So last month we introduced you to Samantha, the monkey that was given to us as a gift. Well..... Samantha climbed up the chimney of her cage and got out. We all saw her in the top of the chimney and tried to lure her down with bananas but it did not work. Now she is free! There have been some sightings over the past two weeks. Maybe it is not all that bad as we have heard some really scary monkey attack stories from friends!
Now on to our cat Mina. So Mina is a girl and was frequently going into heat. We (or should I say me, Mark) did not want any more pets around so we decided to get her fixed. A friendly vet came to visit from Kampala and was able to spay her at our house, on the kitchen table. It was a fun experience for some to have a front row view of the surgery.
Two days after the surgery she pulled out her stitches and the wound came open. We tried pinning her down to resuture it but either the needle was super dull or her skin is made of Kevlar. Needless to say it did not go too well. The following day we resorted to superglue and that seemed to do the trick.
And finally Jack our puppy. About three weeks ago he ran under our tire as we were pulling in. We thought it was only some minor scratches as things seemed painful but relatively straight. A few days later things looked a bit worse. We were not sure if his rear hip was out of joint. We called the local vet who came over and anesthetized him. He found that his femur was broken and he casted it. All seemed well. Later that evening Christine got me as Jack was unresponsive with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. His heart rate was high and his gums were grey. We put an IV in and gave him a fluid bolus (employing PALS on the dog) and he perked right up. Unfortunately his IV fell out and we could not find another site as he was quite dehydrated and shocky.
Hailey then suggested that we try to give him some fluids in the scruff of his neck. This is called hyperdermoclysis (now veering off of PALS protocol). Hailey had done it in the past with some of her other dogs. We gave him a good bit of fluid this way but it was not quite fast enough to resuscitate him. I tried putting a catheter in his femoral vein but it also was not working.
We pulled the kids together and brought Jack inside. After about 3 hours of work it seemed we were not getting anywhere. We said our goodbyes and prayed together. Sitting there I thought.... well there is one more thing (back to PALS now). I had some large 16 gauge needles and I was able to put one into his good femur as an intraosseous line (thanks to some quick Google assistance). Once we started pushing fluid into it he perked up and yelped. We watcher him for a bit and put some more IV fluid in before taking the line out for the night. Hailey then kindly stayed with him through the night helping him actually drink some milk!
The next morning we were all shocked he was alive. His bad leg swelled up a lot so we had to remove the cast before his foot exploded. After that we were making splints for him for the following 3 weeks.
Now some of you may be thinking.... why is this missionary telling us all about his pets? Why is he not talking about what he is doing with the church?
And some of the psychoanalysts in the group may be saying.... Ahhh he is talking about his pets. What are the feelings that are behind all of this. This is fascinating. Let's delve into this a bit further.....
I think these situations with the pets can give a glimmer of what life can be like here. Life is fragile. You have something good one day and the next day it is gone. You are struggling as you work outside your culture with limited or different resources. Things sometimes just do not go as planned and when the plan fails it seems the consequences are bigger.
There are many times that our social life is like that here. Some of these events are similar to the relationships and struggles that we work through in the church and in the community. The difficult thing is it is hard to write about those issues either for the sake of protection of privacy or for the fact that I frankly have no idea what is going on!
Hopefully this post was both enlightening and beneficial as it will give you ways to pray for us, our pets and those we work with.
p.s. Thanks Jacques, Brenda, Antoine, Genevieve and Madeleine Tibean for the fun letter! We all enjoyed it. And thanks to all the others for the letters and packages. They are a big encouragement. And not this was not a subtle hint.
