yes

We've said no so many times that yes has come to feel almost foreign on my tongue. Finally, though, we've been given the chance.

Kwelywoh is back. I saw his name on the admissions list yesterday, and ran down to D Ward to find him curled up in bed 15, looking a little surprised to be on the ship again. I knelt down next to him, and a little arm snaked out from under the covers to curl itself around my neck. The lump between his eyes pressed into my temple as he hugged me silently.

He had surgery today. In another marathon operation (the second in as many days for Dr. Gary) his skull, too, was carefully dismantled. His brain was gently returned to its proper place, and his head was meticulously reassembled.

An encephalocele repair is a surgery so specialized that I've never even seen one in the States. We've done four this year, and there's another waiting to get over his malaria on B Ward. It's incredible to me to think that we're able to do operations like this in a war-torn country with no infrastructure, no electricity and no running water.

Someone on the ship here today laughed at me when I told him I wanted to live out in Liberia proper, out there amidst all the squalor and dirt. I do, though. Someday, eventually, when this season is over, I can't wait to get out of this plush life. But as much as my heart is on land with the people of Africa, I'm coming to realize more and more just how much we're able to do in this floating city.

It feels good to be able to say yes.