Dinga oula! (Hello in mamprulli)
Thursday was a regular day at the hospital. It was procedure day....so we change patient's dressings, go to the OR and do minor procedures. There is this one little girl that we saw that day...she has been admitted for a while now but this was the first time I changed her dressing. She is about 4 years old and one of the toughest I have seen yet. She got a hot bowl of soup spilled on her....burning her right arm, chest and right side of her face. The burns were so bad that we had to make an incision on right arm to relieve the pressure from the swelling. Every 2 days she comes to change her dressings and this is most painful thing for her. She cries but has the cutest face when she does. It hurts me to see this, especially being a little child and she will forever be scarred with these burns.
That afternoon, the doctors who live here invited us over for American Thanksgiving! So we had everyone over at one of the houses and we had lots of food! Turkey was really good :) All the families were over and it was a nice time.
Friday night was a very frustrating night for me. I was on call and there were lots of sick kids on the peds ward. There were about 3-4 kids who needed oxygen therapy because they were in distress. The only problem was that there were only 1 working oxygen purifier to go around the ward of about 40 admitted kids. At one point, a mother came to get me and made some sort of sign for me to follow her...I headed over to her and she brought me to her 2 month old kid. This little girl had been operated that day for an obstruction to her large bowel. Once I got to her bed side....she was barely breathing...we started assisting her breathing and this helped her for a bit. The question was....how long do we do this for? There is nothing more to do for her because there is no other resources available. The poor kid was going to die and it was only a matter of time. At one point, I was listening to her heartbeat and it was so faint that I thought the child was dead. She had a tube in her mouth which we removed and this seemed to help her breathing a little more. The next day, we found out that the mother took her child home to die with the rest of the family around. It just sucks to see that if this kid was in Canada...we would be doing so much for it until it was able to recover on its own.
Later that night, a guy came in after having gotten into a motorcycle accident. He was unconscious and not responding to any sort of stimulus. Usually we would be doing xrays, ct scan, blood work up etc...None of that is possible here...well an xray but we only use those when we are absolutely sure we want to use them. We were suspecting that he was probably bleeding into his brain and this was causing increased pressures in his head. The only way to fix this was to drill bur holes into his skull. One of the surgeons from LA thats visiting here was ready to perform this procedure. However, the Ghanaian anesthesiologist here was a little hesitant to do so because of the bad possible outcome with the resources we have available here. We ended up drilling 3 bur holes in this mans head the next day...we definitely relieved some pressure, but there was no bleeding in his brain. Now we are just observing him, he is probably going to be comatose and will likely die.
Saturday was a very relaxing day - we rounded in the morning and then hung out in the afternoon. Me and this ER resident from LA went to this bar after our night rounds. This place is called Chesterfields and is in the middle of nowhere. You basically show up there, pull up your own chair and they bring you a table. We were sitting outside in the front of the building, there were 4 other people at this bar, who had their music on from their car. We had some beers and then headed home. This was a nice experience.
Now getting home is where all the fun started last night! I got into bed and started watching Game of Thrones on my laptop. Then all of a sudden...started feeling nauseous. I got out of bed and ran to the bathroom....puked my brains out! At this point I knew that I had not been initiated after a week of being here. That night, I puked about 5 times and felt like crap! This morning, I didn't get out of bed...skipped morning rounds and stayed in bed all day. Had diarrhea and fever today. Nothing like a bad case of acute gastro enteritis in Africa :) I haven't been the only one....3 other people have been sick the last few days...I guess this is something normal to expect when travelling to Africa. I am now feeling much better and havent eaten yet....will try that tomorrow!
So after one week of being here - I can truly say that I am having a great time and really enjoying this experience. Seeing how others live is a real learning experience. People don't complain much over here, they live one day at a time and are grateful for a new day. Most people don't even know their ages out here - the other day in clinic I asked a girl how old she was and neither her or her mom knew...they said 25 and I later found out she was 12. A sense of time doesn't really mean much to them....very interesting.
I got another 3 weeks left and I am sure its gonna keep on getting better out here. I am starting to settle in and being comfortable with the patients, wards and details of how things work. The only problem is that I am missing my peops from back home. Today, laying in bed all day got me thinking of home and how grateful I am to have such a great family, friends, life and most of all....Evie :)
I can't wait to come home to you my love :) I really would have loved for you to be here to take care of me while I was puking but I know that would have grossed you out regardless! Je t'aime mon amour!!
Until next time....thx for reading guys :)
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