Today...

Interesting day today. 47 patients. I saw a lot of kids with coughs, colds and fevers but also some unusual things. A baby with 12 toes and 12 fingers. A 12 year old boy with a large mass in his lower abdomen (referred, still waiting to hear what it is). A child who has been sick for a few weeks and now has canary yellow eyes; it is malaria. Kids with squiggly lines on their legs, seriously looks like a worm crawling under the skin (= cutaneous larva migrans, otherwise known as dog hookworm, it isn’t harmful but can be very itchy!) Many children with malaria, although here, that’s not so unusual anymore.

Anyway, plenty to do, see, figure out etc.

More news- I am going to Kenya on February 3rd for 2 weeks to attend a medical conference there. I’m going with the two VVF surgeons and I’m sure we’ll have a great trip. It was a little worrying at first when I found out two weeks ago that the doctor that was going to cover for me wouldn’t be able to come anymore due to appendicitis. I was worried we would need to close the clinic for a few weeks. But thank God, after a lot of emailing back and forth we found out today that someone else will be able to come out next week to cover for me. So, all things work out in the end!!!

More another time...

2006...off to a busy start

Happy New Year.
It's been a little while since I have posted something on my site. This is partially because my laptop has taken its last breath...yes, our short-term computer tech officially declared it dead last week...and because I have been busy. The clinic re-opened on January 3rd and I have been seeing 40+ patients on clinic days.

Today was a very busy day with many patients to refer- two with malaria and hemoglobins of 4.2 and 4.6 (should be above 10!!). So they went to Emergency hospital for intravenous malaria treatment and probably blood. Another case I referred was a month old baby with a very large facial tumor (bigger than a grapefruit). I am referring her for some tests and then depending on the results I may be able to send her to the ship in Liberia. Another child I referred was to the surgical clinic at Emergency Hospital- a little boy with a huge injection abcess on his left thigh. It looked quite painful! So they will need to incise and drain it there. (sorry for the non-medical people).

At the house things are going fine. We have a very full house! An anesthesiologist visiting from the UK with her husband, a VVF surgeon from Ethiopia visiting for 2 weeks, Rebekah from Canada and her two kids (Christian, girl, 2yrs and Noah, boy, 3 months) that she is adopting and our long term staff. The latest addition to our long term staff is our health care manager- Terri Bilton from New Zealand. She arrived on Friday and will be with us for awhile!

Alright, I wish you all a healthy and safe 2006!