Miracles still happen. The lady that I mentioned last time that we took the tumor from her wrist and forearm including radial artery, radius nerve, and flexor tendons and had question of her hand even surviving surgery is now doing well. Amazingly she not only has a surviving hand but has function and feeling and can flex and extend all her fingers. Dr. Greg Shank and I did the surgery together and we both thought she actually needed an amputation mid forearm and even asked permission to do so but was refused by her brother (husband was not here). The little girl that we took out a large sequestrum of her tibia is almost healed already. The lady that we did a 3rd ray amputation of her hand healed well; and now a man with a 5th ray amputation of his hand is doing well. Both were for necrotic (dead) fingers. We had another intussisseption a few days ago of descending colon and sigmoid colon down into the rectal colon and could palpate it through the anus. We resected part of the sigmoid colon and split the rectal colon longitudinally to be able to reduce the mass that had pulled the colon down then we repaired and reanastamosed the colon. She is doing well so far.
We are unable to get Facebook most of the time because of the bad internet. Facebook was banned from Chad for awhile because the "president's" boy and some other boys raped a pretty Arab girl and posted a video of it on Facebook. Cannot get Skype.
I, with prayer, finally diagnosed the problem with my Toyota 4-runner. It would start and run sometimes and other times it would not so was afraid to go anywhere with it. It turned out to be a loose wire to the fuel pump. The loose connection was on top of the fuel tank which is under the back seat. The fuel gauge still does not work but if we keep track of the miles driven that is not too much of a problem.
Danae's camel is quite obstinate at times. She is not trained yet. They tied a bag unto her back and the camel went crazy bucking and trying to get the thing off. She tries to kick sometimes.
We had our first rain 2 nights ago. It was perhaps 1/4 inch (about 6 mm) It was still 85-90F during and after the shower.
We are all healthy presently.
Today March 25 is Dolores' birthday. Thanks for all the birthday wishes. We are unable to log into facebook presently. We are still young maybe younger than some that don't have as many years as we have. The Lord has been good to us.
Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com
Love Rollin and Dolores
Rollin and Dolores Bland
Hopital Adventiste de Bere
Boite Postal 52
Kelo, Tandjile, Chad, Afrique
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
March 17, 2016
It is still warm with 100-105 (40 C) in the house in daytime and down to 90 F by morning. One turns over in bed to change sides that are wet with perspiration. One wakes up to drink water instead of going to the bathroom. Fortunately, for me it is about 10 cooler in the OR than outside. Our A/C is not real good but it helps in the OR. The humidity is about 7-10% most of the time although it got up to 40% a few days ago.
We had 2 senior med students (deferred mission appointees), from Loma Linda University the past month. One was Steve Tharp (father was director of Hope TV Channel) and the other was James Fernando (wife is a physician assistant). One plans to be a mission surgeon and the other a family practide. We had Dr. Greg Shank here the past 2 weeks. He is a surgeon from Reedsport, Ore, USA and did lots of surgeries here so I had some time to do other things such as helping David Hendricks with electric and plumbing on the new buildings. Several years ago Greg spent 5 years in Koza, Cameroon. (Can not go there now because of Boko Haram) His wife is a Family Practice doctor. He came with a man that was to do the "annual" check up on the mission plane.
We heard that a big tumor (16 kg) in S America made national or international news but I suspect there are others especially in Africa that never get reported that are that large or larger. We had one here a few months ago that was 17 kg but it was not reported to any "news agency." Very frequently we have one that is 6-10 kg. We had another sequestrum this time in a little girl in her distal tibia. She came in walking! The dead bone fragment was removed and she should do well. We have had 2 different kids with bladder stones in the past 2 days. We had a lady with a tumor of her wrist (tumor removed 3 yrs ago) that now returned larger than before. She did not want amputation of her hand and forearm but probably eventually will need to have that anyway as all her flexor tendons, radius nerve, radial artery went through the tumor that we excised. Not sure if the hand will survive the surgery. Don't know what kind of it was but it had a lot of black pigment in it and was somewhat cystic. Last week we had a forearm amputation for dead hand with maggots in it. We have a lady with large breasts with necrotic distal part of each breast that needs bilat mastectomy.
The "election campaign" is supposed to kick off this Sunday the 20th. There could be some demonstrations with a large field of candidates but don't expect any of them to gain much foothold against the present "president" who has help "office" for many years. Many of the locals call him a dictator. However the economy is very bad now with low oil prices and many government employees not getting paid on time. There is "no money" to fix any roads (there are very few roads in the country to fix anyway). There are still lots of military check points around the country allegedly to prevent Bolo Haram from gaining access.
We are healthy presently. Dolores is busy working mangoes besides looking after grandkids.
Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com
Love, Rollin and Dolores
Rollin and Dolores Bland
Hopital Adventiste de Bere
Boite Postal 52
Kelo, Tandjile, Chad, Afrique
Blog www.weareamissionarybland.blogspot.com
We had 2 senior med students (deferred mission appointees), from Loma Linda University the past month. One was Steve Tharp (father was director of Hope TV Channel) and the other was James Fernando (wife is a physician assistant). One plans to be a mission surgeon and the other a family practide. We had Dr. Greg Shank here the past 2 weeks. He is a surgeon from Reedsport, Ore, USA and did lots of surgeries here so I had some time to do other things such as helping David Hendricks with electric and plumbing on the new buildings. Several years ago Greg spent 5 years in Koza, Cameroon. (Can not go there now because of Boko Haram) His wife is a Family Practice doctor. He came with a man that was to do the "annual" check up on the mission plane.
We heard that a big tumor (16 kg) in S America made national or international news but I suspect there are others especially in Africa that never get reported that are that large or larger. We had one here a few months ago that was 17 kg but it was not reported to any "news agency." Very frequently we have one that is 6-10 kg. We had another sequestrum this time in a little girl in her distal tibia. She came in walking! The dead bone fragment was removed and she should do well. We have had 2 different kids with bladder stones in the past 2 days. We had a lady with a tumor of her wrist (tumor removed 3 yrs ago) that now returned larger than before. She did not want amputation of her hand and forearm but probably eventually will need to have that anyway as all her flexor tendons, radius nerve, radial artery went through the tumor that we excised. Not sure if the hand will survive the surgery. Don't know what kind of it was but it had a lot of black pigment in it and was somewhat cystic. Last week we had a forearm amputation for dead hand with maggots in it. We have a lady with large breasts with necrotic distal part of each breast that needs bilat mastectomy.
The "election campaign" is supposed to kick off this Sunday the 20th. There could be some demonstrations with a large field of candidates but don't expect any of them to gain much foothold against the present "president" who has help "office" for many years. Many of the locals call him a dictator. However the economy is very bad now with low oil prices and many government employees not getting paid on time. There is "no money" to fix any roads (there are very few roads in the country to fix anyway). There are still lots of military check points around the country allegedly to prevent Bolo Haram from gaining access.
We are healthy presently. Dolores is busy working mangoes besides looking after grandkids.
Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com
Love, Rollin and Dolores
Rollin and Dolores Bland
Hopital Adventiste de Bere
Boite Postal 52
Kelo, Tandjile, Chad, Afrique
Blog www.weareamissionarybland.blogspot.com
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
March 7, 2016
It is warming up in the northern hemisphere but it is also warming here also with lows in the 80's and highs 100-105 (about 40C). It is quite dusty most of the time.
Zane and Juniper have been ill with malaria but are recovering. Almost all the new volunteers have had a bout of it also. Otherwise we are all well presently.
We have had 5 vesico-vaginal fistula repairs during the past 6 weeks. We also had a large brachial cleft cyst in a small child that we successfully removed. We have had 2 perforated gastric ulcers and a perforated typhoid small intestine recently. Also had an intussisseption of right colon into transverse colon, also did a right hemicolectomy as it could not be reduced. We also had an ovarian cancer that we resected,at least debulking that also involved the ureter that we had to stent and repair. Had a 20-year-old with a large sequestrum of his tibia (part of the bone died and sloughed after a fracture). His foot and ankle looked as if it might die but after we removed the sequestrum and began packs and antibiotics it is much improved and now does not appear that he will need amputation after all.
Dr Greg Shank is here this week doing surgeries so I can help David Hendricks work on electric and plumbing so we can hopefully get into the new maternity by the end of this week. That will expand our bed capacity so we won't have to put so many on the veranda etc. I need some exercise as I don't get much just doing surgery so this helps that way also
Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com.
Love, Rollin and Dolores Bland
Hopital Adventiste de Bere
Boite Postal 52
Kelo, Tandjile, Chad, Afrique
Blog www.weareamissionarybland.blogspot.com
Zane and Juniper have been ill with malaria but are recovering. Almost all the new volunteers have had a bout of it also. Otherwise we are all well presently.
We have had 5 vesico-vaginal fistula repairs during the past 6 weeks. We also had a large brachial cleft cyst in a small child that we successfully removed. We have had 2 perforated gastric ulcers and a perforated typhoid small intestine recently. Also had an intussisseption of right colon into transverse colon, also did a right hemicolectomy as it could not be reduced. We also had an ovarian cancer that we resected,at least debulking that also involved the ureter that we had to stent and repair. Had a 20-year-old with a large sequestrum of his tibia (part of the bone died and sloughed after a fracture). His foot and ankle looked as if it might die but after we removed the sequestrum and began packs and antibiotics it is much improved and now does not appear that he will need amputation after all.
Dr Greg Shank is here this week doing surgeries so I can help David Hendricks work on electric and plumbing so we can hopefully get into the new maternity by the end of this week. That will expand our bed capacity so we won't have to put so many on the veranda etc. I need some exercise as I don't get much just doing surgery so this helps that way also
My mom's sister died this week in Stillwater, Ok. She was 84 and the last of her siblings and will be awaiting the resurrection when Jesus comes to take his people home with Him.
Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com.
Love, Rollin and Dolores Bland
Hopital Adventiste de Bere
Boite Postal 52
Kelo, Tandjile, Chad, Afrique
Blog www.weareamissionarybland.blogspot.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)