Norm

In my sociology class in college, we were given the project to go against a norm in society. We could do any anything for the experiment; nothing illegal, just to allow us to observe what happens when we change the normalcy of life. I still remember my norm for that week, when people asked me the common question- “How are you?” I responded with more than just the expected “Good, thanks. How are you?”. Sometimes, I offered a sad reply or a lengthy explanation why life is wonderful at the moment. Majority of the time, I would receive the usual response, a head nod or “That’s nice.” A few people actually listened which forced them to go against the norm. To this day, I still go against the norm when it comes to the “How are you?” question, because I know I am more than just fine as my patients often remind me.

So the norm these days for me have been working a pretty consistent 8-5 schedule in the operating room, on-call often, eating meals with the same people, doing the identical routine around the ship. Its half way through the outreach and a lot of us are feeling worn out after what feels like running a marathon the past six months. Life and work can become so routine, that I lose sight of our mission. My daily interactions with patients remind me why I am here. One evening, taking the OR laundry down the corridor, I ran into one of our plastics patients after a dressing change. “How d’body, papa?” I asked. He looked up and smiled, even through the pain, and answered, “Tell Papa God tenke.” I thanked God for that smile and prayed for a quick healing for his wound. A similar response came from one of our cataract patients. It was a busy day in the OR with only half the nurses we needed to finish the list of 30 cataracts. After the procedure, I was placing the eye patch over her telling her “Operation done done, Mama. How d’body?” I knew I only had seconds before going on to the next patient, but what a blessing to hear. “Tell Papa God tenke.”

The past couple weeks, I have been in “Hernia Land” where we do eight or so operations a day. One right after the next, I check in Abraham, then Mohammed, then Alimamy, and so on. They go home the next day as I am checking in others for surgery- I see relief on their face and they give me hugs or handshakes, and I hear their echoes of, “Tell Papa God tenke.” Just today, I was delivering my second hernia patient to recovery, when one of the nurses handed over to me our first hernia patient- five month old, Abu Bakar. Sweet, chubby, and he fit perfectly in my arms. However, I knew it was his time to go back to the ward. I had just a few minutes before we would be calling for our third patient, so I took him down the corridor myself to take advantage of some snuggle time. In A ward, I found mama sitting in Bed 20 and her face transformed from worry to joy in the second I handed over Abu to her. I told her “Abu’s operation is fine fine” and my heart agreed when she responded. “Tell Papa God tenke.”