leprosy mission

Dear all,

I got an email today from a classmate reporting to the whole class our
class team's achievement in the annual alumni softball tournament held
in our hometown ballpark every August (we got into the
quarterfinals--much better than usual).

But I just started to cry seeing the email list of old friends, as well as
hearing of the softball tourney. I kind of tend to do that when I am
particularly struck by the wonderfulness of normal life (such as when
I get to the States and go to a major league baseball game or high
school football game and hear the Star Spangled Banner played before
the game starts.

Anyway, today I was struck by how softball sounded fun (to watch, not
participate, sorry), but partly because I just spent the morning with
a bunch of leprosy patients, whose limb to human ratio is about 3 (or
less). I am at a Leprosy Mission Hospital about an hour from where I
work as part of an external evaluation team to contribute to their
next 5 year strategic plan.

On our schedule this morning was patient and family interviews. So I
listened to patients, they told me their various tales of how their
foot ulcers got bad, when they had amputations and how their
prostheses rub and causes different ulcers.

But I saw them being expertly managed--wounds cleaned and dressings
changed--one nurse to comfort the patient through the painful
procedure, another to hand sterile dressings to a 3rd who applied them
to the patients. And the patients absolutely all were happy to get
the treatment they needed (though hospital food was bad--so what else
is new?).

And they are smiling, wheeling themselves around or crutching
themselves around, or just resting their damaged feet on special
cradles in the beds, I was humbled by their calm acceptance.
Sometimes it is easier for them to be in the hospital where they don't
have to hide their problems from neighbors, where their 'normal' is
also normal for everyone around them in the hospital.

Anyway, sorry to debrief on you all, but again, the fact of a
different 'normal' back home, with sunny ballparks and sore but
healable old(er) bodies is actually immensely comforting to me--that a
different normal is and should be possible!

love, Kris