Tuesday 3 November 2015

A "Ted Talk" about my job as a Respiratory Therapist

by Christine



A completely normal conversation with my father-in-law over Sunday dinner sometimes goes like this.  “Hey Christine, how were your shifts at work?  Did you kill any one this week?”
Sometimes, it’s "no"… sometimes, it’s "yes."

For the last 17 years, I have been working at University Hospital as a Registered Respiratory Therapist.  I specialize in the heart and lungs.  I work 12 hour shifts that rotate from two day shifts followed by 2 night shifts.  We are an essential service that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
I love what I do. It is challenging, exciting, ever-changing and I am helping people who are very sick every day.  I'm a part of a highly skilled team of medical professionals who care for the sickest patients in the hospital.   Best of all, I get to go to work in pajamas! (also called scrubs)



I work with a lot of 'super bugs' (such as MRSA), which is bacteria that is resistant to most or all our antibiotics.  My patients also might have AIDS, hepatitis, herpes, TB, meningitis, pneumonia, influenza, pus on the brain, open & weeping sores, lice, maggots and even bed bugs!  I am adamant about leaving my work at work - for these reasons!
MRSA - methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus



The "Ebola suit", with an air exchanger
 filter and pump on my back

The majority of my patients are in the ICU - Intensive Care Unit - which is where all the sickest patients are housed.  I also care for patients in the Emergency Rooms, Operating Rooms and all the inpatient areas of the hospital.
My patients in the ICU are typically heavily sedated - or completely comatose.  My role is to manage and monitor the patient’s breathing and airway.  The goal is to try to get them off life support.   Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t.

I do CPR on average once a week.  Has anyone seen CPR done on a person, not first aid training?  It is tiring, and sometimes we work on resuscitating a patient for more than an hour.  Often, effective CPR breaks ribs and cartilage.  
I also carry a pager as a member on the Code Blue team, so if a patient anywhere in the hospital suddenly decompensates (be it from a heart attack, heart failure, falling unconscious, seizure, stroke, an emergency in the operating room, a car accident, severe head trauma, a suicide attempt, over-whelming infection, high blood loss, drug over dose, respiratory failure and on and on...), three RRT’s are literally running to the patient along with an ICU nurse and two doctors.   

I get to see some pretty cool and amazing stuff at work, I see patients come back from cardiac surgery with their chest still open, because they were too unstable to close it.  You can see their heart moving under the transparent dressing.  I have seen doctors re-open my patient’s chest and hold the dying patient’s heart in his hand, squeezing it to make the blood flow.  I have been there while the doctor drilled holes into my patient’s skull to relieve pressure from fluid and blood accumulating.  But... when my then-6-year-old Hudson was getting four stitches in his head, I nearly passed out!
We respond to these calls of extreme emergency so frequently. We know how to work quickly and effectively to help stabilize a patient who is dying before us.  I work very well in high stress situations, I am able to keep calm and think clearly in intense, time-sensitive situations.  
This training has made me very good at assessing a patient.  When a nurse or doctor pages me to come and assess a patient who they are worried about, it is then that my skills shine.  I have learned to use all the senses God has given me.  I use my ears to hear the breaths of my patient, I use my nose to smell - and believe me, there are no good smells in a hospital!  I use my hands to feel and I use my eyes to observe.   Part of my job is to help identify which patients need to come to the ICU for more intense treatment.   

I regularly see death at work.  In my job I help determine which patients are brain dead.  
It is harder than you think to declare with certainty when a patient is actually dead.  You may say when their heart stops beating, they are dead. But many times - with the right dose of electrical shock, CPR and epinephrine - we can resuscitate a patient; a patient who’s heart had stopped moving.  We had a patient who had CPR done on her for 2 hours in the ambulance while she was rushed down Highway 401 to our hospital.  When she arrived she was put on ECMO (a life support machine that shunts all of the blood out of her body, cleanses it and pumps it back into her body, doing the job of her heart and lungs).  She was like this for days.  She was months recovering, but she came back to visit the staff in the ICU to say thanks.
Brain dead is a term that was defined at Harvard’s Medical School in 1968.  
According to Wikipedia’s definition, brain death is the complete and irreversible loss of brain function.
Today, both the legal and medical communities in the US use "brain death" as a legal definition of death, allowing a person to be declared legally dead even if life support equipment keeps the body's metabolic processes working.  

Just to clarify, this is not the same as a patient who is in a persistent vegetative state.  They are usually able to breathe on their own and their brain stem is still functioning.  So, as an example, my patient who is lying in the hospital bed on a ventilator with her heart beating and her chest rising and falling with lots of signs of life on the patient monitor, she can be legally dead.  If a patient is brain dead, the transplant team comes and determines if the patient’s organs can be used.  Often my brain dead patient will go to the OR and later that day I receive their organ transplant recipient as my new patient.  
Sometimes after the doctor meets with the family of a dying loved one, and no further treatment is deemed possible, it is my job to withdraw life support on my patient and allow nature to take it’s course.  I am the one to 'pull the plug', so to speak.  In some countries, it is against the law to withdraw life support.  What if it were like that here?  We don't have an endless supply of ventilators and dialysis machines - and the space to care for that type of patient. That is a reality.  

I’ll never forget the day Pastor Don Howard came to see one of our church members in the ICU - a patient of mine.  It was determined that she was brain dead and later that day we would be withdrawing life support from her.  He asked me, “Chris, do you think she is still here with us?”   I looked at him and said, “No, this is just a shell. She is gone - her soul has left the building.”  


Finally... I don’t recommend any of you coming in to visit me at work.  But if you do, know that I will be praying for you and using my skills to help you.

Sunday 25 October 2015

My Journey To Africa

by Christine


A Visit To The Hospital


I have not always been a fan of missions...short term trips in particular.  I struggled greatly with the financial costs associated with them.  I always felt the money could be used so much better being invested directly into the missionaries serving the third world people groups, not North Americans going over there for a short period of time.   And then my brother-in-law went to Togo on a mission trip.  I had no idea what this event was about to stir within me.
Here I am now - going on a mission trip!  

How I have gone from that point to where I am today has been the result of prayers, reflection and the realization of my lack of trust in God.


Plans Come Together


Derek was able to go visit our family in Togo  three years ago, in the winter of 2013.  He was impacted in a big way.  His love for the people of Africa was so evident.  He wanted to go back.  I was not so interested, yet.  I heard Derek talk about how the hospital staff walk around and pray with their patients, and how this hospital sees 2000 people make a commitment to follow Jesus as their Saviour every year!  Incredible!  I was intrigued by this and longed to see this.   We talked about doing missions trips after we retired.

I had saved up for an approved leave from my work at the hospital, seven month’s worth.  As Derek and I were discussing what we were going to do with this incredible gift from God, God would whisper in my ear thoughts of Africa.  These thoughts would be quickly followed by intense fear and feelings of inadequacy.  I wasn't too quick to catch on, but I eventually came to the realization that fear was stopping me from acting.  

How many times in the Bible does it say "Do not fear!" ?  The answer - 365 times!  (once for each day of the year!)  We have tried to raise our boys to be brave and not fearful.  There was a day a couple of summers ago that 3 different people said to me, "Wow, your boys are fearless!"  Praise be to God.

So, when I acknowledged to God and myself that fear was holding me back, that opened up a floodgate for me.  I was now jumping in with both feet.  Derek and I eagerly started to pursue a mission’s trip.


Confidence In Him


Sitting at work one day, fears of inability started creeping in again, but, this time I took that fear and gave it to God.  I said, "I can't - - but You can!"  A great quote I read recently says, "God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called".  God is growing my trust in Him.  I am loosening the grip on the steering wheel of my life.  He's a better driver anyways!  I know God has called our family to go to Togo.  Derek and I are answering that call and I am at peace knowing that He doesn't call us to something without also supplying all we need to do it.


Here is a verse that God showed me just yesterday, it's found in Luke 10:19 ..."I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.”  
I would like to add spiders into that verse, as well...

\
This one was found on the hospital grounds.  It didn't survive.

This snake was dispatched, as well.

We Can't Do This Alone

We feel we have been called to serve for 6 months at the Hopital Baptiste Biblique in Togo, West Africa.

Christine will be working at the hospital.  Derek will be helping out wherever a hand is required.  The three boys will be a (hopefully) welcome distraction for both the locals and the missionaries and medical staff on the grounds.  We've gone through the application process with the mission agency ABWE.  We have been approved by our home church.  We have committed to a time frame from April to September 2016.

We have a great church that has offered to support us financially.  We have friends, family and a church that are all willing to pray for us - to get us there, and to cover us while we're in Togo.

We'd love to have more people praying for us.  Really, really love it!  If you'd like to join with us - we'd be glad to have you join with us.  We know we'll need the support and intercession.  We covet your prayers for our time there, that we will be successful in completing our mission.

If you want to do more than pray, there is the opportunity to support our mission financially.  We are hoping to be able to take some medical equipment over with us to make the work there more effective.  Specifically, we are looking to purchase a couple of BiPAP and CPAP machines and the required tubing and masks to make the whole system work.  We want to take these with us.
You can give a one-time gift or sign up for monthly donations.

This is a BiPAP machine.  Two of these would be so nice to have.

This is a full-face mask for use with both CPAP and BiPAP machines


Gifts and donations are always tax-deductible and there is a lot of info on giving options on the sites listed below.
For more information on what the funds will be used for, feel free to contact us:                penny.missions@gmail.com


Here is the link to the ABWE mission donation site: www.canadahelps.org/dn/3067
You can find us - Penny, Derek and Christine - in the dropdown box.

If you want to send funds through the ABWE Canada office by phone, you can call 877-690-1009.

If you would like to donate funds by mail, you can send a cheque to:
ABWE Canada
34 - 980 Adelaide Street S.
London, ON
N6E 1R3
Account ID: 0787768

For more information on donation options you can go to this site:
www.abwe.ca/give/ways-to-give


Almost half of our expenses will be in airfare to get there and to come back.  We have been given a target number of $27,000.  That sounds like a lot - and it is, but with our personal contributions and with the assistance of the church and other individuals we've got confidence that we can reach or surpass the goal!


Here is a map from Google Earth to show the distance we need to cover to get to Togo from our home in London, Ontario.

Follow the red line from our home to the hospital in Togo.

Tuesday 6 October 2015

Our Journey

It has been a journey to get to this point.

I was able to go visit my sister, brother-in-law and family while they were building a hospital in northern Togo, in West Africa during 2013.  I spent a week at the existing hospital at Tsiko in the south of the country, seeing how things worked.  I then went with them to Mango, in the north, where the new hospital was being built.

When I came back home I told Christine we should go there.  She wasn't too keen on the idea.

Looking down on the Tsiko hospital from the mountains

The Idea

Christine has banked some time at work - 6 months worth.  When I asked her what she was going to do with the time off, she said she wanted to do more than just have fun here at home. This is where the idea began...  
To do something meaningful and impactful, with eternal benefits!  Great idea!

She wasn't a fan of short term missions, like two or three weeks.  But six months - that started to make more sense to her.  To use her medical training to benefit people who could really need it, to have an impact in lives for God.  Now we're talking!  The journey in her heart was making it's first steps.  It took a few months but she became enthusiastic about going to a small hospital 'in Africa, maybe?'.  It has been so cool to watch this shift happen.  I love watching this stuff!

We prayed about an opportunity.  Christine contacted five hospitals about coming to do some work with them.  After a few gently closed doors and some waiting and wondering and praying, we were presented the opportunity to go to the small village of Tsiko (pronounced Chee-ko) in Togo, West Africa.  Across Borders for World Evangelism has a long history of operating the Hopital Baptiste Biblique.  You might not be able to find Tsiko on a map.

So, we have a destination and a length of time.  Now we need a departure date. 



W5

The five questions.  Who?  What?  Where?  When?  Why?  Well, this is going to be easy to answer.

The who:  That would be us - the Penny family, making up the loosely organized 5 Cent Mission.  If I have to explain the 5 cent bit, well... nevermind.  We are Christine and Derek, Logan, Keenan and Hudson.
The what:  We're going to serve at a small hospital to help meet the medical needs of people as a means to meeting their spiritual needs.  This hospital ministry has seen thousands of people accept Christ into their lives.  What an amazing opportunity.
The where:  The village of Tsiko, Togo.
The when:  We're going to leave Canada in early April, 2016 for a period of six months.
The why:  We have the ability, we have a God that calls us to the ends of the earth to serve others and serve Him.  We're not part of a club, we're part of a mission.  Get out and serve, or support those that are going.  Simple as that.  We're going.  

We have three boys who we want to teach.  Teach them to love God and follow Him.  To learn to love other people and be willing to go somewhere possibly uncomfortable to serve them.  To learn to love missions and different cultures.  


Derek, Keenan, Logan, Hudson and Christine



What's Next?

We have to raise some funds to pay for the airfare and our food/lodging while in Togo.  It's going to cost somewhere around $27,000 for the five of us to go for the six month period.  
Doesn't sound like much - if you say it fast!  The crazy thing is half of that amount is just airfare alone.

We have preparations to make here at home.  We've seen some amazing things just 'fall into place' in only a way that a mighty God could make happen.  It's been so fun to be caught off guard by things sorting themselves out before we could begin to get stressed about it.  Just... wow!  

There will still be details and loose ends to tie up right until we depart.  So many answers to prayers already - and some answers before we even knew what to pray for!  Again, just being stunned at what God does for us.  More affirmation that we're doing what He wants.