112 years of Chrisitanity

Greetings!!!!!
I am so sorry I have not written sooner. The internet is inconsistent and I really dislike just sitting around waiting for the internet.
I have had an exciting past 2 weeks!! The Church is celebrating the anniversary of the Cross of Evangelization. Let me explain. One hundred and 12 years ago Christianity was brought to South Sudan by Italian missionaries. Later specifically Comboni Missionaries.
So the original Cross brought by the missionaries travels the country to each parish. So our Parish of Regina Mundi has the privilege to have the Cross now.
We have many outpost remote Chapels and our Parish Priest Fr. Jacinto wants everyone to have the opportunity to celebrate our evangelization and Christianity.
So I have been going to all these remote chapels in the "bush".
I have walked 12 miles to one chapel, 6 miles to other ones. Then I sleep there. With all the parishioners and the parish priest.
I almost started to cry last week because when I went to this one very remote jungle "bush" chapel. They prepared for me under a tarp an actual brand new bed with brand new sheets. So every one else slept on the ground on mats (as I had planned) but I was treated like a special person.
They were so happy to serve me and treat me so well. So much hospitality!!!!
I would hope if any of them ever came to the USA we would treat them as well as I have been treated.
We start on Friday afternoon walking to the place. Then on Friday evening we have talks on the Cross of Jesus, Faith, Forgiveness and Peace. Then we have supper all together. Then we have the Rosary, then we have singing for 3 hours. Clapping, dancing and moving to the songs. I am the only one sweating.
Then we have 2 preaching sessions. Then we have spontaneous prayers. We go to sleep at midnight. Then we wake up at 6 AM to prayers being sung by some women. Beautiful!!!!!
Then we have the most exciting and joyful Mass at 10:30 AM. Then after mass which ends at 3 PM, we eat together and then we walk home (the 6 or 12 miles).
These people are so humble, so holy, so hard working. The women work, hard manual labor for 14 hours every day then come to the church and pray and dance. Amazing!!!
I love these people. They are so kind to me. I do not deserve the treatment and kindness and hospitality and generosity.
The church here has been the best thing to happen to me!!! I love the parish priest Fr Jacinto, he always invites me to eat in his tent with him and the seminarians and Deacon. They serve him special food. So I get the best food!!! He always says to me, "Feel at home, you are welcome. This is your home."
He always gives me excellent advice. He is a true priest. He lives very humbly. He works 7 days a week and all day. When they call him at night to give Last Rites to the sick and dying he goes.
I am so grateful to God and to these beautiful people for all these wonderful experiences.
Praise be Jesus Christ!!! Now and forever.

1 Peter 4: 8-10
8Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. 9Be hospitable to one another without complaint. 10As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.…

AMEN!!!!!!

Excuse me, are you Chinese?

So everyday I wake up at 6 AM and walk the almost 2 miles to daily morning Mass at my parish Regina Mundi, on the way there, I am greeted by many people.
Almost every day, I see a man who drives by on a bike. He greets me and I great him in the local language Azande or Pazande like the local say.
" Senoooo" (Hello)
Response: " OOOOOO"
"Guinea Pai" (how are you)(literal translation: are you there)
"Pai Te" (I am fine) (literal translation; I am here)

The other day, he said to me in English, " So Madame Doctor are your Chinese or something?" So with all the self control not to BURST out laughing I said, "No I am not."
He said, "What are you then? Because you are friendly like Americans and you are Christian like the Italians, and eat our food like the Bangladeshi".
Wow!!!!!! hahahahahaha!!!!!!
So I explained, " I am from Italian people but I am American."
Isn't that funny, that I must be Chinese?
Even though I do not feel like I look Chinese, when I was in China in Beijing, I was asked at least 5 times things in Chinese because the locals thought I was Chinese.
My brother Edward is my witness that this is really true.
My goal is to be confused for a South Sudanese, Azande.

HIV: the Disease of the "Beautiful" People.

As I have shared previously HIV is quite prevalent here.
The WHO and the CDC estimate about 80%. This is here in Ezo County in the Western Equatorial State. The tribe here is Azande and because of polygamy and promiscuity the rate is so high.
The rest of South Sudan is mostly Dinka tribe and they are usually monogamous and proud of NOT being promiscuous and their HIV rate is less than 0.5%.
So at our Antenatal Clinic on Wednesday, which is one of my favorite activities by the way because I love these pregnant women and girls. A lot of our new Obstetric patients were tested for HIV and were positive.
What surprised me was their reaction. No sadness, no regret, no tears. Some smiles. Some holding their heads proudly.
What??????
So I asked the interpreter to ask them what they felt about this new diagnosis.
ALL of them stated, "I am fine because HIV is the disease of the beautiful people."
What do you mean?
"Well, it means handsome men have had sex with you and now you have HIV and the government and NGOs give you free medicine, free extra food, free programs for help."
Then I realized that most of these young people have not seen anyone suffering with AIDS.
Because they are started on medicines soon after diagnosis and we achieve a low to non existent viral load. thank God. Their children receive prophylaxis after birth and usually are negative.
When I shared this with some of our compound working staff, they agreed that beautiful people get this disease. One of the guards said, "My mother has HIV and I know I will eventually get HIV." I explained that actually this is not necessarily true. But he is convinced.
The HIV nurse, who runs the clinic for the HIV medicines told me that on Friday, they saw 229 patients. They are seeing more and more. They average 100 patients daily. This is out of about 100,000 population.
How to convince a culture that what they feel makes them part of the "beautiful" people is actually NOT a positive of healthy trait.
We also have that problem in our culture with anorexic women feeling that being so underweight is beautiful, also women who have many plastic surgeries and feel that a very "plastified" face is beautiful.
I just think, why can't we feel beautiful because we are so loved. God our Father, our Abba loves us so much. He gave His only Son to us, who dies on a Cross for each and every one of us to feel beautiful.
Abba, I belong to you.
Abba, I feel beautiful because I am your beloved daughter.

Romans 8:38-39King James Version (KJV)

38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen....

20 minutes to live....

The day before yesterday as I was seeing Gynecology patients in the "office", the Midwife Bernadette called me. Shes states that a patient was brought in, carried by her relatives. She stated that a patient that I had seen earlier today was sick.
This patient came to the office earlier that day with a + pregnancy test. Here we do not have the capacity for a Quantified HCG. But on ultrasound there are no POC (products of conception) in the uterus. I was worried about an ectopic pregnancy, but the Fallopian tubes were normal appearing the ovaries appeared normal. The pt had no pain and was stable. No vaginal bleeding. the uterus appeared a little enlarged but not anything that at that time appeared worrisome. So I recommended close follow up and for her to return the next day and THANK GOD I put on the paper, return sooner if sick. (not that there is any legal ramifications here from any documentation, but for my peace of mind)
Well, when I go to see the patient she is hypotensive, tachycardic, pale and has severe abdominal pain. So when I placed the ultrasound machine on her pelvis, there is an abdomen full of blood!!!!
I explained to everyone present that we need to go to the Operating Theater right NOW. But typical response, no fast movements, so I said in a loud and deep voice.
" If this patient is not in the Operating Theater in the next few minutes she will die! She has 20 minutes to live!".
So I got a fast response and everyone amazingly worked super fast and hard, and she really was in the O.R. quickly.
When I made my incision, mid-line I could see purple under the peritoneum. The abdomen was full of blood. The blood was just pouring!!! The ectopic pregnancy had ruptured!.
It was an ectopic in the cornual region of the uterus which is so bad because it is difficult to detect, difficult to remove and to fix.
I grabbed packing and quickly packed her abdomen. I could not see anything because of the literal fountain pouring out of her. So I used my hands to grasp the uterus and followed down the tubes and felt the rupture on the right side.
I squeezed it closed and the blood stopped!! Thank God!!! Then I placed the clamps, no bleeding!
Then I performed the surgery to fix it. Of course this place is part of the uterus so unlike the tube we can't remove it.
The patient today is doing well postoperatively.
Today Saturday I was called back to the hospital, a mother had been brought in bleeding after a spontaneous abortion this morning. She was at home bleeding for 12 hours. On ultrasound she had a piece of placenta in her uterus still. By the way I am the one performing all the ultrasounds. With my hand held ultrasound. Thank you CMMB. We performed a STAT D&C and now she is doing well. This was her 11th pregnancy.
Because of the polygamy the older wives are trying to keep up with the younger wives, so they keep getting pregnant when the younger newer wives get pregnant. Not really an ideal situation.
Life here is so fun!!!!
The people are very friendly,
The food is great.
The Church is exciting, vivacious and ALIVE!!!!
Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ!!!

PHOTOS....

 Pentecost Sunday, I read the First Reading in English as there is a large Ugandan, Congolese community that does not speak Azande.

 Using the Amazing ultrasound CMMB gave me to bring to Ezo. The women of Ezo love it.

 In the Operating "Theater" doing a Cesarean Delivery. Notice no electricity so we use a flashlight or "torch" as they call it here.

In the OR after delivering the Conjoined twins. The Theater Attendant or OR Tech is using a head lamp so we can see as it weighs a lot and kills my neck if I use it.

Before we send her to jail......... let's save her.....

On Friday, I am in my office seeing our daily 30-40 patients, Mostly Gynecology. Mostly enormous fibroids. (Yeah!!! myomectomies and hysterectomies).
This is not counting pregnant patients. Patients that are already in the hospital. Patients that  I am called to see on other services.
In come 2 staff, "Dr Consoli, this lady is trying to commit a "criminal" (their words, not mine) abortion. This is the second time she has come. She has a positive pregnancy test, she has some vaginal bleeding." "Should we prepare to call the police?"
I see the patient. She appears ill. She is diaphoretic (sweaty), tachycardic, tachypneic, she appears in pain.
I perform a pregnancy test myself. It is positive.
On ultrasound (thank you CMMB and Safe Motherhood for the ultrasound) she has as if from a textbook, a molar pregnancy. Anechoic spaces, snowstorm or granular appearance.
I explain that she has no fetus in her uterus.
She has a molar pregnancy which is dangerous.
They ask me if she already "got rid of the baby". I explain that this is a A molar pregnancy — also known as hydatidiform mole — is a noncancerous (benign) tumor that develops in the uterus. A molar pregnancy starts when an egg is fertilized, but instead of a normal, viable pregnancy resulting, the placenta develops into an abnormal mass of cysts.
There is no baby. There is no termination.

We took her immediately to the Operating "Theater" and evacuated her uterus.
She stabilized.
I finished seeing my patients.
The police are not bothered.
The next day, on Saturday, early in the morning I stopped by the hospital to check on her. She was doing very well.
She told the interpreter to tell me that even if this Doctor calls the dead, they will rise.
Thank you but....... no, in scientific terms we evacuated the molar pregnancy and all is well.
Only Jesus raises people from the dead.

Another interesting story is.....
Every night I gather with 20 of the neighborhood children from 3-17 years old. Mostly teenage girls. We say the rosary/pray then we talk.
We talk about different topics. Mostly about my life. They want to know every detail about me.
They can't believe I have no children and HORROR... I am not married!!! Hahahaha......
So one of the girl's mother, wanted me to help the baby. She was saying that the baby has anemia. So she was giving her watered down tomato paste!!!
I explained that the baby looks healthy. Has pink mucous membranes. Is well hydrated. Probably the watered down tomato paste is not needed.
She looked at me like I was an idiot. "Doctor, do you not see the tomato paste is the color and looks like blood. So we are helping her. ".
OK.....
Continue.
What a silly person I am. Of course this is the way to go.........
I now know how movies stars and celebrities feel.
Every where you go EVERYONE stares at you. Everyone wants to shake your hand.
Every one wants to know everything about you.
Every one stops doing what they are doing when you walk in a room.
Wow!!!!!
What a privileged person I am.....
I am really enjoying it here in Ezo, South Sudan.
Saint Catherine of Siena (a Doctor of the Catholic Church) said, "If you are doing what you are supposed to be doing, you will set the world on fire!".
I really feel like I am doing what I am supposed to be doing.
Praise be Jesus Christ now and Forever!!!

You put hot water where??????

So recently I have noticed a lot of children screaming at the hospital. I was first thinking maybe because of IVs or Injections but no.......
Last week I heard the screaming and since it was a Sunday and I had just finished a delivery and did not have a million patients waiting to see me, I went to see what the commotion was about.
Well..........
There is a mother squatting on the ground with her child trapped between her legs and abdomen she is pulling her child's butt cheeks apart. Then HORROR....
She pours steaming hot water in her child's anus!!!!!!!
I screamed, "What is she doing? Please someone come and help."
The nurse came running she states, " Doctor this is a tradition in our culture when children are sick we pour hot water into their anus to clean them."
I told her, "That is not a tradition, that is child abuse"
Then I asked the midwife from Uganda about this. She states she gave up 2 years ago (she has been here 3). She states it is a Zande/ Azande custom and she used to scream at them but they never stop.
Also she told me that some families when they are wiping their children's butt they notice the pink of the anal tissue and get afraid and pour steaming hot water in it then also!!!
Every time now I hear a child screaming I try to go and save their anus. I do not make it all the time, in time.

Also speaking about culture, today a minister from Uganda who is working here asked me where were my husband and children?
I answered, I do not have a husband and children but I am very close with my own siblings and parents and extended family.
He asked me, "What happened to you?"
I answered, " Everything, I became a physician, completed 2 residencies, a Fellowship, have traveled to every continent except Antarctica as a tourist or a Medical Volunteer or Medical Missionary. I have saved many people's lives through God grace, and helped thousands. (I was trying hyperbole to get my point across).
I expected him to say, " Wow!!! Good for you."
But NO.....
He says, "That is all very nice but you are forgetting the most important mission, to have a husband and children. I hope you do that soon, before it is too late."
I asked him, "What if my mission is to be single or become a Religious, a nun?"
He said, "Impossible God wants us to reproduce. "
I said, " OK, God bless,"
Him, I can not change but I can try to save the children's anal canals.
God save us. God graciously save us.

On the other hand, last week was Pentecost and I had the BEST Pentecost ever!!!!! In my life!!!!
The mass was............
wait for it.....
4 hours long!!!!!!!
I felt like I was at a party, singing and dancing for 4 hours.
Not ONE second was I bored.
If you ever think religion, mass, church, God is boring, come to Ezo, South Sudan.
You will never think that again.
I love church here!!!!!
God is good, all the time. All the time God is good!!!!!