June 28, 2014

It is a beautiful morning with temp in upper 70’s but it will be near 100 by afternoon. We are having occasional rains so everything is green. People are busy plowing with their oxen and planting

Friday was a busy day with several surgeries such as two prostatectomies but one was full of cancer so not able to take it out. One case of amputation of wrist and closure of a 1 yr old girl that necrosed the hand and wrist after an IV infiltrated whether it was from pressure or the medicine that caused the problem not sure. In the evening we had another child that had inhaled maybe a peanut . We were unable to get it out. Apparently down in the right bronchus. Maybe a bronchoscope, which we don’t have, would have helped. Maosn and I intubated and the larynx area was clear. We tried the various maneuvers such as the Heimlich also tried some steroids and Advair. There was a lot of bronchospasm not sure if actually a foreign body or not. Our suction is not very powerful either. Our only O2 is in the OR because the O2 concentrator is 110 volts only. One can only do what you can do. The medical students mentioned referring to NDJ or somewhere by helicopter but of course that is not an option here. It is 6-10 hrs by road to NDJ. Then not sure there is anyone or anything any better there. This is the middle of Africa. Some patients (esp GYN) come here from NDJ. It really got to Mason so he did not sleep well last night. The ruptured ectopic pregnancy and the typhoid perforation intestine have done well from last week.

There was a funeral this morning at Doubge (one of the branch Sab Schools). The mother died last night after giving birth to a child then apparently they let her bleed to death without bringing her to the hospital “because it was too far” although only 6 miles. The baby needs milk and maybe the relatives will take care of it.

Some of the expatriates have had the diarrhea bug but so far Dolores and I have escaped. Lyol has had a fever so is on quinine and Tylenol. The McDowells are fitting in very well and getting acclimated. Gary, Wendy and Cherise Roberts have left for USA and on to Indonesia where he is going to take over the work that his dad was doing there before his dad got killed in the plane crash.

To see a fresh look at what it is like here go to www.whyweshouldgo.blogspot.com from the McDowells that have just arrived here for 2 weeks. Good writers and describers. Our internet is not operative so far today so not sure when this will go. It usually works better on iphone than on the modem of the computer

Our emails are: drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com
Love, Rollin and Dolores