The Hospital

I'm writing from a hotel room in Hue. Ut, the Vietnamese lady who had been diagnosed with liver cancer, was able to have her surgery last week. Her recovery has been slow, but she is eating a few bites and can sit up and walk with assistance.

Vietnamese hospitals are quite different from American hospitals. Patients don't receive the same sort of round-the-clock care, so family members stay in the hospital to feed and care for their loved ones. In the case of Ut, her only family is her son Dat. Several of us are taking shifts at her bedside.

Enoch and I arrived in Hue last night. We were a little surprised when we saw her hospital room for the first time. The rooms are small--not as big as a college dorm room--and they have four beds. In each bed is at least one patient and one or more family members who are there to help out. In Ut's room, people were sitting on the beds, on straw mats on the floor, and on a cot similar to a stretched-out lawn chair. I counted 15 crammed in the tiny space.

The longer we stayed, the more attention we attracted. Before we knew it, the hallway was filled with curious onlookers; others crowded around the outside window to peek in.

Meanwhile, Enoch and Jillian Brewer had slipped outside so Enoch could prop up his leg, still swollen from a motorbike wreck. Soon after they left, Jillian came in to tell me that it was crazy outside. In the open space outside our wing, a circle of people huddled together. There in the middle of all the commotion was Enoch, looking a bit bewildered as he was repeatedly questioned about his leg in Vietnamese. Convinced that he was a hospital patient because of his bandages, one woman even tried to give him milk. Our Vietnamese friend Linh laughed and called Enoch a celebrity.

Please keep Ut in your prayers--she is in a lot of pain. Also, remember us as we stay at the hospital each night. The language barrier makes things difficult, and we want Ut to be properly cared for and to feel safe and comfortable.

Thanks for the prayers.

With love,

Marissa and Enoch