Arrival in Kenya...

I arrived at the conference center with Jerry and Josette today after two overnight flights and a day of site seeing in cold London. We had a 15 hour lay over and decided to make the most of it. We saw the Big Ben, tower of london, london bridge, tower bridge, westminster abbey, buckingham palace etc. and had lunch in an English pub. A long but fun trip.

The conference center is amazing and I feel blessed to be able to be here. The people are great, the food is amazing (ice cream for dessert tonight!), the landscape is beautiful, there's a mini gym, a tennis and basketball court, a great chapel, a big auditorium, a cafe, internet lounge, gift shop, electricity etc. It's quite a place. There is a lot of green grass and flowers to enjoy outside. Josette and I are staying in the ladies dorm- so far it's just the two of us, but 19 ladies are supposed to join us tomorrow!

I know we will be very busy as of Tuesday, but so far it feels like a retreat. I am especially looking forward to the spiritual input - as I have heard from others that it has been so refreshing in the past. We saw a sneak preview of the program- lectures start on Tuesday with great topics divided into surgery, general medicine, community health and dental. I'll probably follow the general med and community health topics. Some topics are: using algorithms in treating children, typhoid, rashes in children, dermatological cases, nutrition, immunization programs, staffing issues, etc. It's going to be good!

Greetings from Limuru, Kenya.

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!

Wishing you a...

Appi Krismes

Merry Christmas from Sierra Leone!!!

Wishing you all the best from sunny Freetown.

Back to work...

Wednesday was an early start considering my late night! Instead of going to the clinic I went with Jenny (my replacement) to the local children’s hospital and visited some patients we had referred and brought them christmas gifts. A 6 month old I had referred to the feeding center weighing 3.4 kg was now much better, weighing 4.8 kgs at 7 months…still small of course, but she had chubby cheeks which is always a good sign! After that we went to the clinic. That afternoon we had our Christmas party. It was quite different than your average western party. It was quite African…loud singing, dancing, cheering etc. The staff definitely had a great time.

Thursday was my first clinic day and the last of this year as my staff is now on holiday! I saw about 30 patients and it was easy to get back into the swing of things. One of the nurse’s ask if I would see the patients on my own in Krio or if I needed translation. I said ‘well, I’m not sure if I remember everything”. Her response was “try, if you get stuck, call us”. So I did. And I was in their on my own for the majority of the day seeing patients in Krio…once in a while asking one of the nurses to come in and help out! The most fun part of the day was playing Santa. I bought cookies for all of the children and let each child pick out a stuffed animal. They loved it.

It’s Christmas time. My staff has taken leave up until the new year. So for me this is a quieter period…time to catch up on sleep, work on admin stuff (statistics etc), enjoy the season etc. We have some visitors coming from the Anastasis as well so I’m sure we’ll have a great Christmas here in Freetown.

I’ll post some pictures on my blog sometime soon!

Merry Christmas!!!

Trip back to SL...

After spending 3 weeks in Holland I made it back safe and sound to SL. I had a great time in Holland seeing family and friends. I was spoiled over and over again! Thank you!!!

I left Holland on Monday and flew to London. I was in for a treat there as well. We had a mini Anastasis reunion which was fun and our hostess was so generous! On Tuesday I flew from London to Freetown. The flight was delayed, as it often is! We finally left 1 ½ hours later than scheduled. The most interesting part of the trip was watching and experiencing my co-fliers! In London they were very sophisticated and patient while checking-in and boarding. Most were Sierra Leoneans, some of who hadn’t been home for 10 years! On arrival in Freetown things were a bit hectic. I was confronted with the culture right away. When people disagree here, they generally tend to yell and shout. Well, we almost had a fist fight at the baggage claim area as one lady accidently took some one else’s suitcase off of the belt! She was accused of being a thief etc. All ended well. Welcome back…! After getting our suitcases we were hassled by men trying to ‘help’ us out as we were making our way to the hovercraft ticket counter. We could easily manage our luggage on our own, however, these guys like to ‘help’ out because then they can ask us for a tip! To make a long story short after about 2 hours of waiting, watching, avoiding arguments, etc. we departed by hovercraft, arriving on the otherside after 1 am. It was a long day.

It was good to arrive at our compound and felt good to be in my own place again, even though it was a very empty room. Before leaving I had to take everything out of my room so that the walls could be fixed. Well, they were fixed and re-painted. My room had never looked this good, as the walls had started leaking and molding away the day I moved in earlier this year!

Anyway, it’s good to be back and I’m ready to go again.

Mercy Ships SL news...

Mercy Ships Sierra Leone consists of 2 programs: New Steps and the Aberdeen Clinic and Fistula Centre (ACFC). I work in the clinic part of the ACFC. To give you more insight into the programs we run you can check out the Mercy Ships Sierra Leone newsletters. The latest update on both programs can be found by clicking on the following link:

http://www.mercyships.org/News/News.cfm?ID=1030&c=138

Peace in the midst of poverty...

As the UN's 5 year mission in Sierra Leone comes to an end questions arise regarding the stability and safety of the country. Is it only peaceful on the surface? Is the country like a volcano, waiting to erupt? I don't know what the next weeks and months will bring. Sierra Leone is still one of the poorest countries in the world. And along with poverty come corruption, injustice, instability. Only time can tell what will happen in this country. I can only hope and pray that the people will stand together, keep peace and work together to re-build their beautiful country.

Click on the following link to read one of the "10 stories the world should hear more about" regarding the end of the UN mission in Sierra Leone.
http://www.un.org/events/tenstories/story.asp?storyID=1400