Emergency UPDATE

On our last update Jason had mentioned that he had malaria. Well his malaria got pretty bad (105 fever) and then we noticed he had infected boils on his feet causing other symptoms on his already worn out body. Then to top it off he got really bad chest pain Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning, this wife couldn’t take it anymore and called our mission nurses on our 2-way radio. They were and are my heroes! They agreed that we needed to get Jason out of the tribe and at 12:15 there were 2 pilots (more heroes!) landing on our airstrip to take Jason, me, and the kids out to town to our mission’s base where the nurses could monitor Jason (Our mission Dr. was on his way out of the country when all this was happening). At 2 pm Jason was lying in the clinic in totally awesome and capable hands. I couldn’t stop smiling. Not because my husband was in pain and very sick but because I wasn’t the one trying to read all the medical manuals and “guess” what he had! It was no longer in my hands and I was no longer in an isolated mountain tribe with no help or no way out. I was surrounded by the body of Christ who were bending over backwards to do all that they could for us.

Thursday, Jason seemed to be doing better. His malaria was gone, and his infection was slowly starting to go away. But his chest pain was still hanging on. Then Yesterday morning at 2:30 a.m. his pain woke him up; he wasn’t out of breath or going numb, but the pain was intense in the center of his chest, and it was spreading from side to side with a heat type of pain, which scared him (and me) a bit. We were pretty sure it was not cardiac related, however, the EKG machine was not working very well, and we still did not have conclusive evidence to support this, so the nurses decided it was best to send him down to Australia to get the necessary checks done. So by 6:00 a.m. we were on our way to the airport for a medevac. We all got down to Cairns, Australia by 10:30 a.m. and they rushed Jason off in an ambulance while the kids and I went through customs and immigration and got a taxi and got our luggage and followed him there. When I got there, they had already taken an EKG of Jason’s heart rhythm, drawn blood for tests, and were on their way to sending him to the X-ray room.

To make a very long tiring story short, all of Jason’s blood tests came back fine, his chest X-rays were perfect, he went through a stress test and that also checked out great. He has a perfectly healthy heart! The EKG showed a couple blips (a birth defect) that we need to have a cardiologist look at when we get home to the states, but that was not the cause of the chest pain. So what was it that scared us so much and got us down here to Australia? They said that there was inflammation in the chest cavity due to the stress of the malaria and the infection which he had undergone. They put him on some medications/antibiotics told him to rest, recuperate and stay near a hospital for at least a couple more days. So, we are here in Australia right now and trying to put our minds in “break” mode since we have to stay here 3 weeks because we need our PNG visas to be renewed. Our passports are being DHL to us today and we will have to send those to Brisbane to get the necessary paperwork.

This has been hard on Jason leaving the Tobo church and not being able to teach the Acts lessons he was SO looking forward to teaching. But we are grateful for this God given, much needed break from the tribe and a chance to let our heads stop spinning. We are confident that our God is good and He is in charge. That’s reassuring and what we can rest in!!! We are very thankful for God’s protection, and for giving Jason good health. 4 days ago we were in the tribe and now we are in the heart of a busy tourist city in Australia. Pray for us as we re-group as a family and internalize all that just happened.

Right now we are at a hotel near the hospital and hope to find something cheaper very soon and find a place to send this to all of you.

We will keep in touch and praising the Lord for the Body of Christ and for our support team there in PNG.

His Clay Pots, Kellie for the family