In addition to seeing Romanians and Westerners we even see a few patients from the Middle East. Romania is one country away from Turkey. One Christian refugee family is from Iraq. Another refugee from Africa translates for them, since they speak neither Romanian nor English, only Arabic. Another patient is Turkish, having been brought to our clinic by his Christian neighbor.
We have also seen diseases, like mumps and measles, that are now very rare in the US thanks to the MMR vaccine. About 3 weeks ago, Flori (our young friend with the feeding tube since he drank caustic soda when he was 15 months old) had measles. About half the children in their town came down with measles. Then on Wednesday he had a seizure and was rushed by ambulance to the neurology hospital in Bucharest (2 hour trip). We met him and his very anxious mother there, and the CT scan and other x-rays were ok. No one knows if he fell off his bike because of a seizure or if he hit his head and had a seizure because of hitting his head when he fell. We were impressed by the efficient and thorough evaluation he received in the ER. But Milt wasn't so impressed with the ER when he went back there last night with a friend's daughter who had fallen and hit her head--last night's ER doctor was extremely rude!
I (Milt) also saw a 10 year old Rroma (gypsy) boy with a very rare but uniformly fatal case of "Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis," a late aftereffect of the measles that he had had as an infant. The boy was already in a near-coma, unresponsive, having been sent home from the Neurology Hospital to die. There is no hospice system in Romania yet. We prayed with the father. The boy died exactly one week later. I also told the father a story told to me long ago in Minnesota about an 11 year old boy who was dying of leukemia, and as the father was holding his son in his arms, the boy opened his eyes and said "You can let go now, Dad, I see the angels coming for me." The father, an unemployed gypsy, understood that he could see his son again, because God the Father gave His very own Son to die so that we might live if we believe in Jesus and His sacrifice for our sin.
We also see a lot of chronic hepatitis, both B and C. One such patient that Linda saw this past month is a 35 year old woman with severe chronic Hepatitis B. All three of the lady's children also are positive for Hepatitis B, probably infected at birth. This could have been easily prevented with immunizations and a shot called HBIG given to the babies at birth. This disease often causes cirrhosis or liver cancer after 20 years of the illness. Treatment is very expensive -- prevention would have been so inexpensive!
Medicine is, or at least should be, both art and science. We see so many cases here where patients have received neither. A 58 year old single Christian woman came for a "second opinion." She had an ovarian mass. She was ready to have the operation that the gynecologist recommended until he told her that the reason she was having the problem was because she had never had sex. The doctor was telling her she was being punished for not sinning!
We ourselves have also had medical problems. Linda is slowly recovering from a week of low back pain. I have a cold. Kara Kelley, our friend and IMB (Southern Baptist) nurse who has been working in our clinic 3 days a week is back in Louisiana waiting to see a specialist about a very painful, swollen foot that's not healing after an injury. She toughed it out here for about 3 weeks, and then another 2 weeks in Hungary hoping she wouldn't have to go back to the US, but to no avail. So please pray for her, as well as for the rest of our team.
Romania has come so far since the revolution in December 1989. There is so much more to be done. The whole medical system is known for its corruption and there may be some changes again soon. There are also new tax laws and also a new work code which Linda has plowed through (in Romanian) to make sure that we are complying with all the new rules (some good, some stupid). For instance, the minimum vacation time is four weeks, and an employee has to take at least 3 of those weeks consecutively. We recently came across an article stating that there are 50% more people on pensions or disability than there are workers! Many people have gotten pensions for "disabilities" such as varicose veins or crossed eyes. Retirement age was 55. Somebody years ago decided that this was a good way to keep down unemployment. The demographics and the strain on the economy from this is tremendous.
We don't want this to sound like complaining or whining, anything but. We want to challenge each and every one of you to pray expectantly. We're just the scouting party trying to identify targets for you, the real warriors, to attack with fervent and effective prayer.
A good thing that happened this month is that we were able to raise our employees salaries a bit. We want to at least keep up with the average national salary for our employees, because it is hard to live here on what they make. The average national salary increased to about $145/month in January (net--twice that including taxes). Because of the vacation situation coming up, with each employee taking a month off, we are going to need to hire another nurse/receptionist soon.
Again thank you for all your prayer and financial support. Without them we would not be able to continue. It makes all the difference in the world. "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God."