Friday, April 27, 2012

Hope Happens! (Part II)

More miraculous stories from Bongolo Hospital:

Eight year-old Leticia’s story is even more amazing.  Her mother brought her to the hospital in early February with a CT scan showing a tumor filling most of the right lobe of her liver.   Dr. Keir Thelander operated on Leticia with a visiting surgeon and several of our residents.  Near the end of the  4 hour procedure, during which the surgeons removed the entire right half of her liver, the small bile duct from the remaining left lobe was injured.  Dr. Keir was able to repair it and leave a soft plastic drain in place. It immediately began to drain bile from the liver to a sterile collecting bag.  Leticia did very well post-operatively, but by two weeks she was draining 400 to 500 cc of bile a day.  This could not go on indefinitely.
             
During her hospitalization, both Leticia and her mother prayed to receive Christ.  The sparkling joy of this little girl after she received Jesus was extraordinary.  Visiting her when we made our daily surgery rounds was the brightest spot in the day! 

About a month after her operation we decided to take Leticia back to surgery  to stop the leak.  We knew this would be extremely difficult and dangerous.  That weekend, however, her drain unexpectedly fell out, even though it had been sutured to her skin!  The surgical team received the news with deep foreboding.  Nevertheless, that night Leticia did fine, and in the morning the nurses reported that nothing was leaking from the hole in her side where her drain had been!  On rounds she smiled and insisted that she was pain-free and hungry!  A follow-up ultrasound showed no bile collection outside of her liver.  Two weeks later she was totally asymptomatic and doing well, so we discharged her from the hospital, acknowledging that the Lord had done something extraordinary to preserve her life.  This week she came back for a follow up visit, and again appeared to be in perfect health.  The pathologist who reviewed the liver tissue from her tumor reported it was a “hepatic sarcoma,” a rare tumor in children that usually recurs.
            
Cases, like this one, encourage us to trust God to help us with difficult and complex operations, even though our resources are small. It is a privilege to help these who come to us, and to share with them the love and light of Jesus before it’s too late.

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