October 3, 2014

No big rains this week and things are beginning to dry up somewhat.
Well, we had a quick 0.5 inch (about 12 mm) of rain today. Humidity
stays 80 to 90%. People are harvesting their millet and sorghum and
beginning to harvest peanuts (groundnuts). Water is decreasing in
the “roads” and business is picking up at the hospital especially the
surgeries. Classes are beginning this week at the school.
Temperatures have been nearly perfect in the 70’s F and low 80’s F.

One surgery was on a 16 yr girl with a bowel obstruction secondary to
cancer. We resected the obstructed part and put it back together
but she is going to die soon because the cancer was widespread
throughout the abdomen. There was a “moto” accident where a
motorcycle with 4 adults were riding on one and hit a pedestrian.
Lots of “road rash” and one had a fracture femur which we fixed the
next day with a intramedullary rod SIGN nail. The MCD brought them
all in. Apparrently the one with a fracture femur was somebody that
was supposed to be important as various chiefs were calling about him
but the MCD actually promoted us to do the surgery rather than they
going to a “traditional healer” or witch doctor. We have had 4

c-sections in the past 24 hours which is more than the previous 2
months. Maybe they were waiting for Danae to return but anyway they
were all indicated or necessary to be done. Danae did two during the
night. Had two orchiectomies for hard endurated testicles and cords
taking the cord also all the way into the abdomen doing the
orchiectomy through an inguinal incision.

We really enjoyed the DVD of our trip to Turkey in June that Ronnie
(Olen’s mom) made. We just got it and looked at it tonight. Maybe
some of the names of different places will help us remember what some
of our pictures were although we had taken a few notes.

Dolores keeps busy with the grandkids. They are very active. She
has also canned some more guava sauce which is very good. Addison is
so cute as she walks around all over. Of course Lyol and Zane are
everywhere also.

We hear that Ebola is in the USA now with one case in Texas and
perhaps 100 others exposed to him. We also hear about Enterovirus
B68 that has perhaps caused one death and some with paralysis. Of
course here they just die from malaria and malnutrition and some other
things also such as HIV.

We are in good health and hope to remain that way.
Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com.

Love, Rollin & Dolores