Sept. 10, 2014

Friday began as usual then about time the staff worship was over we
were told that a superfe or chief or government official was coming
to meet with us (not sure who all “us” were to be) about 10:00 so we
tried to get rounds done and cancel some surgeries so that we could
meet with them although not sure the purpose of the visit. Finally
about 1030 we were told that the meeting was cancelled. Then we did
so some surgeries in some that had not eaten yet including a man that
had blocked urethra since an accident Feb 2014 and had urine coming
out of a suprapubic incision that had been done elsewhere. Just
beyond the prostate was superdense scar tissue that I was unable to
tunnel through with a probe or whatever. I finally stuck a knife
blade somewhat blindly through the prostatic urethra into the super
dense scar tissue and finally was able to open it up enough to get a
probe and then a 22Fr 3way foley through into his bladder. I plan to
leave it there for at least a month to let it heal around it. We also
did a 4th ray amputation finger for necrotic finger that the infection
was back in the metacarpal and just packed it open then plan to close
later after the infection is gone.


In the late afternoon of Friday we went to Lai (about 12 kilometers away)
to get some supplies so that could do some electrical wiring and plumbing 

being that Nick was here from Moundou to do some of that
kind of work hopefully to finish Mason’s house. Most of the road was
not bad other than deep holes but was very muddy close to Bere. On
the way back there was a pickup stuck in a hole in the mud in the
road. We tried to pull him out forward but unable to so went around
and pulled him backwards with our winch and helped him out of the
mudhole.

Monday we had very heavy rain this morning with 3.4 inches (8.6 cm) in
about 4 hours. I’m sure the “road” is impassable now. The river was
24 inches over the road before so now I’m sure it is much more so the
only way to Bere is with canoe and motorcycle. We also had problems
with the electricity and generator so we cancelled one little boy
until sure everything is working right. Not sure if the problem
is the generators or the invertors or an intermittent short circuit
someplace. It seems if we switch generators and or reset the
inverters it is ok for awhile.

We finally did the 3 yr old boy with a huge mass in his belly Tues
that had been postponed Fri because of the “meeting” and Monday
because of the generator or electricity problems. It turned out to
be a huge 20 cm left cystic kidney that was resectable very easily did
a left nephrectomy. Wed we did a bilateral oophorectomy for huge
solid masses possibly cancer in a 16 yr old girl. 

We are still healthy with no Ebola or cholera around here that 

we know of.

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