending my last post from Kenya tomorrow. Thank you again dear friend for your email response and words of encouragement.
All my love
Richard