One duty that I have been given while here is to help advise young missionaries on medical issues when the mission president's wife is unavailable. While far from having any medical training, I did raise 6 children, and I had three years in Switzerland doing this very thing. There I had to assess, among hundreds of other situations, whether an Elder should go home due to a severe shoulder injury (he did and he didn't want to), and if a sister was having an appendicitis attack and needed to go to the hospital (she was and she did). So, I am happy to help out our dear, over-worked mission president's wife here. She has eight children of her own, and must attend to all of their needs as well as the 200 plus missionaries, some of whom like to call because they have a slight headache. I had to laugh one day, however, when I received a call from a sister missionary who said, "Hello, Sister Peterson, I hear you are a nurse." Thus, an example of the infamous missionary grapevine, the source of many missionary myths. I wouldn't be surprised to have someone ask me sometime where I got my medical degree.
In fulfilling this assignment Paul and I have made three trips to Vermont in the past few months, a voyage of over 3 hours each way for us. We have taken a sweet little sister to the doctor several times. I don't think they have really found the source of her ailments, but at least we know it isn't anything urgently serious. Crossing the border has proved to be an adventure every time, but that is a topic for another post.
I admit I feel a great deal of pressure when trying to decide if a medical condition is serious or not. It is a huge responsibility because these are beloved children of parents who have entrusted them to missionary service for 18 months to 2 years. How would I feel if I told them to go back out and work when in reality they needed to seek immediate medical attention? I pray for wisdom as I listen to their descriptions: "Sister Peterson, I have been coughing really badly for a week." of "I hit my head on the handle of the freezer and I have sharp pains in my head even though the bump is now gone." I try to remember that most of the time it really isn't serious; they just need a listening ear. There was one young man who called and said he thought he should go to the hospital 'right now' because he was "really sick". I tried to pin him down on symptoms but he was vague. I told him to rest a bit and try to go back out for a couple of hours and see how it went. I saw him just two days later at a zone conference and asked him how he was. He looked at me strangely and said, "Huh?' (as in what are you talking about?). I have to assume he either was never all that sick, or that he now has amnesia.
No photos this time, but perhaps I should take a "selfie" of me in a white lab coat, drawing blood from Paul's arm.
