26 January 2010 – Tuesday

Not the best day we have had on our mission. Mary woke feeling terrible and believed she had developed a hernia. To make a long day short, we spent all of it at the doctor’s office or in the Richards Bay hospital. After a number of tests and a CAT Scan it was determined she did have a hernia and they admitted her to the hospital so she could have surgery tomorrow.

Today’s Tender Mercies…

Although it was hard to see them while they were happening, there were many tender mercies showered upon us today. Elder Reeder, Tsegula along with Khulekani came down from Enselini and gave her a blessing. Khulekani anointed for the first time and it showed me that we needed to work with him on ordinances so when he will be prepared when he goes on his mission. I count that as two TM.

Dr. Kelling, Mary’s surgeon, is very nice and told her that he would give her some medication to try and reduce the hernia so he would not have to operate. It turned out not to work but it gave us a feeling that he would not operate unless he really needed to.

Dr. Kelling wanted to make sure it was a hernia so he asked for a CAT scan. The first nurse we talked to at the x-ray department said we would have to come back tomorrow, but another nurse came by a little later and said they could do it today and gave Mary a barium milkshake that she had to take over a 2 hour period. She also said that it would cost about R6600 – that is about $750 US. Later when we came back and Mary had the scan it turned out that they did not have to use the dye so it only cost about half that. As we were waiting for the scan to be ready so we could take it to Dr. Kelling, I decided I would speed things up so I asked if I could pay for it. As I was waiting for the cashier, a doctor walked by and asked what I was waiting for and when I told him he went up to the window and told them to help me right now. The scan had been sitting there just waiting for the cashier to get around to asking for payment. As I was paying I told Mary to take the scan and go to Dr. Kellings office. When she got there it was closed but a very helpful nurse paged him and he had Mary put in an emergency room until he could look at the scan. There are a number of TM in this part of the story.

The hospital will of course not let you be admitted unless there is some way you can guarantee payment. I was on my way home to get some things that Mary would need when she was admitted and they called to say that I needed to come back so they could work out how the bill would be guaranteed. I told them the mission would guarantee payment and gave them the office number. When they called wonderful sister Johnson told them the mission would be happy to guarantee the payment and I think sent them a fax to that affect. Since we have more than enough credit on our mission account to see us through the rest of the mission, the amount of the hospital bill should just about make us even by July when we go home. Another TM..

The last one was getting her a bed. The hospital was jammed but it turned out one patient went home late in the afternoon so all we needed to do was wait until they sanitized the bed and then they took Mary up. So all in all it was a day where we learned patience and where the Lord blessed us through our suffering.

As I prayed I remembered to give thanks for Christ’s love and for His taking upon Himself our sins and sorrows. While this will reduce what we can do over the next few weeks, it will not cause us to go home early so we can hopefully fulfill whatever the Lord sent us here to do.