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July
4, 2008
Dear Family and Friends,
Michael returned home to Mumba yesterday (July 3rd) after over
three weeks
away, so it seems to be a good time to give you an update
regarding his
mother.
Three days before Michael's parents and sister were to return to
the States,
his mother fell down three steps landing on her face on the
cement while we
were visiting in Kapenta, the village where we used to live in
the Rukwa
Valley. To call it a "fall" doesn't do it
justice. It was more like sky
diving without a parachute. She was unconscious for a
while and then was
semiconscious most of the next couple of days. She was
flown out to Nairobi
the next day along with her husband, her daughter Cindy, and
Michael. Lynn
and Shelby stayed back with the missionary friends we were
visiting, along
with the four boys who were living with us at the time, Jose,
Steven, Luka
and Shazzar. It was a relief to get her to a hospital in
Nairobi, Kenya,
but unfortunately she did not improve as we had hoped.
After almost two
weeks in the hospital there, she was discharged to the guest
house where
Michael and her family was staying. She was alert at
times, but not at all
oriented to her surroundings. Her memory was severely
impaired and even
walking was impossible for her without the help of two people.
On Thursday, June 26th, they went to the airport in Nairobi to
prepare for
the long trip home. She needed a wheelchair and they knew
it would be
difficult, but the need to get her back to the States to start
some type of
rehab seemed imperative. They checked in, went through
Passport Control and
Customs, received their boarding passes and were waiting to
board the plane
when a KLM official came to ask the nature of Mom's problem.
They had a
letter from the doctor which was quickly faxed to Amsterdam, but
the
response back was that they could not fly that night and needed
a certain
form filled out by a doctor before she would be allowed on the
airplane.
They took a bus back to the guest house where Michael was
staying until he
could get a flight back to Tanzania. Talk about a roller
coaster of
emotions!
The next day Michael took his mother to the hospital to get the
necessary
form filled out, and then went to the KLM office to try to get
on that
night's flight. The medical office in Amsterdam OK'ed her
to fly, but there
were now no seats on the airplane. They told Michael he
could leave and
they would call him if they could get them on, but he patiently
(as only
Michael can) sat there in the office with his Mom sitting there
unaware in a
wheelchair he "borrowed" from the hospital. I
got a couple phone messages
from him during that time, one saying "I am fighting the
good fight here at
KLM", and another saying "My Mom is showing them what
a good passenger she
can be." After several hours of waiting and the
people probably feeling
very sorry for this poor woman in the wheelchair, they finally
gave them
three seats on the plane for that night!
The two flights home were difficult for Mom, as she really
wasn't aware of
her surroundings at all. They were met in Chicago by her
daughter Sue and
Lynn's Mom who then drove them two hours to Spectrum Hospital in
Grand
Rapids, Michigan where she was admitted on Saturday night, June
28th, 19
days after her fall in Tanzania. We heard from Casey, our
daughter who just
returned to America after nine months of studying in Europe,
that Grandma
seemed to recognize her, but didn't call her by name. She
did ask Casey how
she had been, but didn't seem at all aware that she hadn't seen
her for
almost a year. Mom has no real memory of being in Africa.
I am writing this on July 4th (Happy Fourth of July to all you
Americans!)
and we just received word that she has left the hospital and
been admitted
to a sub acute rehab facility. The doctors are not exactly
sure why her
symptoms are continuing as they are. The final diagnosis
in the hospital
was post-traumatic brain injury. Along with the bleeding
around the brain,
she also has diffuse contusions of the brain with frontal lobe
dysfunction.
Her memory is impaired, as well as other functions. There
is really nothing
more medically that can be done - God and time are what is
needed at this
point. Pray that she will be able to understand the need
for rehab and that
God will give her the desire to get well.
Mom didn't magically get well just because she reached the
United States.
As we live here in a third world country, we begin to think that
everything
would be OK if we could just get to America. We think
sometimes things go
wrong here because we are so far away from
"civilization". This has been a
vivid reminder to us that our lives are in God's hands, here in
Tanzania as
well as there in America. God is in control and in that we
rest..
Thanks for your prayers for Mom and the family.
With love from Africa,
Mike, Lynn and Shelby (and Casey in America!)
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