RECOVERING - SLOWLY

After two weeks of feeling pretty bad health-wise, I (Eileen) feel like I have finally turned the corner.  While I was sick, except for while in the hospital, I continued to answer medical calls.  This past week I started doing half-day apartment inspections with Russell on Wednesday and Thursday. Friday, I went into the office and then we traveled to Binangonan to do an apartment inspection and look at some potential new apartments. By Friday night I was totally beat. I am recognizing that you don’t bounce back from an illness quite so fast when you are older. 

Many of the missionaries within our mission have heard about the Coronavirus from their parents or from local ward members and have concerns regarding the illness. I watch the news carefully so as to know how to advise the missionaries.  It has been really sad to see how fast the disease is spreading in Asia, even affecting cruise passengers and a church group from another faith. Two temples were recently closed in Asia, and missionaries serving in several Asian countries have been instructed to stay inside as much as possible to avoid potentially contracting the illness. While the Coronavirus hasn’t been an issue in the Philippines, we have been encouraged to have missionaries fist bump rather than shake hands, and to avoid people who are sick.  That is pretty challenging to do considering how much people in our church shake hands and hug each other. 

We have had a lot of illness among our missionaries the last two weeks. It has been difficult, but necessary, for me to perform my nursing duties over the phone rather than being with the sick missionaries in person. While I was in the hospital myself as a patient, I had an elder call me at 3:00 a.m. telling me he couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t anything I could do to help him. Russell suggested to him that he call our mission president, who then met him at a local ER. We had a sister get bit by a dog which required Rabies shots. We had 3 elders in 3 days go to the ER with pretty significant flu-like symptoms. One had Dengue and was put in the ICU. He was in the pediatric ward because he was only 18 years old and still considered a child.  Another elder had Dengue with pneumonia, the third elder had Dengue and has struggled with strep throat on top of that.  The cases of Dengue have all been a surprise as it hasn’t even rained here for several weeks and Dengue is usually worse in the rainy season. 

What is readily apparent to me as I work with the sick missionaries is that there is a huge disparity between missionaries in their level of pain tolerance, ability to cope with illness, and willingness to follow instructions. I know many of the missionaries quite well.  There are some who panic and “cry wolf” with very insignificant problems. Other missionaries can be quite ill and yet the most they will admit to me is that perhaps they aren’t feeling their best. The night before I got sick, I spent several hours with a sister who went to an ER on her own after telling me that she had experienced 3 minutes of pain and disregarding the advice I had given her. The doctor in the ER put a cool compress on her head, did basic lab tests and then we took her home. The next day we took her to a different hospital, and she was diagnosed with a tiny kidney stone several days later.  With each missionary I try to do the best I can in giving them advice. Some listen better than others.

Today in church Grace gave her first talk. She was very nervous but did a great job.  I felt like a proud parent watching her deliver it.  We are so grateful for the association we have with Grace and Lance.

As part of the housing coordinator position Russell has been tasked with teaching all the missionaries how to use a fire extinguisher and then distributing them to each apartment.  The facility management people made sure Russell knew how to put out a fire by starting this fire in the parking lot and having him extinguish it. 

Eileen and Russell in front of an old lighthouse. 

This was was the view of the lake and Manila in the background from one of the apartments we looked at. Unfortunately it didn't meet any of our requirements, but the view was nice.

Below is a video of dogs going crazy as we are doing an apartment inspection. Is it any wonder that we have had 3 missionaries require Rabies shots since being here?