$2 Surgery…

Here I am laying on a church stage that is covered in ants,
one hand on Hailey’s knee and my other hand in Erin’s hand for support. Seang,
our translator, has a Swiss army knife in one hand and a needle in the other. I
can’t decide whether I want to laugh or cry. Seang begins to cut my skin open,
right there on the stage, and use the needle to get rocks and gravel out of my
hand.

The question that is
going through my mind is-Am I really about to let my translator conduct surgery
on my hand right here on this church stage?

EARLY THAT DAY…

Elle and I woke up at 6 a.m. to go for our usual morning
run. We were running along on the side of the road, that was a mix of loose
gravel and pavement. Next thing I know, and I am still not sure how it
happened, but I am arms out in front of me skidding across the pavement. I got
up quickly, or I would be hit by a bicycle, motorcycle, or car. Elle wasn’t
sure what happened, because it all happened so quickly, she asked if I needed
to stop and walk. For some reason I said no, all of a sudden I looked down and
my knee was bleeding, then I realized my hands felt like they where on fire. I
look at my hands and well they where not looking so great. Luckily we were
close to where we are living. I knew my hands and knee needed to be cleaned
out, but the idea of it made my entire body cringe. I tried cleaning the cuts
out with water, and cleaning wipes that came in our miniature first aid
kit-thank you AIM. Well, that was just not doing the trick; there was dirt and
gravel still in the cuts. Elle and I managed to rig up a bandage of some sort-I
use the word bandage loosely.

I arrived at ministry and our translator was not impressed
by how dirty the cuts where and well maybe by the bandage we had try to come up
with. Any ways, he insisted on taking me to the pharmacy to get something to
clean the cuts out-to say I was hesitant by this is an understatement. We
arrived at the pharmacy and the lady behind the counter tried to clean it with
rubbing alcohol that she happened to have right next to her, um no thanks. She
then insisted we buy, well I was not sure what we were buying exactly, but I
trusted my translator, who has no medical experience.

 

 

 

 We arrived back at the church and he used some of Hailey’s
anti bacterial hand sanitizer to clean off the Swiss army knife that was in his
pocket and a needle. Somewhere you would think that I would be hesitant to let
someone with no medical experience cut into my hand and remove
dirt/gravel/rocks from my hand, but some home I became very trusting-maybe it
was the rest of my team insisting that it was a good idea. Before I know it he
is cutting the already cut open wounds. Okay I can handle this maybe, THEN he
proceeded after removing things from each cut on my hand to pour IODEEN on the
wound and rub it with CAMBODIAN gauze. For those who would like to know what
Cambodia gauze is, imagine rough fabric, being rubbed on an open cut. This is
when tears began rolling down my face, while my entire, well almost entire
team, stood around me. Talk about humbling experience. After one hand he moved
to the next and then proceeded to my knee. The process took almost 45 minutes.
I would place it in the top 5 most painful experiences of my life so far, hands
down. I have told all of you this to tell you the story of…