Afi

I would like to introduce you to my friend Afi. “Afi” is a common name in the Mina culture in Togo. I am even known in the hospital as Afi because I was born on a Friday, just like this sweet girl. I first heard of Afi when I came back to the ship after being out with the screening team. It was one of our last screening days in April and a difficult day having to turn away so many we could not help. I heard a little girl was having emergency surgery that afternoon we had seen at screening. None of us on the team knew of Afi, but the pieces of puzzle slowly came together.

Afi and her mama were pulled out of the massive crowds and told to take a taxi straight to the ship. The tumor inside her mouth was making it difficult for her to breathe. Dr. Gary performed a tracheotomy, which allowed Afi to breathe through a temporary tube in her neck. As she recovered in ICU, we discovered more about Afi. She was referred to us earlier in the year by a missionary doctor, but because of the poor prognosis of the tumor we said we could not help with surgery. Her determined mama, Ama, still brought her to the screening and now she was on the ship. Surgery to remove the oral mass was delayed because she came down with a serious infection. At this point, Afi was still a mystery to me, I knew of her, but why did God put her on my heart. Why did God bring her here when we can’t help? The infection finally cleared and I was able to visit her on the ward. We colored and looked through Bible storybooks together. Her mama nicknamed me Afi Grand and she was Afi Petite. One Sunday night, I was paged for an emergency surgery. I rushed down to ICU where I saw Ama praying and watching her daughter struggle to breathe. I held onto terrified Afi with tears streaming down both our faces as she was fighting to take in oxygen. We quickly worked in the operating room to ease her struggle and placed a new tube to help her breathe around the tumor. Afi was stable so the doctors decided to go ahead with surgery the following week. Less than two hours, the mass was out and Afi was on her way to recovery. I would make daily visits and Afi was your typical little girl, excited to get her nails painted and happy to play with my hair. She was breathing and eating like there was never anything preventing her to do so. On May 16th, Afi was discharged from the hospital; it happened to be her 6th birthday. If they had not come to screening a month before, Afi would have not made it to her birthday. I escorted Ama and Afi down the gangway, wondering the prognosis for my little friend. I don’t know the details of the pathology report, but I do know that Afi was given more days to live and will be in my heart forever, after all we do share the same name.