"When I was sick, you looked after me..."
I greeted him and his grandson and began the screening assessment. "What is your name?" I asked him. "Sambany " he told me. "Just Sambany?" I asked again. "Yes just Sambany". That’s unusual in this country; they normally have a minimum of five names with their surname containing at least half of the alphabet. RAZAFINDRAMANANIRINASOA is a common surname here, usually followed by Volamarainanana Fenorasoa Andriananana Marie. No joke, I copied those names from actual patients. My colleague Jas cracks me up and a couple of times I've heard her tell a patient their name is too long and they can pick one first name and one last name for their time on the ship!
I continued the assessment. "How long have you had the mass? " I asked him. "About 20 years" he answered. That’s good I thought to myself. What! No, that’s not good; he’s been carrying around this mass for 20 years! But I was glad to hear it had been there for such a long time as a long history tends to point towards a benign mass verse malignant cancer. Malignant cancer typically grows much quicker and will sadly take the life of the patient in a much shorter time frame. Cancer also requires chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy and as a surgical hospital, we are not equipped with these treatments. "How far away from the ship do you live?" I asked him. He had walked for three days from his village, until he made it to a main road and then caught a taxi brousse to Tamatave, with his faithful grandson Flave accompanying him for the journey. Later I would find out that six people helped carry him to the taxi brousse. I took a blood test and put an IV in for his CT scan, all the while explaining that I wasn't sure if we were able to help, but we would do some tests first. Sambany and his grandson looked surprised and desperate, "Please don’t say no to us, please please help us" they begged. In turn I was pleading with God, knowing there are so many factors that can make a person unable to have surgery. Please God let us help this man, please let this tumour be benign, please don’t let him have pulmonary TB…
While having the CT scan, I got a page from the Lab to say his haemoglobin, the oxygen carrying component of red blood cells, was 3.6 (normal is between 13.8 to 18.0 or in Australian terms his haemoglobin was 36 when normal is 138 to 180 g/L). How was he still alive and how did he walk for three days? Dr. Gary Parker and Dr. Joli Chow ducked out of the OR in between cases to see him. Dr. Gary looked Sambany in the eyes and shook his hand. I have never met a surgeon so full of sincere love, selflessness, kindness and humility. He took the time to hear Sambany’s story and to explain that we would do all we could to help him but we couldn't promise surgery just yet. The coming days included multiple blood transfusions, FNA test (biopsy) and a trip to the local TB centre to be cleared of pulmonary TB.
I kept checking back over the next week to see if a decision had been made regarding surgery, but none had been made yet. Then I was walking to the warehouse one morning and there on the main door of the ship was a request for all the crew to pray for a patient. Sambany was having surgery tomorrow! It was going to be high risk but Sambany had been informed of these risks and had been clearly told that it was a possibility he may not make it through the surgery. To which he responded “Without surgery I will die. I know I might die in surgery, but I already feel dead inside from the way I'm treated. I choose to have surgery.” In short, I’m a dead man already, what do I have to lose?
After 12 gruelling hours of intense surgery, Sambany was finally free of this massive tumour, free of the 7.46kg weight to his face. Forget grapefruit, that’s at least 7 bags of flour, or two babies. Can you imagine something that size attached to your face for the past 20 years? Sambany needed his entire blood volume replaced twice while on the ship. The way to obtain blood transfusions is unusual in this hospital as the crew members are the walking blood bank. A call was made for all crew with A+ blood type to please donate and Sambany now has the blood of seventeen people from six different nations flowing through his veins.
What flaws me with Sambany’s story is the number of people that God used to play their small part in changing this man’s life. There are the obvious surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses, pharmacists, lab technicians, radiology technicians, sterilization crew and day crew translators who played a vital role in Sambany’s stoy. But the sphere of people who helped this one man extends far beyond the obvious; it extends all around the world. Someone ordered the food for the ship, someone packed and sent the container from Holland or America and someone cooked the food for Sambany (and patients like him) to eat. Someone maintained the engines that power the electricity for the operating room and someone else sterilized the equipment necessary for the surgery. Someone has faithfully supported a volunteer teacher on board the ship which has allowed him/her to be here and teach the children of the medical and support crew. There’s a group of sweet ladies in the UK that knit teddies that are given to patients to help comfort them before their surgery (these patients are usually a little younger than Sambany). Someone has worked tireless hours to write stories and create videos that help raise support to fund the surgery for patients like Sambany. There are thousands of people around the world who have played their part in changing the lives of patients like Sambany. Dr. Gary describes this so well “All these people doing their part makes it possible to do these kinds of things together, and that interdependency is very easy to see in days like Sambany’s surgery”.
And then there are you; my generous family and friends back home in Australia and around the world that have faithfully supported me through finances, love and prayers. Each of you have played your part in changing the life of Sambany as well as many other patients. I want to say thank you. And more importantly I want to pass on the thanks of Sambany. His life has been radically transformed as he has experienced God’s love for him through physical healing.
Earlier this year, Mercy Ships volunteer surgeons removed the largest tumor they had ever seen from a kind 55-year-old man named Sambany. Sambany had walked for two days to get to the #AfricaMercy, the world’s largest civilian hospital ship. His tumor weighed 7.46 kg (16.45 lbs) and his operation took 12 hours.With Sambany's help, we captured his journey on video. Today we bring you a story about a brave man and his remarkable triumph. It reminds us all of the great obstacles Mercy Ships patients must overcome to access the medical care they need. Thanks for watching.#MercyShips #MSMadagascar #FollowSambany
Posted by Mercy Ships on Thursday, March 26, 2015
“When I have recovered, I want to repay you (Mercy Ships), because I am very happy, because I am saved. God gave you to take out my big tumor. God helped me to become like this. God saved me”
- Sambany
(the day after his operation)
I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you looked after me,
I was in prison and you came to me.’
"Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’
Then the King will say,
"Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me."
- Jesus (Matthew 25)