Celebrating a 10 year journey!

It's been 10 years since Nick first boarded the Africa Mercy!

Nick first joined Mercy Ships as in Togo on 15 February 2010.  

I found a few quotes from Nick's first blog post that made me smile....

"So I arrived last Monday and the first thing they did was take a photo of me for my ID badge, which isn’t the best thing after a 16 hour journey when your looking like a raccoon in head lights...anyways they don’t waste anytime here, I had to get up at 5am to go to the first of the screening days"

"Now I’m slowly learning what exactly I will be doing on board - but basically I am the hospital’s physio - so i will be doing some burns work, mainly kids Ortho and some Maxillo-facial. I also found out that I will be involved in rolling out this Ponseti program in Togo..."

"anyways so that’s about it ... my French is definitely coming along and I reckon ill be speaking some form of French when I get back (not sure how good though)"

"Its funny the ship is starting to feel like home..."

Well done, Nick!!! I'm so proud of who you are.  

Happy New Year!

Just a quick update to say Happy New Year to our friends and family!

Suzanne about to head to work in the OR,
 and Nick heading off to a meeting at a local hospital

We're with the ship in Senegal!  After our 5 months in N'zao, Guinea at the beginning of 2019, we went back to living on board the ship in August and sailed in to Dakar, where the ship will be docked until June 2020.


Nick is busily up to doing what he does best - treating clubfoot kiddos, building relationships, and working together with a really great team of people.  The Mercy Ships team is working together with a team of four pediatric surgeons from a big public children's hospital in Dakar.

Clubfoot team photo after running an advanced clubfoot course in September

They currently have 12 kids in treatment, and will start again with another group of kids in January.  The Dakar team has been really encouraged by the results they are getting together, and has really seen what the Ponseti method can achieve, even in kids who are older (they are treating several kids around the age of 10 years) 

Team ice cream outing

Presenting Certificates at the end of the course

I have continued working in our operating rooms, which has included being a team leader two surgical specialties - plastics reconstructive and orthopedics.  Our OR team is constantly changing, with many nurses, surgeons and anesthesia providers coming for 2-3 weeks.  Every Monday, our team is slightly different.  

OR 1 has been my home for the last several months, both plastics and ortho surgeries happen here

Team leading means coordinating many aspects of the patient care (seeing each patient before they come to the OR, making sure that we have the correct supplies available for each case, etc), and also doing a lot of communication to keep the team on the same page.  Our teams are normally a mix of crew have visited the ship in the past, and people who have come for the first time, and we usually have people from 4-5 different countries working together in each room.  It's a very special hospital, and I love being a part of it!

Here's a couple team selfies from the past months...there are many more faces than this (this is just what I had on my phone at the moment)...thank you to everyone who I've had the joy to work with since surgeries started in August!

We've really begun to fall in love with Senegal, and we're looking forward to the second half of our visit and the months ahead.  At the moment, we are enjoying a few days off ship at the beach- a nice break after some busy months and before we jump into January.

Happy New Year, friends!  Thank you for your prayers and encouragement!

Update – a short season “off ship”

Update from us - we are headed to the states for a leave of absence from Mercy Ships over the holidays!  This has been in the works for some time, and we actually departed the ship yesterday evening.  

Here's what is coming up for us:

1- Spend the holiday season in the United States, and have some precious, intentional time with family

2- Return to Guinea at the end of January

3 - Continue serving as Mercy Ships crew, but we will be located off-ship in the interior of Guinea for the remainder of the ship’s visit.  We will be visiting Hope Medical Center (here’s their webpage), where Nick has previously taught the Ponseti method.  (see more details below)

We knew that we would have this break coming up when we went into the busy season of Advance and program set-up here in Guinea.  We chose to do this for a few reasons.  We’re into the 4^th year of our service since returning to the ship as a married couple.  We love being here and serving here, but know that it’s also good to have time away from the intensity of life on board.  We love our work, and we want to be wise in how we serve.  We’re very happy to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with family in the states- last time we had Christmas there was in 2013 before we got engaged!  

A recent photo of Nick at work in the clinic - I love the look that kiddo is giving him, haha! :-)

The Ponseti program in Conakry is left in VERY good hands: Aisling (physical therapist from the UK who is leading the team), Ashley (Physical Therapist from USA) and Marina (nurse from Switzerland who has worked on the ponseti program for the last two years).  

After the holidays and when we return to Guinea, we will be continuing our season “off ship”.  We are still serving with Mercy Ships, but we will be working at a hospital in the interior of the country called Hope Medical Center.  Hope has partnered with Mercy Ships in different ways over the years, and Nick went to teach the Ponseti method to some of the staff at Hope in 2014.  Sadly, he was not able to stay and complete the whole program due to the Ebola crisis, which originated not far from the area.  We are thrilled to be able to return there together, and continue the partnership that began in 2014.  We want to support Hope in whatever ways we can so that they continue to have a flourishing clubfoot clinic!  One important aspect of clubfoot treatment is wearing braces on a special schedule.  In addition to treating patients together, Nick and another trainer will teach a special course on brace making.  I will work together with Nick on the Ponseti program and other areas as needed. 

Leaving the ship is bittersweet right now- I (Suzanne) am so looking forward to the months ahead, but I also dearly love my teammates and our community here on board the ship.  To our colleagues on board – we want GOOD things for you, we pray blessings over you, and we know that God is with you in the coming months.  When I think about you, Jesus’s words from John come to mind- “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”  I am cheering you on, Africa Mercy Crew – and may one of the ways that you love and serve the country of Guinea be your example of loving and serving one another. Know that we will be missing you!

Paper Plan to Ponseti Clinic

Hey Team,

It’s been a busy start to the Guinea field service but here’s a little update of one of the things we’ve been up to.

Setting up the Ponseti Clinic
Thanks to Eliphaz (infrastructure manager) and his team, a Paper Plan has been transformed into an amazing space that we call home and the Ponseti Clinic.

This is where our Ponseti Mentoring Program will be based during the Guinea 2018/2019 field service.

Here are some pics of the amazing transformation.

Main Treatment Room

Main Treatment Room (view from other end)

Minor Procedure Room 

Ok that's it for now, it’s been a lot of work but thanks to everyone who helped get the the Ponseti Clinic up and running.  

God is Good. 

Nick

Nick and Suzanne are back in Guinea!

The Veltjenses are in Guinea! This is a special country for us, since it is where we met each other in 2012!

During the Guinea 2012 outreach, Nick was the rehab team leader and I was working in the eye team.  Nick was spending some time treating clubfeet and teaching local people, along with leading the rehab department.  I was new to the ship, learning lots about West Africa and life on board the Africa Mercy.

Nick also returned to Guinea in 2014 to teach the Ponseti method at the Hope Medical Center in Nzao (very far inland from coastal Conakry), but the program was cut short due to the outbreak of the Ebola virus.  This was while we were engaged, and we are still in contact with Hope Medical and have plans to return in 2019.  (I look forward to going there since I haven't been yet!)

Anyway, I arrived here in Conakry in June to join the Advance Team and prepare for the ship's arrival in August.  I held the same role that I did for Cameroon advance in 2017, which was to make preparations for the Medical Capacity Building (MCB) department.  Advance is a season of intense hard work so that everything is in place for the ship to arrive, and once the ship has arrived we take several weeks to handover contacts and information to each department.  I have finished my handover to the MCB department and returned to the Operating Room department two weeks ago. 

Here are some photos of arrival day - it's amazing to see the Africa Mercy sail in to port!  Arrival day is a packed day- wonderful but exhausting as well.  We greeted the ship from the dock in the morning, in the early afternoon there was an arrival ceremony which was hosted on the dock by the government and attended by local officials as well as the advance team and ship leadership.  In the evening the advance team gave a briefing to the crew, each of us took a few minutes to explain our role and share important information about Guinea.  

The first lady attended the arrival ceremony, she is the godmother of the ship's visit here in Guinea.  During the arrival ceremony, I had the special honor of interpreting the first lady's speech into English, which is not as hard as it might sound because I had the words in front of me but it was still nerve wracking :)  Some of the introductions were unscripted though, that was the hardest part.  It went just fine, and I was thankful to be mostly out of view because of the number of press members gathered around the first lady while she was talking.  It was a new experience for sure though!

On August 20, we held our main patient pre-selection, here in Conakry.  Nearly 6,000 people stood in line that day, many people even arrived the evening before and waited all night long.  At pre-screening, we say "I'm sorry we can't help with this problem" more often than "Yes".  We are a specialty surgical hospital, and treat a very specific list of conditions, most people who seek care have a health concern which falls outside of what we treat.  Pre-screenings like this are challenging and require patience and perseverance from both the Mercy Ships teams and the people waiting in line.

What are we up to now?
I have returned to my position in the Operating Room.  I worked the first several weeks as the Ophthalmic Team Leader, setting up the OR for the outreach and getting started with the first couple weeks of eye surgery.  
Here's a photo of the nurses at the end of week 1 of Eye surgery:

Nick has been busily setting put he Ponseti Clubfoot Clinic along with the team (Aisling [physical therapist from the UK], Mary [Registered Nurse from USA], and translators Faya and Koi).  The team has successfully set up the clinic space, screened and selected patients, offered a course and began working with five Guinean healthcare professionals who will come to the clinic several days each week for mentoring.

That's it from us for now, thank you for your support and for keeping up with this journey!

Suzanne and Nick

8 things we'll remember about Cameroon (part 2/2)

Continuing where we left of from the last post (click here if you missed it), here's the rest of the list of 8 things we'll remember from our time in Cameroon!  

Before I get started though, here's a video Mercy Ships shared recently about one of our orthopedic patients from last year in Benin.  I especially like the guy doing the narration ;)

5 - Beignets!

Just for fun, these tasty snacks make it on the list of things we will remember from Cameroon!  Beignet is a french word for "donut", and in West Africa that means one of these delicious sugar-covered-fried-dough-balls.  They are particularly tasty (and very inexpensive at about $0.20 each) from several bakeries here in Douala.

Pictured here are the ones we served at "open cabin" night during the Christmas holidays- open cabins is a fun Mercy Ships tradition where families, couples and any crew who want to open their cabin and offer a snack can do so, and the rest of the crew go door to door.  It's a fun way to welcome fellow crew members into our own little homes here on board. 

6 - Mercy Ships OR Department

This field service I am continuing in my role as an operating room nurse.  We have 5 operating rooms (or "operating theatres" depending on where you are from) on the ship.  We generally do the following specialties in each room:

OR 1 - plastics surgery/orthopedic 

OR 2 - women's health/sometimes general surgery

OR 3  - maxillofacial 

OR's 4 + 5 - ophthalmic 

I spend lots of time in OR 5 with the eye team, and have also worked with orthopedics and maxfacs this year.  Here's me working in the ortho room:

Pictured below:  In the OR we celebrate "funky friday" every week and wear crazy scrubs.  We work very hard, but do so with plenty of teamwork and encouragement for one another, and we know how to have fun!

Cataract Surgery - We've had an exciting eye program here in Cameroon.  We came with the goal of treating as many patients as we can, and also providing training to surgeons who will continue to perform this type of cataract surgery once we have left.  Our long-term ophthalmic surgeon, Dr. Glenn Strauss, is an amazing surgeon and excellent teacher.  I've had the joy of watching Dr. Glenn mentor several local ophthalmic surgeons on board the ship in the past months.   In particular, we had one surgeon who came every day to work with us from September - December (Dr. Patricia, in the photo with me), and another surgeon who has come each day from January-now (Dr. Christiane).  Each of these women has become part of the heart of this team, and we wish the very best for them as they take their new skills onward to serve their country. 

Pictured to the left is a cataract patient- his left eye has scarring from a previous accident or infection and likely does not see at all.  His right eye (marked as the surgical site) is also blinded with a dense cataract.  You can see the white surface of the cataract behind the pupil.  Most of our patients became blind gradually over months or years as their cataract became more dense.  In the US and Australia, we would take cataracts out early, as soon as the vision is becoming blurry.  In Cameroon good treatment is often expensive and difficult to access, which leads to people becoming completely blind even though their condition is treatable.

7 - One of our favorite beaches in Africa

About 1 hour 45 mins drive from Douala is this stunning black-sand beach near the city of Limbe.  We spent some peaceful weekends here, and it has become one of our very favorite places.  There is a really nice, simple beach hotel that does great fresh fish dinners.  It's been a retreat for us; we visited in October and December.

Here's a fun contrast though - the above photos were taken in October.  The one to the left was taken in December, and the cloudiness in the sky is not fog, it's dust!  This is the phenomenon called the Harmattan which greets us every year from about December-March in pretty much any West African country.  During the dry season, wind blows over the Sahara desert and brings layers of dust, which leave us in an orange haze for a few months.  It's an interesting sight for a couple of days, but it's not my favorite season in West Africa.  Another side note- that it me in the photo standing on a surf board for the first time in my life. ;)  The beach is so calm, it was a fun place to try it out!

8 - Volleyball (and other sports)

As you can see in the photos below, the Port of Douala has allowed us a lot of dock space, which has been a huge blessing.  The space next to the parking lot gets used daily for different sports after work hours.  

Nick and I have particularly enjoyed playing lots of 2x2 volleyball games.  I've also started running, which is something I never thought I'd enjoy.  It's been rewarding to see my endurance build up since I started in November.

...continuing faithfully, finishing well

So, this was a bit of a random collection of thoughts/themes/bits of Cameroon.  Things we will remember (not all of equal importance, even though we de like beignets). Cameroon has grown me personally in many ways, and we've seen God's goodness to us.   After the season of doing Advance when we were pretty tired out, we saw God's faithfulness to us in so many ways and we were able to get the rest we needed.  During the last weeks of our time here, we want to finish well, celebrating the goodness of deep friendships, hard work completed, strong partnerships.  

Here's some goodness to celebrate: check out this sweet patient's progress!  Justine was one of the first patients who came on board for ortho surgery:

Thank you!

Suzanne + Nick