VVF patients suffer from fistulas - or punctures, holes, tears- that are in the rectal wall or bladder due to prolonged labor or trauma in the vagina. Often times a woman who is impregnated at an early age before the pelvis has had time to form will suffer from prolonged labor. These women often give birth to stillborn children after having been in prolonged labor for three to ten days. The stress creates these obstetric fistulas.
Because they are constantly leaking urine or feces, they become outcasts in society. They not included in society because they smell, because they are seen as failures in the one thing that will give them validation in their society - to be a mother.
We have about twenty of these VVF ladies in the ward right now. Last Sunday, during ward church service, two of them were sent home because they had been cured. Dressed in a beautiful new gown, Mary stood up, she sang a song of worship and started walking outside of the hospital. Where was she going? She wandered out of the ward doors and then took the hands of a big, smiling moustached white man. She held those hands, so precious in her own. They were the hands that cured her. Dr. Steve grinned from ear to ear, a bit embarrassed, but a glimmer of a tear crept up to his eyes. Mary gave thanks to God for what He did through Dr. Steve.
From the last VVF screening, here are some healed and happy ladies. (And my friends Zoe and Doris, Liberian dayworkers - second from left and third from left - whom I have taught how to knit, and are now teaching the VVF patients)
Tonight, there was a screening of A Walk to Beautiful. The movie focuses on three to four VVF patients in Ethiopia who travel at least six hours by foot to the nearest road, then take at least a 15 hour bus journey to the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. There, they meet women who have also been left by husbands, rejected in their own homes, and shut out from society. They receive physical healing, but also psychological support. (Incidentally, Dr. Steve also worked at this center for 3 years. He is not in the film, but his dog appears briefly!)
In one scene, a group of women are sitting around knitting. In fact, all of them are swaddled in colorful, garter stitched patchwork blankets. Several of the nurses turned to me during the film and smiled. My roommate Ellen yelled, 'Hey Michelle, have you been there?' To me, it was a small sign that I am in the right place right now. And that kind of 'knowing' is a relief in life, no matter how big or small that what I thought I would be doing here, is what I am really suppose to be doing. And let's not forget, after all, we are 'knitted' in our mothers' wombs!
No comments:
Post a Comment