Bama Representing

Clinic day on Wednesday included 58 pts in 7 hours, including 8 ultrasound and 2 echos, and the power going out multiple times that evening. I’m telling you, the most delightful elderly people come to that clinic. I love them. They are just so grateful for everything and to still be alive and kicking. Their family members take wonderful care of them. One gentleman came in that had had a previous stroke with complete right sided paralysis. It was so packed in the courtyard that a wheelchair couldn’t fit, so two of his grandsons carried him in. They also knew what medicines he takes and help him do therapy, etc. It’s fantastic. A 72 year old lady came in who looked fantastic, and I told her so. She said she had 15 children and 40 grandchildren. And you thought I had a big family. The clinic also sees sickle cell patients. Mostly they either get blood transfusions or just folic acid prescriptions. No drug seekers here because there’s no pain medicine.

I saw a young man running along the side of the road in a familiar shirt…. Bama people, y’all are representing all over. Some 30-13 score on the back of his shirt. Apparently massive crate loads of used and new clothing are shipped from various places and sold in a huge market in the capital. I have seen a lot of out of place and very specific t shirts here. Indiana Varsity Volleyball 2004, National Guard, Smith Family Reunion 2005, Winn Dixie, etc. You also see many sweet, friendly people with quite awful language on their shirts.

Thursday. OK, good news first. We got Happy referred to another hospital to get her leg fixed! I’m so glad. Patient advocacy, y’all. It would have healed crooked. It took some arguing and convincing and pushing around, but she’s going!

Happy's Femur

 

These are just the cutest children. In fact, most of the people here are so vibrant and so beautiful, I truly wish you all could come experience it. There was a 5 year old with malaria who was completely unresponsive on Monday, though breathing on his own. He was improving a little each day with meds, like on Tuesday opened his eyes to a deep sternal rub. Today, his NG tube was out, his O2 was off, and he was up walking around! Still weak and sick-looking, and he had an ulcer on his poor little ear from the nasal cannula, but alive! It was exciting.

Sad news: the doctor diagnosed two patients with cancer. The word cancer strikes the same fear in people here as it does everywhere else. A sweet 70 year old man had multiple cancerous nodules on his liver. The doctor had a long talk with the man and his daughter about the results and needing to get right with God. The daughter was very much in agreement and the man also agreed, but not as enthusiastically. The second patient was a 1 year old he diagnosed with Wilms’ tumor. She had a huge tumor growing on her right kidney that her parents had just felt a week ago. Luckily, there is treatment in the capitol city and children usually do quite well and survival rate is high. But the news made daddy hug her so close and both parents had tears in their eyes. The doctor prayed with them and they stayed calm and were making plans to go to the capitol. A 3 day trip, but that’s where the chemo and pediatric surgeons are. Budd-Chiari syndrome is a new thing I learned about when the doctor found a clot in a lady’s portal vein. She had massive ascites, as in 15L drained off (which is too much to do that quickly), and he was looking at her liver. There’s no treatment here. She’ll have to come to the hospital every week for the rest of her life to get the fluid drained off. She’s 32 and has multiple children, including a 5 month old.

This morning while getting ready to go to the hospital there was no power. Came home today and there’s no water running to the house. This is why laundry is difficult because you have to have both at the same time for the washing machine to work.

There were nursing assistant students at the hospital I had never seen before. No weights or vital signs had been taken. The doctor informed me that I may have to teach a new group every week because they rotate so often. So I made new friends and had a class and we weighed and vital signed every single patient in the building, which took hours. It was really full today. There were 2-4 adult females to a bed in the female ward. They were cute, as soon as they figured out what we were doing, the ones that could walk all started rotating to the scale and then moved to the bed closest to where we had the vitals machine.

I hate people touching my neck, I do. Many people, mostly my brothers, enjoy this fact. There are mosquito nets hanging over every bed on the ward. I was leaning under a net and felt something on my neck. I thought it was a fly, so I swatted at it and continued evaluating the little girl patient. I still felt it a few seconds later, so I reached up and pulled off a moderately sized spider. He wasn’t huge, but he looked like he works out several times a week. The little girl’s eyes got big, I threw the spider down, it ran away, everything was fine. I moved my stethoscope. I feel something else on my neck. I reach up and pull off moderately-sized spider’s Crossfit coach. The little girl held her breath, I threw the large spider further away, it ran away, and I quickly finished my assessment and moved away from the net. I don’t think people touching my neck will bother me anymore.

Also, one time I was swatting at flies that were around my face and one of the nursing assistant students asked “You don’t like flies?” I think I stared at her for a moment before tactfully replying “It bothers me when they’re around my eyes and face.” “Oh.”

I like being joyful, and I like being able to be joyful despite circumstances. I just forget to choose to be sometimes. “You have made known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy." Psalm 16:11. There is also a difference in simply being happy, and finding joy and peace in God's presence.

How could you not be joyful with a sunset like this?

 

“Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.” C. S. Lewis

I must have looked particularly rough this morning at chapel and staff meeting because I got more English “Good morning” and “How are you?” than I have had in all of my time here combined. I didn’t even know that half of the people who greeted me knew any English at all. There are at least 7 greetings that I know, and I suspect they invent a new one every day. When someone says a greeting I don’t know and I just shake my head, they keep holding onto my hand and someone nearby gives me the right answer. They make me repeat it till I get the pronunciation right. It’s difficult for me to remember how to eat breakfast at 7am, much less greet 15 people in another language and learn new words while I’m at it. But I continue on.

I love you and appreciate your encouragement!