The last week of February, I had my first official visitors! Deb and Brandy are good friends of mine from residency and are both practicing OB/GYN’s in Indianapolis. It was such a blessing to have them here. We had all been looking forward to it for months.
I had scheduled several surgeries for the week they were here in Kapsowar. Not all the patients showed up for surgery, but we had others show up in their place. In total, we did several tubal ligations, 3 vaginal hysterectomies, and a hysterectomy on a woman we thought might have ovarian cancer – it turned out to be a Krukenberg tumor (a cancer of the stomach that metastasizes to the ovaries). One of her ovaries weighed about 15 pounds!
One of our most interesting cases was a woman who came in with a fetal demise. She had had 3 prior C-sections, but with Deb and Brandy’s urging, we decided to let her labor to deliver this baby. The baby delivered easily, but I received a phone call from the nurses that after almost an hour, her placenta had still not yet delivered. Brandy and I headed into the hospital and attempted to extract the placenta. She had the most contracted pelvis I have ever felt (Brandy later concurred) and I could barely get my hand up to her uterus. I struggled for a long time to get the placenta. I looked at Brandy (my former mentor) and I could tell she was thinking “Come on Christina, what’s the problem?”. When my arm finally couldn’t do anymore, I turned to her and said “Wanna give it a try?” She was happy to oblige. She soon realized why I was struggling so much. We both had come to the same conclusion – she likely had a placenta accreta, a condition where the placenta is abnormally stuck to the uterus. This can lead to life-threatening hemorrhage. After struggling for several minutes, we decided she needed to go to theatre, possibly for a hysterectomy. When we got to theatre, her bleeding had started to increase and we decided to quickly attempt a D&C (scraping out the uterus) and if that didn’t work, to proceed with a hysterectomy. We were able to get the placenta out without doing a hysterectomy, but later decided we didn’t know that we really did her any favors, as any future pregnancy could be life-threatening. She was counseled at length about this and decided to have her tubes tied.
Besides the blessing that it was to have 2 other OB/GYN’s here to consult on various cases, it was so wonderful to have my friends here for encouragement and fellowship. It was also really great to show people from home this place I have come to love and the work that God is doing here. I pray that it was a worthwhile time for them. Their first night, we had dinner at Ednah’s (my house helper) house. It was a great cultural experience for them – both having dinner in an authentic Kenyan home and walking back in the rain. We had a great time getting to see Kapsowar and even though I was sick during part of the time, they were adventurous on their own – hiking down to the river and back up the long tarmac road (see my blog about my first long walk in Kapsowar) while getting drenched in the rain.
They spent a total of one week here in Kapsowar and while I didn’t want them to leave, the next week we went on safari, so that was something to look forward to. I appreciate so much their willingness to use their vacation time to come here and serve and I appreciate those who sent things with them to encourage me! I love my St. Vincent family!
Brandy and I operating together 
The 3 of us with Laura Rhodes 
Deb and Brandy with Michal and her husband, William, wearingthe gifts they received 
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