D squared + J squared = Anderson

I (David) came back the next morning, I brought croissants and pain au chocolate and I made it to the hospital before the doctor did his morning rounds and he said that Jonah could go home this afternoon or maybe tomorrow. Well, I was going to push for today. He gave us an order for an x-ray so we did the process again, this time there wasn’t a nurse trying to rush us through the line so I waited like everyone else.

We finally were able to get the x-ray and brought it back to the room, and waited and waited…

Lunch had come and gone and we still had not seen anyone so I went to the nurse’s desk and asked if we were going to be released soon. The nurse asked me, “Are you leaving today?” and I said “Yes!” She said, OK I’ll start the paperwork. Another hour had gone by and I went and asked how the paperwork was going. She told me I needed to go down to billing window to see if our bill was ready.

Once I found the right line I waited for about 15 minutes and the person handed me a piece of paper, then I had to go to another window to pay. After I paid I had to find another person who could give me a pink piece of paper that said I had paid me bill and he stamped the bill. Then I went back up to the nurses’ station they stamped the bill again and we were finally able to leave.

I arrived back to find DeAnna and Jonah and the nurse in the same waiting room; they were waiting for the room to be cleaned. The nurse went and waited in line to put the deposit down on the surgery and we were taken back to the room. CNPS doesn’t accept medical insurance, at least not our “Global” plan or even credit cards.

Overall we were satisfied with the room, the room isn’t going to be winning any awards but it was clean and it even had a T.V. The Cameroonian intern came and told us that Jonah needed to take off his clothes and get ready to go to surgery. No gowns. He checked the bag of supplies we had purchased at the pharmacy, not much just a few IV bags, some bandages, and surgery stuff. So we stripped him down to his underwear and they wheeled him back on his bed to the operating room.

We went with him and we were waiting outside the doors that said Authorized Personnel only for the surgeon and the anesthesiologist to arrive. The surgeon explained to me about his training in Germany and he wanted to make comparisons to the USA and Cameroonian medical care so I politely carried on the small talk with him.  The surgeon asked if either DeAnna or I would like to change into surgical clothes and watch the surgery, we both declined.   Jonah was wheeled off and we went back to his room to wait.

DeAnna’s cell phone battery had died that day so that is one thing I knew I could find someone selling on the street, cell phones. So I didn’t even walk one block before I found a guy that had batteries that would work in DeAnna’s knock-off Nokia. I went back to the hospital and we continued to wait, calling friends to ensure that Joshua would be picked up from school and receiving calls from around the world from friends and family that were praying for Jonah. Some of the texts that were sent arrived a day or two after they were sent.

They finally brought Jonah back to his room and he was still not fully awake but we were told that the surgery went well. A little later he woke up and he asked DeAnna what happened? I left to go get Joshua and bring him back to the hospital so he could see that his brother was OK.

All throughout the night the nurses would come in and tell them that Jonah needed more medicine or something so DeAnna would go down to the pharmacy and purchase something else, unfortunately they are not very good at determining exactly what they need and we now have several extra bags of glucose at home and several other medicines that can only be given through an IV. DeAnna finally told the nurse it will need to wait until tomorrow when she asked where the thermometer is and wanted DeAnna to go purchase one, DeAnna said, “My husband will bring one in the morning.”

A little over two weeks ago I received a call that Jonah had an accident at school and I needed to bring the nurse to come get him.

We found Jonah with another parent who was keeping him away from the other children; she had wrapped a towel around his hand with a bottle of frozen water. When the nurse went to look at Jonah’s fingers I heard the parent whisper “you can see the bones”, so I carried Jonah to the car and the nurse sat in the back seat with him. I called DeAnna and told her to grab the money and meet us at the gate.

The nurse reminded me to drive slowly over the bumpy road between our house and the school.

Our first stop was the French Clinic and we were the first patient of the day so we were seen within a few seconds and after they cleaned out the wound, this came with much screaming from a child who was very calm before they began squirting water on his hand, they said we needed an x-ray and after they called one of the local hospitals they wrote the name of a surgeon on prescription paper for us. I asked if I could come back later to fill out the paper work and pay and they were fine with that so we drove over to the CNPS hospital. In case you missed it there were 3 miracles here. 1^st there was a doctor at the French clinic, 2^nd he called a hospital and found a surgeon also at work and 3^rd they trusted us to come back later and settle our account.

We entered the hospital through the emergency room; we had to walk by a car where there were many people screaming and crying and very little action happening from the hospital staff. It appeared to me that there was a dead body in the back of the car.

The ER staff first tried to clean Jonah’s hand and look at his wound again but the nurse with us just asked where the doctor was on the slip of paper from the French clinic, once we found his location we preceded to his office. There were many people waiting to see the doctor, we finally were able to show the prescription from the French clinic to his nurse when she opened the door to let the next person in to see the doctor and we were able to cut ahead of several others who had been waiting. After he cleaned it a little he gave us an order for an x-ray.

We left his office and I waited in the row of chairs while DeAnna and the nurse went to go pay for the x-ray. You have to pay before they will do the x-ray, but to pay first you need to go to the radiology department to get the code for the type of x-ray you need then you go to another window outside of the emergency room to wait in line to have your bill made and then finally you pay at another window. Thankfully the doctor’s nurse wondered where we were and she found DeAnna and the nurse and rushed them through the process.

They came back and grabbed me and Jonah, who had fallen asleep in my lap and we went to radiology where I stood behind him as they took 2 pictures of his hand. We took the x-ray back to the surgeon who said he would need to have surgery.  It was now 11am almost 3 hours since the accident and they had scheduled the surgery for 1pm.

I had to go get more money, so I left the hospital and made it back in time to help Jonah into his room and pay a large deposit on the room and the surgery.