Chopped by a Boat Prop!

On Wednesday MAF got a call from the village of Mahak Baru, a one and a half hour flight from Tarakan. A 14 year old boy had somehow gotten up against a running boat propeller and got chopped up pretty good on his backside. He was bleeding heavily, and obviously needed medical attention. I was glad to be able to take him back to Tarakan, though the weather proved to be very challenging with massive, intense thunderstorms and brilliant displays of lightning. Just after the kid was loaded into the plane I snapped the pic below. Didn't take a pic of the kid--he probably wouldn't have appreciated it, and you probably wouldn't have wanted to see it.

Speaking of needing medical attention, the past couple of weeks have been a bit "trying" for our family, as we've faced a seemingly endless list of sicknesses and medical problems. It started with Joy getting a bad head cold that just wouldn't go away. While she still had that, I threw my back out, resulting in three days of missed work (the first time I've missed a day for "sickness" since being in Indonesia.) As bad as the intense pain was, perhaps even worse was the feeling of total helplessness as I was condemned to lie flat hour after hour, and seemingly day after day.

Then, while I was still down, and Joy still fighting the cold, Britton began to complain of bad pain in his leg. Seeing nothing obvious, we told him basically to buck up. I know, in retrospect it was the wrong advice, since the next morning his entire lower leg was swollen, red, and splotchy, with a white puss-filled hole in the middle. And now he had a fever to boot. After a trip to the doc, it was determined that whatever had bitten him had caused an infection that was now in his bloodstream. He was down and out for several days. Meantime, Hudson developed a weird and unidentified growth on his stomach that began to ooze puss and blood. And Joy was having strong recurring pain and aches in her joints and muscles--something she'd had pretty consistently the past several months until she was "diagnosed" with TB and began taking the medication last month.

Basically, the only healthy people in the house were Hannah and the twins. A week after Britton's initial infection, he got another fever that wouldn't go away. Again a trip to the doctor, and again an infection in the bloodstream--or perhaps the same one that never went away?? Down again. And finally it was the twins' turn. Yesterday Tanner got sick. After losing supper three times last night, and again this morning, he still has a fever late this afternoon. And it seems that Tyler is just starting to pick it up now as well.

Yes, we're growing a bit weary of the sickness thing. Being sick here is not as "easy" as being sick in the U.S., where the doctors speak English, seem to understand a bit better what's going on, and prescribe well-known medications. None-the-less, we have a lot to be thankful for. Hey, at least we didn't get chopped up by a boat prop! And in a few days or weeks, hopefully this will all be over and we'll be back to normal. In the meantime, thanks for praying for us. We sure do appreciate it! :)