It was incredible news and it was terrifying news. I was completely relieved and I was scared out of my mind. Prisca was being discharged from the hospital without having a hysterectomy. She was still pregnant and she still had a mass on her uterus.
There is very little continuity of care in Tanzania.
The fact that the first time Prisca met her would-be surgeon was the morning of her surgery was not that unusual. But the fact that the surgeon assigned to Prisca’s case was the first of many doctors to say that she shouldn’t have the hysterectomy because she was pregnant?
It had to be God intervening.
We absolutely wanted Prisca’s baby to be safe, but we wanted Prisca to be safe, too.
Because they didn’t own a car of their own, Prisca and her husband were waiting on a taxi to take them home. No need, we said. The three mile drive in our utilitarian Landcruiser was a pretty quiet one. The air was thick with an odd combination of relief and anxiety. Prisca perched carefully on the seat, gripping the door handle. Every jostle of a pothole and rock was feared to be the thing that would disrupt the delicate balance of life that she was carrying. Everything felt so precarious.
We got Prisca settled at home. She and her husband rented a two-room dwelling that consisted of a sitting room and a bedroom, both cramped with furniture and decorations. They shared a cooking space and a bathroom facility with the other families that lived in the house. The sitting room was dark and stuffy, but we sat down for a moment to share another word of prayer. We breathed our thanks to God and begged Him to continue to work.
He had already answered in miraculous ways. But we were desperate for another miracle.
Catch up on the whole story here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Post by: Heather Webb