the magical corridor

I haven't been very good at blog posts since I came back to Mercy Ships for this field service at the end of July.  I thought maybe it was about time I post something. So I decided that this time, I will share about a very magical place on the Africa Mercy. This place is the hospital corridor on Deck 3. It is less than one minute away from my room, and I get to go there every day.

  The hospital corridor, at the beginning of the field service, gets cleaned and re-cleaned prior to patients arriving. It sits spotless and silent in eager anticipation of the patients to come. 

  The patients slowly begin to arrive to the ship. They are brought up the gangway, down the stairs, and enter the corridor, looking down at the wards and nurses eager to welcome them to their temporary dwelling place. They quietly, timidly, and very politely, walk to their prospective wards depending on the surgery they will receive.

   Slowly but surely, the patients get comfortable in their surroundings, with the day crew and the nurses, with the community on the ward, with the showers and toilets with a vacuum flush more powerful and noisy than anything they may have heard before. They soon start to comfort each other and new patients as they come in.
Then the corridor transforms.
Soon it is full of patients and caregivers.
  It is bustling with nurses walking up and down to different wards, back and forth to the lab, to radiology, to pharmacy.
  Day crew going back and forth to the clean utility room for dishes, to laundry for clean sheets,  sanitizing med cups and kidney basins, making bread and butter snacks for the post-op patients.
Patients being walked down the hallway toward the OR, accompanied by day crew and a nurse with their arm lovingly wrapped around them, dispelling their fears and praying for them. Then, being wheeled back on a stretcher from recovery to their ward.
  Plastics patients walk with the dressings nurse to get their dressings changed. As they get more comfortable, you will often find the plastics patients out in the hallway, playing games with each other. Bandaged arms, necks, legs. Splints holding limbs straight. Not letting their ailments hold them back from the entertainment they can dream up in this corridor. Finding a doorway to hide in and jumping out at the next unsuspecting person to walk by, attacking them with tickles and laughter. Walking into a different ward and hiding in there until the nurse discovers them playing games and chatting with other patients and caregivers. Walking over to the office to chat with and help the Ward Admin Assistant with some tasks. Maybe getting a couple stickers in return.

  Max Fac patients, who walked onto the ship with large facial tumors threatening to block their airway, hiding behind a scarf out of shame, walk confidently down the hallways post-op, tumor-free, with their NG tubes in place. Nurses are often by their sides, making them smile and laugh, throwing their arm around them like old friends, embracing them when they are tired or sad or hurting. The babies with cleft lips and palates are carried by their mothers, or grandmothers, or the nurses or day crew. They are never left alone, they are too loved and too beautiful to be overlooked or left in bed on the ward. Their smiles must be shared from ward to ward down that magical corridor.
  The obstetric fistula ladies walk up and down the length of the corridor, at least twice a day. They tie up their gowns, carry their catheters, and walk in a group up and down, up and down. They sing a song as they walk. Songs of praise and worship to God, who is always faithful. Their songs can be heard from the floors above, resonating throughout the ship. They are not just songs. They have meaning, and lift up patients, day crew, and crew of the AFM. There is always a reason to be thankful, always a reason to be joyful, always a reason to sing.
  The ortho kids. They take their first steps on straight legs in this corridor. They start out slowly and with much objection at first.  But soon, they are walking confidently with their walkers, on bilateral leg casts up to their thighs, slamming the walker and taking a step, one foot then the other. Repeat. The smiles on their faces as crew walk by and encourage them, "Tsara be!!!" "Good job!!". They are walking. On straight legs that only a few days ago, were bent in unnatural and uncomfortable angles.
  Then, in this same corridor, the patients get to walk out as they are discharged. They leave just after lunch. As they walk down the hall, they greet all their friends they have made, with a huge smile on their face.  They smile and giggle with other patients in their ward and other wards, with the day crew who work in the hospital who are now their friends, their family.   They reach to each nurse and doctor, with so much joy in their face and gratitude in the tears in their eyes, and say "Misaotra betsaka." "Thank you." They shake our hands and give us big hugs and we celebrate with them. The other patients who are still healing celebrate with their friends that they get to be discharged that day.
  The corridor seems like any other corridor when you look at it. Then, you look at all the individual people who walk down this corridor. Nurses and doctors from all over the world, here to serve others, here for the same reason. Patients who could see no end to their suffering, transformed physically and spiritually through their care here. You see the stories, the heart break and pain and years of solitude when they first walk down the corridor. You see this replaced with giggles, mischief, and games as they are healing. Then they walk confidently, joyfully back down the corridor, up the stairs and down the gangway as they leave. Changed. Not just physically. They are changed forever. That is the magic of this corridor.
  I have walked down this corridor many times. I have seen patients, timid and shy, first walk in as they take in everything that is unfamiliar to them all at once, unsure of what is ahead. I have seen kids walk in with bowed legs, and later walk out on straight legs. I have countless times gotten to walk down the corridor and have beautiful children yell my name and run into my arms. I have seen a patient crumple to the ground, and a nurse kneeling next to her with her arms around her, gently and patiently encouraging her, saying "I know that it's hard to walk, I know you're tired, I'm with you." I have seen frustrations and tears of disappointment flow in the hallway. I have seen adults and kids alike erupting with laughter and dancing. And in every situation, I have seen so much love poured out to them, from other patients, from caregivers, from nurses and the day crew. This hospital corridor can never be replicated. It is beautiful, it is unique, it is magic.