A 5 minute experience stretched over 3 weeks!

For the sake of a brother-in-law and anyone else who doesn’t like medical pictures I promise than there are none. And neither will there be any detailed descriptions of the pathology! I have just come across a picture in association with an album of hymns to which I was listening’, and here it is.

The picture reminded me of two things. Firstly of all the anti-Trump news about his attitude to abortion. He may have been lying (an art perfected by politicians) but I heard him say (unless it was doctored by media experts) that he was against the generalization of Roe v Wade but that he felt that the people in each state should be able to vote on it. He claimed that he personally believed that there were 3 legitimate reasons for abortion – rape, incest and if the mother’s physical life was in danger. A very different view from what his opposition presents him as holding!

But what has that to do with the title of my article? Nothing! But the picture reminded me of the hundreds of cases of ruptured uteri that I have operated upon in countryside Ethiopia where in the late 1960s our small hospital was the only hospital for millions of people and we were so busy that we could not operate things like antenatal clinics – to which people wouldn’t have come because of custom, distance, lack of roads and means of travel. We served with 1-2 doctors, 5 trained nurses and a good group of Ethiopian helpers (a few of them trained elsewhere as dressers) as the only hospital area for more than a million people!

So I have seen many babies who have died before they were born. The picture above is one suggestion as to where they end up. But this is not a theological discussion.

One day, when I was the only doctor in the hospital I was faced with three ladies with ruptured uteri arriving within 5 minutes of one another. Our ‘operating suite’ had 2 operating rooms, one of them large enough to have 2 operating tables. So I had 3 tables for the 3 women. I had a nurse who was capable of watching an anaesthetic (she was v good) after I had induced the patient. We called for help from the ward and so ended up with the sickest, having been resuscitated, asleep and me operating on her. Behind a sheet for visual protection a second lady was being resuscitated as was the third lady in the smaller OR.

It was a long morning but all were eventually taken into the ward on appropriate IV, pain and antibiotic therapy. All three babies were dead (and hence the picture above). Two ladies progressed very well and were able to go home in 7-10 days. No matter what we did the third lady did not do well. She ran a high fever and using all our available antibiotics, changing to new ones as appropriate and doing an X-ray to make sure that we hadn’t accidentally left a pack or an instrument inside we eventually had to conclude that we would probably see her depart in a box.

Sadly, I believe that much of what is called ‘faith’ healing is sham. But I do believe in God and I think that He can do wonderful things. While I was operating on that same evening on which we had come to the above conclusion, the nurses and a few of the families of workers on our mission station spent the night in prayer specifically for the healing of this lady. In spite of all our failed treatment, the lady’s temperature the next day was down considerably, she felt much better and was discharged ‘well’ about 5 days later!

Dominic Cartier

The joys and tears of farming.

I grew up until I went to primary school during WW11 on a farm. And I spent some time there during my primary school years but I could never claim to have been trained in the administrative aspects of farming. I loved dipping sheep and having the occasional pet lamb. I kept the sheep up to the shearers and helped take them to different paddocks. I’d hold them while their tails were docked and the ram lambs were made into wethers but I never learnt about rotating paddocks and my grandfather had many paddocks spread around the district. It was a good way to grow up but I couldn’t say that I was an educated sheep farmer.

Some years ago I bought a bit of land as an investment (I didn’t have much superannuation), with the plan of later subdividing it. This was a reasonable aim as it was gazetted by the local government to be able to be sub-divided as soon as town water was brought to the area. But as the water came the local government decided to stop one small block away from my property and changed the gazetting so that it was no longer able to be subdivided.

When I retired from my chosen profession and returned from missionary type work in Ethiopia we moved to our small 100 acre block and decided to start a small flock of Dorper sheep, to use the land and give us a bit to do. Why Dorpers – because they shed their wool and don’t need to be shorn. They breed about every 8 months and produce many twins and triplets and have high quality meat.

And as you can see in this picture we are getting a good crop of lambs. White, black, spots of brown but they are mainly white. One set of twins have black tips to their noses and black short socks, etc. New life is wonderful! Seeing them playing chasey (or however you spell it!) and frolicking joyously is grand!

BUT….. But there are dingoes (or maybe it was a pack of wild dogs) which killed two ewes and a lamb a couple of weeks ago. So we have been keeping them locked up at night. The neighbour, who had lost many more sheep, put out, with council authority, baits and we have no more losses to canines. But last night a dingo was howling nearby. So we must still be careful. And in one day we lost 4 lambs – two still born and two killed by eagles. Well one of the still born ones was very small and still alive when I let them out in the morning. I initially though it was dead but saw a small flicker of breath, gave it some mouth to nose resuscitation, and brought it home to warm it and try to feed it – but it died a few hours later. The second eagle attack was on a much bigger lamb but there were talon marks near its shoulder which I think had gone into its lung and another deep injury over its hind quarter. Again we brought it home and tried to care for it, but it died shortly afterwards.

The first little one mentioned above. At least she died warm, and cared for. Wasn’t she lovely?

Even the death of a little lamb claws at my emotions. I hate and I cannot understand the abortion industry.

Some may call me a hypocrite as I still am a carnivore. But I insist that animals be killed ‘humanely’. And I shudder with the word humane as I think of abortions and the cruelty of wars and domestic violence and the like.

Dominic Cartier

A son of whom to be proud…

I open my iPhone by facial recognition. My son can open my phone by looking at it, so you can understand that we look pretty much the same. In fact very much the same! His fingerprints are different and he is much more broadly talented than I am! I will list a few things which he does now around our place and hint at some of how these things have been acted out in the past.

He has set me up, me, who knew virtually nothing about IT so that I can blog and email etc. He was in charge of the IT equipment at Canberra University years ago, and still manages our church program for sending throughout the world, etc, etc.

He prepares the signs which we put out at the entrance of our small property to celebrate the seasons of the church.

He designs and builds sheds and fences to make us, hopefully, successful hobby sheep farmers. And in addition built a strong skillion onto our already present shed. He has organized an ngo to help build a trade college in Arba Minch where, for about two years, he taught English and instructed in other things.

This allows his youngest brother to work on our vehicles and the older helps out the younger with experiential knowledge and extra hands.

He constructs and repairs all sorts of things in wood and metal. He spent two years working on equipment around a hospital in Ethiopia and has done work overseas in war ravaged Congo and helped rebuild a school after an earthquake in Nepal.

He pastors a small church from which the messages are sent on internet around the world. He has been pastor of a church in Australia and pastored a church in Ethiopia.

Dominic Cartier.