Jeaus still heals on the Sabbath

Ok, I know that our Sunday is not really the "Sabbath" that was recognized in the Bible but it is what we know as our own 'day of rest'. So....as people were sitting around waiting for the docs to get back from hospital rounds so we could start our worship service, people were discussing Jesus healing on the Sabbath. Then out of the blue, I heard Grace yelling, "Pat, Amanda, Gale..." repeatedly. I walked out of my dorm room and asked what was up? Grace replied, "There is a patient at the hospital who has been stabbed in the chest and Suleman wants to open him up and take a look."

What?? Crack a chest here? In the DR? With our limited supplies? No way!
Yes way! So, I began to frantically search for Gale, the more experienced scrub tech, (remember, I don't do this for a living) but couldn't find her anywhere! :(
My mind began to scan what I knew we had: no rib retractors, no bone cutters, no wire, no drill. Then I realized Dr. Sadiq knew this too, so he must be planning to go in between the ribs. That we could do! (Where in the world is GALE!) She still couldn't be found.


However, I did find Amanda, still in her pajamas coming out of the bathroom after just brushing her teeth. I followed her to her room and told her we had a trauma that they wanted us to come and do right away. She thought I was joking, trying to get her back for taking my name tag and hiding it the day before. After convincing her this was NOT a joke, and giving her just enough time to change into some clothes, we headed to the hospital. They would hold the worship service until the afternoon when we would likely be back.

Once at the hospital, I pulled together what I thought Dr. Sadiq would need: a thyroid instrument set (just right for a heart surgery, right?), large richardson retractors, suction and tubing, cautery..just the basics. Grace had brought in some chest tubes and a drainage system that she has carried back and forth in the 'tubs' for years and have never needed. In fact, Dr. Sadiq told her not to bring them this year and use the space for 'something else we would NEED'. Thanks, Grace for bringing them after all.

We brought the patient to the OR, we called him Marty, but his name was something like Miguelez Sontana (I couldn't really read the chart clearly). Everyone, including Teo, the Dominican physician, scrubbed in and we started. It was truly amazing to watch Dr. Sadiq work. There were 3 stab wounds; 2 were superficial and didn't enter the chest cavity but the third went directly into the heart muscle and left a 2 inch wound. If it had gone even 1 to 2 cm deeper the man would have died on the spot from profuse bleeding from the left ventricle. We didn't have pledgets (little pieces of special fabric to keep sutures from hurting tissue) to use to support sutures (if you sew directly into the heart muscle it will just tear through it like butter) so Dr. Sadiq slowly cut away portions of the pericardium (lining around the heart) and made his own pledgets. Then he JUST sewed together the muscle of a beating heart like it was making brownies. When we asked him if he had ever done anything like this before, he calmly and confidently said, "No, I did a bypass on a beating heart once and didn't really like that technique, so I always had my patients put on pump bypass for surgery." Seriously! I would never have know that he didn't do this type of surgery every day.

After the heart was sewn back together, we placed a 36fr chest tube and connected it to gravity suction. The patient was stable and we transported him to recovery; meaning a small hot room with no IV pole, a portable oxygen tank and 2 recovery room nurses who had no ICU experience. Thankfully, they were very experienced nurses, however, and did a great job of keeping him stable. In the states, 'Marty' would have had a central line in place, an arterial line in place, been on continuous cardiac monitoring and had blood cultures drawn for antibiotic treatment, I'm sure. We hung his IV on the nail in the wall, put him on nasal cannula 02, and took his pulse and blood pressure the 'old fashioned way'. He did get antibiotics, since the knife used to stab him was undoubtedly not too clean. We all silently and continually prayed for him then went back to camp for a late lunch.

Upon arrival to the hospital the next day, I went directly to the 'recovery/ICU' room to check on Marty. He had a fever and his heart was racing pretty fast. The recovery room nurses jumped into action. By mid afternoon he was doing much better.Rita, one of the nurses in the recovery , even found a spyrometer to have him use to keep from getting pneumonia.

Later in the afternoon, Milton, one of the men who shares the gospel with patients, stopped by to speak to Marty. At report that night, Grace shared that Marty had listened to Milton and had accepted Christ. Unfortunately, he also said he wanted to get revenge on the man who did this to him. (Marty was supposedly just stepping in to break up a fight at the bar when he was stabbed).

Throughout the week, Marty continued to improve. By Wednesday afternoon when we left, he was eating and drinking and able to walk around the room. Praise the Lord!

Thank you God, for still healing on the Sabbath!