(Note: This is how I experienced the days leading up to Douglas' eye surgery. He plans to give his perspective in a later post.)
One Saturday in early May, Douglas told me that he was having blurry vision in his left eye. He had something very similar in his right eye in January 2020, and that turned out to be a tear in his retina that he was able to have repaired in Birmingham. We assumed that he was having the same problem in his left eye this time. He needed to have his eye checked ASAP, and he would probably need treatment. But we didn't know where to go, only that he would most likely need to leave the country.
At this point, it started to feel like a nightmare episode of The Amazing Race:
"Your husband's left eye needs urgent treatment or he could end up with a detached retina. You will need to do the following:
1. Get his passport back from immigration (it had been sent in for a new visa) or get a document to stand in place of the passport.
2. Find out where in east Africa you can get retina treatment
3. Figure out how to get there and buy a ticket
4. Get a COVID test
5. Find a place to stay in a place where you might not know anyone
Also, time is of the essence, as he could end up with a detached retina and lose sight in his eye.
Okay, go!"
From that point, a series of extraordinary and even miraculous events took place, involving people in multiple countries and continents:
1. Passport: this was the first first and largest problem. We had given our passports to our sponsoring church to get new visas from the immigration office (DGM) in Kinshasa. Douglas would need a special document in lieu of his passport, and we weren't sure how that would work. But... it turns out that the DGM had not yet sent our passports to Kinshasa, so Douglas was able to get his back immediately! The church official who handles our visas said it was a miracle that they had not already been sent as planned.
2. Treatment: We asked a friend in the U.S. - Dr. Dana - for advice on where to have retina treatment. She and her husband had met an American doctor working in Burundi a year or so ago. They had *just found out* a few days before we contacted them that his specialty was ophthalmology. So she knew just who to ask about treatment in eastern Africa. If we had asked a week earlier, she would not have known to connect us to him.
Dr. John put us in touch with Dr. Dieudonné, at Aide-Vision clinic in Bunia, and his colleague in Goma, Dr.... Douglas saw Dr. Dieudonné, who confirmed that there seemed to be a tear in the retina but he could not fix it.
Most importantly, Dr. John put us in touch with a Belgian eye surgeon, Dr. Piet at Rwanda Charity Eye Hospital, outside Kigali. In fact, Dr. John assured us that, if he needed retina treatment himself, of all the eye surgeons in the entire world, he would choose Dr Piet. So now we knew where he needed to go: Kigali, Rwanda!
2. COVID test: Monday morning, after we saw Dr. Dieudonné, we took motorcycle taxis to the Hopital General for Douglas' COVID test. Our dear Dutch friend Gerben picked us up in the group vehicle so we wouldn't have to take motorcycles back home. He also helped with picking up the results that afternoon! And he drove me to pick Douglas up at the airport when he flew back, 10 days later.
3. Travel: The easiest way to get to Kigali is to fly to Goma, DRCongo, which is on the border with Rwanda, cross over, and take a bus or taxi to Kigali, about 3 hours away. I went to the airline office and bought a ticket for him to fly Bunia-Goma. That was the easiest part of the whole process. American friends in Goma offered to pick him up from the airport and let him stay over with them. I do not have a license to drive in Congo, so it was very helpful to have Gerben drive us.
4. Where to stay: A dear friend up in Isiro, Paul, heard about our situation and put us in touch with a family he knew from the U.S., who used to live in Tanzania and now live in Rwanda. They put us in touch with yet another family, the Chances, who offered to host Douglas for the 10 or so days he was there. They also drove him around Kigali, to and forth to the hospital, and hooked him up with a taxi driver to take him between the border and the hospital and back.
Two days after the symptoms started, he was on a plane.
How it went: We ran into a glitch once Douglas got to Goma. He had a letter from Dr. Piet stating that he had a medical need to come into Rwanda, and we had hoped that would suffice for him to get a visa. But he ended up spending the whole day at the border station, waiting for an answer from officials. He spent the night again with the friends in Goma. The next day, he got a call to come "right away" to the Rwandan border. But he didn't have a way to drive there. In the end, he called Rev. Masumbuko, our dear friend and new translation consultant, who called a friend who had a car, and he was able to drive Douglas to the border. The surgery went smoothly, and Douglas returned to Bunia. The main issue now is that his eye stays dilated. Dr. Piet is working with him on that. Prayers are greatly appreciated!
My takeaways from this. This would not have come together without the help of lots of people in many different places. It's a testimony to the power of community, relationships, and networking among Christian workers worldwide. We are grateful to them all, and to God for making it all come together. I am very aware that Douglas and I have resources - in terms of relationships and finances - that most people do not have. I don't want to confuse privilege and God's blessing. Thankfully, these same wonderful people regularly use their contacts and skills to help many people in Africa who otherwise would not be able to get such high quality medical treatment. May we all use our resources to help those in need.
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