For the past two months, few days have passed when I have not been turned to or called upon as squad mates find themselves with random health issues. I have assessed, chosen treatment for, and monitored everything from mild stomach bugs to funky rashes to spider bites to parasites to bowel issues…this list could go on.
And I love it.
I remember the exact moment I felt called to be a nurse. I had seen pictures of a friend on a medical mission trip in which she was holding a small child in a makeshift medical clinic. In that moment, something clicked, and I can pinpoint that moment as one of the few times in life that I felt 100% confident in what God was calling me to do. So I bounded up the stairs and told my mom I had made a “life-changing decision!” and was going to become a nurse.
From that moment on, I never once doubted that call. I know that God has called me to care for the sick in whatever form He asks me to.
Fast forward 5 and a half years…
…through learning to really study for the first time in classes like chemistry and microbiology; through searching desperately as doors slammed in my face trying to work out logistics of timing and location for nursing school; through the HOURS I would spend preparing for a single clinical or studying for a test, all while making new best friends in nursing school; through the incredibly overwhelming first year of nursing on a high-energy adult cardiac unit, and the many valuable skills and lessons I learned along the way; through the irreplaceable love, financial support, and friendships that I built on that unit that helped get me where I am today…
…and I am gasping and crying. Sitting on a dirty mattress. In the middle of a one-room, dirt-floor shack constructed of pieces of trash. Surrounded by piles of garbage, swarming with flies and mosquitos. Human and animal waste litters the small patch of dirt outside. Buckets of unclean water sit at random, waiting to be used for drinking or bathing.
In front of me sits a tiny little grandmother, or “abuela”. She has been sick since November, when she went to the hospital and was told she had a GI bacterial infection. Three months later, she is still bedridden most of the time, crippled by the pains of nausea, diarrhea, chest and abdominal pain, and fever. Her daughter tries to care for her sometimes, but is often gone for long lengths of time. We hear some of her own family’s story, which is a terrifying tale of incestuous rape, prostitution, HIV, drug abuse, domestic and community violence, and alcoholism.
Ever since coming on the Race, I happily and frequently step into the roll of being a team or squad nurse when needed, but was imagining I would have more notice for nursing in ministry…you know, time to prepare myself. So I am caught off guard as I find myself slipping into my nursing role and assessing the patient, the situation, the resources, the medicine taken, the patient’s symptoms, the patient’s diet….you nurses know the drill. And sitting here assessing this little abuela, I am feeling progressively more distressed and hopeless.
She is itchy and jaundiced, obvious signs of liver failure, but has been given Tylenol to take for pain. She had been given a bag of IV fluid to administer at home (I still can’t comprehend what in the world would prompt a hospital to do this) but of course could not start an IV so she drank a bag of IV fluid and medication. She has long since run out of the medicines they gave her for treatment and symptom relief, and can’t keep food down WHEN it is available. Her symptoms indicate anything from GERD to infection to heart and liver failure to who-knows-what.
The decision is made that we will go into town to the pharmacy and buy her more medication. Several pairs of eyes are on me to make a game plan.
And all of a sudden, as I sit there rubbing our abuela’s back, I look away from everyone to try and process what is going on and what to do, and I LOSE IT. My brain is a tornado of fear, anger, uncertainty, and desperation as I try to process through the horror of this woman’s past and how in the world I am supposed to help her in her present.
All I can think of is every resource I don’t have and every detail I don’t know. The number one rule of caring for the sick is do no harm. How am I supposed to make suggestions to “help” someone when I have nary a clue what the problem really is? Can’t I please just call a doctor and hit a few buttons on a computer and have labs and diagnostic tests done STAT? What do I do, knowing that my decision could in fact actually cause her more harm or pain? Sitting here crying and snotting everywhere and just generally drawing a lot of unwanted attention to myself, I feel completely defeated.
Luckily, one of my team mates, Becki, is right beside me and grabs my crying face and encourages me, reminding me that God put me here and would show me what to do. She reminds me that I had already said I hoped God would use my nursing skills on this trip, and to have confidence in Him. We begin praying over the patient, BEGGING God to just show up and get stuff done, and that I would have discernment for how to help.
Long and really amazing story short: I was able to speak to a pharmacist that spoke some English and devise what I felt was a fairly reasonable approach with what I knew of her situation. We purchased the medications, and a World Racer alumni that has moved to Honduras, Cassie, and I took it back to her with instructions later that day.
The amazing part: we went back to visit her the next day, and she was up, washing clothes, sweeping, smiling, and proclaiming that she had no pain or discomfort whatsoever for the first time in months. She was praising God and saying He had sent us to her, and that she hoped we would receive 100 times over the blessing we had given her. The first day we saw her, she could hardly sit up in bed; the next day, she refused to even sit down, and she grinned and hurried around her little shack and yard, proclaiming God’s faithfulness for anyone who would listen.
As I prayed and processed through all of this later, it hit me that God had planned this little divine appointment of ours since before time began; that part of the reason He had called me to nursing, sent me to nursing school, and had me work with a variety of patients was to prepare me to help that woman in that moment. I didn’t have ANY medical information to work with: no lab work, no diagnostic tests, no other nurses to lean on, no doctors to call, no textbooks…nothing.
All I had was a calling to care for a sick, crying, abandoned, elderly lady in a run-down shack in the middle of one of the poorest and most dangerous slums in Central America. You want to talk about learning to lean on God and have faith in the Great Physician?
To the nurses and doctors back home: please, please recognize how blessed you are to have such infinite resources at your fingertips. I know some of the politics surrounding it all can be a headache, but at the end of the day it is all SUCH a blessing.
But more importantly, DON’T underestimate the power of God to step in and blow you away. He is just sitting there waiting for you to call on Him, both in a situation where you feel desperate AND in every encounter. This little abuela will always hold a special place in my heart, and I can’t wait to see how God steps in and takes over any time I just surrender and let Him.
