Earrings for Eddah

We had quite the milestone this weekend in our little corner of the world. Drumroll please.............Eddah got her ears pierced :). She said she was the ONLY girl in school who didn't have her ears pierced. Pole sana. Ahhhh.......so this is what my mom felt like :). I'm not a complete pushover though-Vinicent decided he wanted one if his ears pierced, but I put the kibosh on that pretty quickly. I carried ice in my purse and we walked fast to get to the little row of shops before it all melted. And thank goodness we iced her ear lobes, because on the first pierce she had a gun malfunction and the earring got stuck halfway in the gun and halfway in her ear. Poor baby. I was quite expecting her to pull the "I'm not doing that again" card, but she didn't say a word and nodded yes when we asked her if she wanted to try again. Apparently the beauty-knows-no-pain phenomena is worldwide :) Our saga had a happy ending when she left with 2 fully pierced-through ears and a huge smile.

Other than that, life is as usual here. I start every day waking up before my alarm, which is such a luxury I never have in my other life. After my morning tea and toast, I do ward rounds (see each patient in the male, female, pediatrics, and maternity wards). Then I help with whatever medical procedures need to be done, like debridements, dressing changes, and triage. One of the most needed skills here is organization, strangely enough. This week I have finally gained access to the locked and mysterious "supply room". There is a room off one of the operating theaters that is stacked high with bags and boxes covered in varying layers of dust and neglect. It is where all the donations are tossed that no one knows what to do with. I have found great dressing supplies, worthless equipment that won't work here, and everything in between. Did you know they used to make syringes out of glass?!............yup-even found some of those ;). The sorting, labeling, and throwing away will surely keep me busy for several more afternoons.

The amount of fun little boys can have (and how dirty they get) with a handful of rocks and a pile of dirt will never cease to amaze and delight me :) This is Arnold and Brian outside the house.

This is my view from the sunset rock........

I don't think the boys enjoyed the sunset as much as watching my less-than-graceful-mzungu-in-a-skirt dismount from the rock. Those boys rival Spider-Man both in their ability to scale great heights and their sticky hands.

What a sweet day it has been.

Jessie

 

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Bouquets and Bedsores

I am starting to feel like myself again, now that I am recovered from the worst jet lag I have ever experienced. I was feeling functional enough until I got to the Nairobi airport at 7 am. Customs took me a good 2 hours because I made friends with a lovely Scottish lady names Clare and her two precious children, Emma and Harry (pronounced 'Arry). She was traveling alone with the children(brave lady) and I had some time to kill, so we partnered up. Between the two of us we got two huge luggage trolleys, a stroller, 2 sweaty, tired children, and two even-more tired adults, through customs and visas. After I sent them on their way I had 3 more hours until my last little flight......and I hit the wall. Hit it and slide down it, turned to a pile of mush at the bottom. I somehow managed to drag myself onto the flight. The attendant had to wake me up to tell me to put my seatbelt on ;). Again, dragged myself off the plane, stumbled into waiting ambulance, in and out of consciousness back to Maseno (and that should be impressive to those of you who know the road). Just when I was starting to question my judgement to undertake such a ridiculous journey.......there were my children, waiting on the porch in their new Christmas outfits. And this was waiting for me on my bedroom door:

Now I am quite enjoying myself and managing to stay busy. I came home after a particularly long day this week to find this lovely site waiting for me. I had told them I love flowers, and now every unfortunate bush in the general vicinity of our house has been completely ravaged by small, determined hands.

Arranging flowers in my strangely-limp-mzungu hair has also become a favorite activity. I like to spend a few minutes in my favorite chair on the porch right when i get home as the sun is setting. Thats when they descend on me :) Naomi gently puts the blossoms around my face, while Arnold likes to securely matte the greenery and twig bits to the back of my head.......To each his own, I suppose.

On the clinical front I am keeping busy and learning quite a lot. There are some new Daktaris here that I really like. I can now confidently diagnose gangrene from 5 feet away with just my nose. I am currently treating a woman with the wort pressure sores I have ever seen.....and probably ever will. When I first saw them, it was only the last 7 years of learning to control my gag and gasp reflex that kept me quiet. I do love the challenge of a good wound though-the possibility for fresh new skin, the different ways to care for it to keep it clean, uninfected, and healing. I now see her everyday, and feel like I have met her whole family and know them by name. She's paralyzed for the waist down, so she needs to be repositioned frequently. Her aunt is a teacher, and runs home on her breaks between lessons to reposition and clean her since they couldn't find anyone to help at home that could manage her medical needs. Wow. And you thought home health in the US was hard to come by....... I am training two of her aunts to do the dressings at home, so she can get back to her life.

I spent the better part of today helping in the theatre (operating room), between c-sections and wound debridements. I've also had two palliative care cases, which are pretty rare here, so I've gotten to use what little expertise I have.

We had a patient that was pregnant with twins and had pre-eclampsia (dangerously high blood pressure). Apparently our anesthesiologist doesn't like pre-eclampsia c-sections (who does??) and won't do them. The initial consensus was to let her try to deliver naturally and see how it went(nooooooo!), but after much discussion we finally decided to refer her out. For all the Downton Abbey fans out there, that is how poor Sybil met her demise. Before she left, I gave her some pads and reusable diapers (thanks Em!) and she was delighted.

Other than that, I have just been working in the hospital, tackling the never-ending list of projects that needs to be done at the rotary house (like fix the shower so my visitors don't get scalded), and hanging out with my ragamuffins.

All my love,

Jessie

 

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Airports and Amsterdam

Ahhh, my restless heart is once again free to roam the world. I have explored Amsterdam today, in between my marathon flights. I flew to NYC first- Interesting new development to report in airport security; I didn't have to remove my shoes or take anything out of my bag. They say this is an attempt to get people through faster. And it was-until we got to the bottleneck of one guy holding an ipad. Each person had to walk up and touch the screen. After you touched it it would show you a gigantic arrow to the left (or occasionally the right if you had a walker or a stroller) and then you had to go that way to get in line. Apparently the human post holding up the ipad wasn't allowed to touch it for you, so he had to explain it to each person. Now I am in the international line, so the older-and-non-English-speaking population was really struggling. As was the human post. Very entertaining to watch though. Though it may save that poor man carpal tunnel syndrome in the future from endlessly sweeping his arm to the left, the mental toll might not be worth it. Not sure this is the best use of tax dollars and state of the art technology........just my humble opinion.

Anyway, my first taste of Amsterdam was quite lovely, and I hope to sample more in the future. I packed soley for weather on the equator, which I bitterly regretted when I saw the outside temp was about 40 degrees. I put on everything I had with me, which included compression socks with sandals, leggings, a long skirt and a raincoat. Shexy, I know :) thankfully the Dutch are a little more free and loose with their fashion, so I wasn't too much of a spectacle.

Amsterdam is quite a beautiful city. So pretty in fact, that I took several pictures of a mall before I realized the palace was one more block down :). Whoops.

This is the view from right outside Anne Frank's front door. That was a sobering, but amazing place to be. It's hard to believe such things were ever allowed to happen. Also amazing what the human spirit can endure, and still remain hopeful. I'd like to think I would have had an attic full of Jews if I'd been alive then.

The flower markets are actually on floating barges that come right up to the sidewalk :)

And this lady is my hero. I can only hope to be rocking sassy red heels and handbags, while on a bike, when my hair is white. Something to aspire to.......

Jessie

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