March 1, 2017

I was beginning to write this evening then the electricity went off.  Our electricity is supplied by our Perkins 28 KV generator which we run 24/7.  We have two of them but one is not functioning now.  The one that has been running now had to have the generator part taken off ( it weighs about 500 lbs) and taken to Moundou where there is someone who can rebuild them.   Now the other one has had to  have the generator part have the same thing.  Hopefully the one that has been rebuilt will continue to operate all right.   Apparrently the life span is about 14000 hours  at least that is about when each has gone out.   It costs a lot or money to get them rebuilt (about $700) .   Tonight the problem was a broken fan belt and a sensor detected it getting hot so shut down the monitor.  We took a fan belt from the one that has the generator off and got this one going again so were were without electricity less than 2 hours.  We have also  an old Caterpillar 12KV generator which we can use if no big items are being used such as AC or blenders but can handle the water pump.   The Caterpillar is the one that was the only source of power before the present Perkinss generators were donated 4 yrs ago by Garwin McNielus of "one day church" fame.  Since all the new buildings were built there are a lot more lights than there were formerly.  When we first came here the generator was only run part time and only used very low wattage light bulbs ie. 5-10 watts and used battery power to run the lights when the generator was not running but would have to run the generator to pump the water to fill our water twoer tank.  We would be out of water frequently.   Now we have a float switch which automatically turns on the water pump when the water gets below a certain level in the tank.  Fuel for the present 24/7 operation costs a large percentage of the budget.  Recently the electricity went off early am Sabbath but the problem was the fuel tank was empty and someone had not ordered the barrels of fuel to keep it going .   Usually get several barrels of fuel at a time.  
Our business seems to be slowing a little except maternity is still about the same.  We had about 165 surgeries in Jan and 135 in Feb.  March will probably be less.   We have had lots of hernieas, hydroceles, prostatectomies and urethral strictures, and hysterectomies and some vesico-vaginal fistulas.   The fistulas are the most challenging.   Danae and I always do them together.  Some are repaired trans-abdominally,and some vaginally and some both.  We have an ovarian mass or cyst and ectopic pregnanciies fairly often also.  C-sectons and sometimes ruptured uterus also.  Yesterday one of our patients returned for check up that was very rewarding.   She had had a superior mesenteric volvulus with dead intestine requiring at least 7 ft (about 2 meters) of small intestine removed.  She almost died following surgery having to have a repeat surgery etc and was very emaciated but now she is doing quite well.  She even denied having diarrhea or  other symptoms of short bowel syndrome and had gained weight.   She is happy and we were ecstatic.   We recently had another psoas abcess which we drained and she did very well.   We have different kinds of cancers that come too late for anyone to do much for them.   Probably the most common are bladder cancer, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, breast cancer, Prostate cancer, Burkit's , etc.   
This coming weekend is alumni weekend at Loma Linda Univerisity.  I graduated 49 years ago from medical school.  I plan to be at our 50th year class reunion next year.   
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