Blog Feb 10, 2017
Kermit and Ronnalee (Olen's folks) left yesterday to return to the USA after being here about 2 weeks. Kermit was doing some auditing and Ronnalee taught some in the new nursing school. They had brought Toby (their grandson) with them. He was sick yesterday probable malaria but seemed better when they left. Olen went with them to NDJ to be sure they were all ok. Olen and Danae and family will be leaving here March 14 to go on their annual leave and get back in time for Danae's 20 yr high school class reunion at Ozark Adventist Academy then they will drive our pickup camper to Colorado for a week of snow skiing then on to Oregon and the western US and will leave our pickup at Riverside, California at Gloria's (Dolores' sister) where we will get it when we fly to Rachel's (our oldest granddaughter) graduation Dental Hygiene from Loma Linda University May 27 weekend. They have a week in Hawaii (a friend gave them free use of a condo). Olen and Danae will be at Andrews University in Michigan May 6-7 weekend for graduation and to receive their honorary PhD then they have a wedding to go to May 14 weekend then they return to Chad. We will be leaving about the time they return on our annual leave with maybe a few days in France on our way to LAX and Riverside. After that we will spend a few days in the western US on our way back to Oklahoma. We plan to return to Chad in July after Oklahoma campmeeting. We are extending our time here from May to next Feb as the need is great and there is no replacement yet. We have said that Feb 15 is our final date and will return to USA permanently more or less. It is possible that I might do some short term relief work some place after that. My 50 year LLU medical school class reunion will be about March 3, 2018 and I hope to be there. We have been busy with surgery with about 50 cases last week but the backlog has diminished a lot so now we are almost caught up with minimal waiting. We had another typhoid perforation of intestine last week which did well also had one with appendiceal abcess. We had a man with multiple stab wounds all over his body including by his rectum. We did surgery and found a small hole in a loop of intestine which we repaired. He died a few days after the incident possibly a pulmonary embolus??. The man had refused to give or loan 1000 cfa (about USD 1.65) and another man got angry and stabbed this man much. Danae and I have done some repairs of vessico-vaginal fistulas lately. They can be VERY challenging. Sometimes we do it trans aabdominally and sometimes vaginal or both. We have also had several urinary retentions that needed prostatectomies and /or urethra dilation. The first skin graft using our dermatome is doing well but the next two don't seem to be sticking. Maybe I need some pointers on making the graft take or something. Thanks for the new blades for the dermatome that got sent over here. Initially it would not work so took it apart and soaked it in WD40 and finally got it functional. Our emails are drbland42@gmail.com and dfbland01@gmail.com. Rollin and Dolores Bland Hopital Adventiste de Bere Boite Postal 52 Kelo, Tandjile, Chad, Afrique Blog www.weareamissionarybland.blogspot.com
