What do hysterectomies, cosmetic surgery, Tuberculosis and tooth extractions all have in common?

The answer is, they were all a part of my week.

First, may I take a moment to wish all of our American friends around the world a Happy 4^th of July!  We are thankful for you and all you do to help us here in Swaziland.

Now, back to the headline.

This week was like so many others, filled with crazy drives, crazier conversations and lots of hospital.

We started the week getting our two small Jack Russell Terriers spayed.  When the veterinarian came out after the surgeries he told us that he had done a hysterectomy on both of them based on some serious irregularities that he had only see a few times in his whole career.

Two days later we had to take in one of our Boerboel dogs (Georgia) for cosmetic eye surgery (I am not kidding).  Her eyelashes fold in to her eyes rather than sticking out to catch dust so she struggled seeing and always had eye infections.  She now can see much better, but did not AT ALL being locked up for a night while here stitches started to heal and ate her way through the wooden door (and propane tank) holding her captive. To quote Patrick Swayze in “Dirty Dancing”, “Nobody puts Baby in the corner”.

The next few are all human stories.

We got great news this week that two of our babies who had been on TB treatment were now cleared and finished their medication. That was awesome and life-giving news!

And the highlight for dozens of Project Canaan workers this week (in the medical world) was the arrival of Dr. Stuart Coe and his 17-year old daughter Kenna. They came from Alpharetta, GA to practice dentistry and spent Monday – Friday working 7AM to 6PM to help people with major dental needs.

Under less than ideal circumstances including equipment malfunction, daily power outages, communication challenges and some very complicated cases, they managed to extract 31 teeth, fill 59 teeth, take 80 x-rays on THE MOST AMAZING PORTABLE X-RAY MACHINE THAT WAS LOANED TO STUART and do the equivalent of $33,000 US in dental work (that is R396,000 in free dental care!).

All in all it’s been a great week.  This afternoon we expect 20 students from Changhua Senior High School in Taiwan to join us for the weekend.  We look forward to having our friend Mr. Lewis Lu back again.

Live from Swaziland … I must rush to the highway where the students bus just broke down.

Janine