ILLNESS....................................

For the most part, we have been a pretty healthy family.  I guess most of us had the normal childhood diseases - measles, chicken pox,  mumps, etc.  And of course living in West Africa meant that we had occasional malaria attacks.  Medication for malaria has gone through various cycles. Some say take nothing until you feel the first symptoms, others take regular daily or weekly medication.  But no medication seems to be foolproof.

When I was a child I was very prone to malarial attacks and to this day I can still remember the high fevers and aches in every joint and weakness when I had malaria. My Dad also was frequently down with malarial attacks.  Dad had malaria when he was a young missionary, but by then I guess I had built up enough antibodies to not be bothered by it.  After we had been on the field for some years, neither one of us took daily anti-malarial medicines, but just took the cure if we came down with it. Which was seldom.

The year we were in San Pedro we both had malaria and so we began taking something as a prophylaxis and that seemed to hold us.  When we went to Mali, the prophylaxsis was some kind of antibiotic which we took regularly and I don't think we came down with the disease itself.  You kids were sick with malaria from time to time during your growing up years and we were never without a cure in the house during that time. Of course, Dad treated a lot of malaria in the villages as well.

Hepatitis is another disease that seems to be prevalent in West African in recent years, and I already mentioned the terrible case I had. When Dad took my blood sample in to the lab, the nurse came out and wondered who this person was as the counts were so high.  I got over that by staying prone most of the time for seven weeks - and lots of prayer.  I had the most awful color of my skin -  orange and green.

Dad's most painful malady was a large kidney stone. He was writhing in agony until the stone passed. But it was very painful and he has never been bothered by it again. He had gout badly while I was down in the Republic of Congo and I came home to find him on crutches. Another time he fell while building the primary school at Santidougou and knocked his shoulder out and had to be rushed to the hospital. Terry Everett was out helping us that year with the building and he went with Dad to the hospital and described it afterwards, how the doctor had had to pull the shoulder back into place again - VERY painful! 

I had most of my sickness when I was a child in Africa and stayed pretty well as an adult. When I was pregnant with Mark and in my last month, I got a terrible flu which knocked me out and they put me in the maternity at the hospital. Dad stayed with me. This awful French midwife was wanting to take over my case and we finally ended up walking out of there, carrying our bedding, with the French sage femme calling out after us and me in my housecoat with Dad walking beside me!  I made it through that last month and went to Ferke to deliver you, Mark. 

John broke his arm at school and had to have a cast. Debbi had gotten very ill at ICA and we did not know anything about it. But when you did not get better, Debbi, the school officials decided to take you to Ferké and to send for us to come down and stay with you at the hospital there.  Well, the word got to Grandma and Grandpa's in Bobo and they sent a man up on a bike to where we were staying in the town of Kawe, evangelizing. It was about midnight and this motor bike came roaring into our camp and Dad got out of our tent to see what was wrong.  It sounded like you were dying or something, and so right there in the middle of the night we took down our equipment, got into our van with the younger kids and headed for Bobo.  From there we unpacked the camping stuff and headed on down to Ferké.  What was our surprise upon arrival to find you, Debs, when we got to Ferke after that long trip, up and walking around but still a little pale from whatever bug had hit you!  We were both relieved to see you well but exhausted from the trip from Kawe to Ferké. 

Those are all of the sickness events that come to mind now.   We actually stayed well as a family throughout our many years in Africa.  God gave us good health and happy spirits to enjoy our forty three years of missionary service, with all of you. We can certainly affirm the goodness of God in our lives, protecting us from harm and from serious illness.

My most serious illness was after our retiral when I had the tumor on the brain, which now is history.  The whole family was involved in that as I was so far from home when it hit me. And like the good troupers you all are, everyone helped out - staying with Dad, nursing me, bringing me home from North Carolina in Mark's van when I could no longer sit up in a car to make it. I have written in detail about that and so will not go into that whole ordeal.  Only to say I now feel a hundred percent again and I am so thankful to all of my extended family who helped to pull me through!  I am indeed blessed to have you all!