Lievaart in Kenya
Greetings from Tenwek,
As we are in this season of Advent, I wish you all a Merry Christmas.
It has been a while since I have sent an update. Please forgive my lack of communication. From mid-September to mid-November, I added teaching to my already busy schedule. I love being in the classroom but it does make me super busy.
This is the 3rd year of our critical care nurses program. Year 1 was busy writing lectures in the morning and giving them in the afternoon. Year 2 was getting into stride and this year I feel like we have started to finesse the program. Additional finessing is happening as the program length has been extended from 1 year to 2 years. This news came to me halfway through the 8 weeks of teaching in the middle of a 2-hour class. I went from covering 15 slides in the first hour to 2 in the next. In our first 2 years, about half the students had ICU experience. Our current class has very little so the extra time is helpful. A joy of teaching is the results, many of the staff in ICU our graduates from the previous classes, its great to work with these individuals.
In addition to teaching, I still do some patient care. This is when I love to be wrong. When it comes to patients I can be a pessimist. I think it is a bit of self-protection so I don’t get too attached to patients. At times I look at a patient and think they are not going to survive. This happened last month. I met the patient by looking at a message on my phone. The team had posted a chest x-ray to the group and I along with others were concerned – this child had a pneumothorax, sometimes called a collapsed lung. This was the beginning of a lot of time spent with this toddler. Increasing respiratory support, trips to CT. Putting a tube in and watching her oxygen levels be super low until we completely paralyzed her. At this point I did not think she would survive the weekend -she did, she got better, then sick again, and I thought she was not going to make it. Then she got better again. Now she’s been a few days without support from the ventilator. Her mom is holding her, she is awake and interacting with the world. She is crying – I love to hear her cry. I love it when I am wrong. Please continue to pray for a complete recovery for her. After a month in the ICU she will need time to get back to normal. She may never have strong lungs to be the next Kenyan Marathoner but I pray that she will have a normal life. I am so glad I was wrong.
As the year comes to an end I am thankful for the prayer and support of all of you. The financial support has allowed me to live and work here and help with various supplies and projects. Here is a list of what you have helped support
7 new (to us) ventilators and their parts, donation. 2 of these are for our new ER. Samaritans Purse was also a big part of this donation covering most of the costs. Our part was getting the consumable parts.
Humidifiers and parts for high-flow oxygen delivery helping us to avoid long ventilator use
Funds to pay needy patient bills
Oxygen connectors, piping and all that expensive boring stuff that we need to get oxygen from the plant to the patient
Bible study materials for our Interns
Transportation costs for me to attend weddings, meetings, and help new missionaries on arrival
Other things to help with teaching or supporting the hospital with some helpful equipment.
Thank you so much for your prayers and ongoing support. I know a few of you mail cheques in December. With the Canada post strike if you need donations in the 2024 tax year please consider exploring the other methods of donation to avoid any unnecessary disruption:
Website: The website is able to accept donations through card or paypal! Click here to head to our website.
E-transfer: IATW accepts interac e-transfers to the accounting email: accounts@iatw.ca. If you use this method, please add a note indicating where your donation is to go and provide your contact information for income tax receipt purposes.
Pre-Authorized Deposit: If you send a monthly donation and would like to have it automatically deposited from your account to ours, please send an email to: andrea@iatw.ca. Andrea can arrange to set up a monthly pre-authorized deposit.
God Bless.
Annette Lievaart
