Edoh

Don Stephens wrote the following from his book Mercy Ships of Mercy (2005):

“She’s tall and slender, sixteen going on seventeen, a French-speaking African young women  with the blood of three nations in her veins, or so it was eight years ago, when a younger Edoh underwent several surgical procedures and blood transfusions from crew members onboard a Mercy Ship.  She was nine at the time, a tiny child with spindly arms and legs and a massive tumor on the side of her face.  The renegade mass had shifted her left eye two inches off centre and stretched her mouth to an unimaginable eight-inch diameter.  Teeth stuck out at odd angles, and worse, a new backward growth of the tumor threatened a slow and horrible death by suffocation.  In shock and horror, her parents, having exhausted every possible avenue of hope, finally gave up.  They, along with their village, prepared for her death.  And then her parents heard that a Mercy Ship was coming.  Edoh remembers only the blood she would cough up, the difficulty breathing, the fear in her parents’ eyes.  She remembers too, the day they traveled a long way to stand in line, how she suddenly began fighting for breath, how she was snatched up from the press of a huge crowd and tossed screaming over a steel gate.  She remembers landing in the arms of a giant white man and screaming more until she finally saw her parents again, inside the big ship on the other side of the fence.  Years have now passed, and the Mercy Ship has docked once again in Togo.  Edoh has returned for a follow-up small reconstructive surgery, and everything comes flooding back to her, especially the care and the kindness of the nurses and the surgeons.   She understood nothing of their speech, then, or now.  But there is no forgetting the language of their touch.  And when she does find someone to translate her words, she tells them all she wants to become is a nurse.” (Ch. 8)

 Psalm 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me;your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Dovi Edoh is now 24 years old and the spunkiest African women I’ve met thus far from Togo during this field service.  She’s able to converse quite a few words in English and seems to understand everything when spoken to in English.  One thing I’ve realized is African people are brilliant at learning language.  I’m not surprised anymore now when I hear that someone knows seven languages.  Last week  she arrived back on our unit feeling very nauseous after undergoing an ICBG (iliac crest bone graft) and was quite withdrawn and appeared quite depressed.  She’s finally back to her usual self trying to make all the nurses and other patients laugh and calls everyone “her sister”. She’s constantly knitting booties for all the babies on the ward and seems to always have a smile on her face, quite a contrast from last week.  It was quite shocking hearing her story, knowing that she was at one time destined for her life on earth to end at only nine years old from slow suffocation or so her parents thought.  It also made me realize how loving and unselfish a group of random strangers can be.  Dovi was unable to breathe and the people of Togo who were also waiting in line that screening day knew that and let her cut in line so she might live.  They didn’t just let her cut in line, they crowd surfed her in order to save her life so she might live.  After being thrown over the gate and landing in the arms of a Mercyshipper she was trached immediately so she wouldn’t suffocate from her massive tumor.

Her mother was also on Mercy Ships these past couple of weeks receiving a hernia repair.  They’re from KPalimet, the prettiest place in all of Togo. Its always fun for those who have been here long-term to have reunions with these patients.  Mercy ships rotates around the same countries so patients often come back for more surgeries every couple of years.  They are happily welcomed back and have an instant bond with those who remember them.  Don Stephens, founder of Mercy Ships, and his wife remember her from many years ago and as soon as they saw each other again an instant connection was rekindled.