Miraculous Answer to Prayer
In this story from Dr. Geelhoed’s journals, the impact of one operation on an entire family is keenly felt. We are always excited to see patients a few days after their surgery when at all possible. To meet this patient in her home was a special treat, and it allows us to get a firsthand glimpse at the life and family which were affected by her recent operation.
“As we skidded down the hillside, we came to a hut on the coast right next to the muddy bank of an inlet cut into the red mangrove thicket. As we entered, I was warmly greeted with a hug. The woman living there had been our patient earlier that week to remove the mass on her neck. She displayed her bandage. I was then reminded that she was one of the patients who had spoken at the ceremony today. She had testified that she had no hope of care since she could not afford any tests or even to get off the island. For her to hope to have a hospital-based surgical procedure was a bit like expecting her to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Yet, she had worried about what this mass might mean – and justifiably so, as this is the single specimen we had sent back to Manila for biopsy determination on us to be delivered to the RHU (Rural Health Unit). The arrival of the MSU, she said through many tears, was a miraculous answer to prayers and she could not believe it when she came and the whole procedure was done even before she got a chance to be worried all over again. And she came out of it as any modern human being with intact dignity and not a single bill to be paid.
She wanted to make us coffee and show us the hospitality of her shack. This is poignant. It might be assumed that anyone too poor to get off the island and too worried to have a simple biopsy and all that it entails in fear and finance might be exaggerating about her quality of life. We could see now in the hospitality of her home, she was – if anything – underestimating the barrier of inaccessibility.”
-Dr. Glenn Geelhoed, Founder of Mission to Heal (journal excerpt from the Philippines, January 2018)
