The time was 5pm - the 23rd day of July 2009. It was just another day and I just got back from town after a long hectic day in class.
Over mesmerised with the delights of the evening, I was swayed to resort to my usual evening song singing habit but with little knowledge that messages were waiting for me on my phone.
I had it on the vibrate mode the other night with the selfish thought that it would reduce the level of disturbing calls to help get my way through my school work.
To no avail my friend Andrew Tahunimake was desperately trying to have me on the line to tell me something.
That was in the night. His failed attempts left him with no option but to leave 2 “Call Back” messages on my phone around 12pm the next day. But since I left my phone at home I didn’t get them until I got home in the evening.
My adrenaline levels shot to the brim when I show 2 same messages showing on the phone. I called instantly to inquire about what was going on.
I was walloped to hang up instantly with this promise “I’m coming!” when the soft but weak voice on the other end revealed to me that he’s in the emergency department with a sarcastic X-ray film.
Stuart, a friend of mine and I rushed our way to the CWM Hospital to find our friend only to be surrounded by his lecturers in a cold and chilly evening.
He didn't sleep the other night, "I had this painful headache that seemed to go on and on. The cough that came with it was agonizing and I didn't sleep. I thought I had H1N1 so I came straight here to check."
That was around 4pm after spending the whole night and part of the day alone shouldering the pain.
The 21 year old first year Radiologist student looked more than worried with an abnormal X-ray that depicted a fluid filled chest associated with an enlarged heart, but we finally found ourselves in the ambulance heading towards the other end of the hospital to get him admitted- an experience which tends to grow lots of uneasy nerves for him.
We kept on assuring him that things would be okay in a move to get the kinds of looks he was wearing then off his face.
There was little coming from the doctor then but suspicious minds were centring on TB but the enlargement of the heart qualified him to undergo an echo cardiac scan to visualize the articheture of his heart.
The slim but smiling Areare lad was just too scared of sleeping on the hospital beds so we took turns to hang around most of the times till he slept.
I was heading to the class when he underwent the echo cardiac scan. I rang him only to be silenced by these soft spoken words, “They’ve just finished the thing. Two of my heart valves are not working.....”
I didn’t know what to tell him but I knew in my mind that the dysfunctional valves are causing the retention of fluid in his heart leading to the enlargement.
The normal span of the heart is around 15cm but because of fluid retention his was raised to 27cm.
If I could opt for something at that time I would choose a time alone with him to chat so I invited him to go to our place.
Andrew sat quietly turning to look a bit more tensed when I had something on the stove to fix our empty stomachs. "I was told that this condition can be corrected by surgery but the problem is that it is not done here. It can only be done in countries like Australia”
“So I’ll wait for any chance to have it done,” said Tahunimake.
Getting someone out of the shell like what my friend is staying in is not at all easy but we tried our very best to get across the message that things are going to be okay.
I remember telling him to look at things in a positive way "Our doubts breed hope if we look at them in God’s perspective.
"You are not a mistake but a creation made for a purpose.
"In the dry wilderness, God had decided to step in to erase the doubts in the minds of the Israelites with a beaming miracle that even from mere rock water would flow from it.
"Even when there was no way out, he drilled His power through the Jordan River to pave a way for the crying Israelites to cross over to the promise land.
"If a dead man can be raised by Him to life your problem is not at all an obstacle for Him," I wrote in note which I later passed on to him to read.
The news of his admission got his aunty in Honiara in tears but he got a lot of support from them anyways. Despite the expensive call rates they managed to call him at times to assure him that they are praying for him.
My friend Stuart once prayed with him in his room as he continued to receive support of encouragements from friends and family members.
Andrew’s dad died when he was in form four, but the mum and the three brothers were the hardest group to be informed of the issue.” We didn’t inform my mum yet and we are trying not to because I don’t know how she’ll handle it. She’s having a lot of hard times since dad’s passing.”
The support he’s receiving seemed to be doing him some kind of good “I am strong minded already and hope that things will be okay.”
The cardiac surgeons from Australia always visit Fiji every year but this year’s visit was already due.
“I am not at all giving up. I’m opting for the surgery to be done so that I‘ll get on with life. I can't stop beleiving in the mighty works of God our creator.”
Prayer Point:
Let’s pray for Brother Andrew Tahunimake as he awaits surgery to be done to his incompetent heart valves to have them corrected. God has promised that nothing is impossible. No man is an island. Let's bring those thoughts to life.
Andrew Tahunimake is a first year Radiographic student at the Fiji School of Medicine.
Article Source:http://simsaonline.webnode.com/news/a-broken-heart-that-smile/
