Blog Aug 29, 2017

It has been an interesting week or so but also sad.   Danae, Addison, and Juniper arrived back here in Bere after we drove through the mud and water holes down the "road" to Kelo to pick them up from the bus.  Glad they are back.  Olen, Lyol, and Zane are not coming back until Sept 23.  They are staying with Kermit (Olen's dad) since RonnieLee (Olen's mom) passed away after her long battle with cancer.   All the family had gotten there in time to see her before she passed.   She was always so energetic and outgoing (life of the party) and will be greatly missed by everyone.  
The next night after they got back I was up about all night with a "maternity patient" they said was greatly distended perhaps an ectopic pregnancy.   When we opened her abdomen discovered strangulated internal hernia with dead sigmoid colon loop and dead 1 meter of terminal end of her small intestine.   Her other intestines were greatly dilated.  Resected the dead colon and reconnected and resected the dead small intestine and reconnected it.   We don't have fancy staplers so everything is sutured by hand somewhat tedious.  She aborted today which was expected.   Intestines still slow to function.   
The lady that we resected her dead 5th finger and metacarpal and stretched out her contracture claw hand about 2 weeks ago is doing well with no infection and with some physical therapy (I have to do it and teach her) I believe is going to be able to have a useful right hand.   
Also had a perforated intestine probable typhoid that had been several days so the abdomen was filled with dirty fluid and everything all stuck together.   Was able to find and close the hole and so far she seems to be doing ok.  Was not sure if there was other obstruction or not but she is passed flatus and not vomiting now.  
Sunday Zach and some volunteers went to Moundou with the little pickup to get some supplies but were late coming back.   It was after dark and had rained another inch on top of the saturated ground and full water holes and rice fields and he could not see where the solid middle of the "road" through the water hole was and got off the side into the mud.   Ten people from a nearby village were digging and pushing for 4 hours to try to get him out but only got in deeper.  The mud was even softer once you got through the semisolid crust.   There was almost no phone signal service where they were but finally managed to get a text and part of a call through to Dolores cell phone.  About midnight we (Dolores, night guard, and I) went our Toyota 4-runner with winch to try to pull him out.   It had a dead battery that Zach had taken with him to Moundou to get a new battery.  I had to borrow a battery from Olen's Toyota that I had just charged up a few days before.  I had just put on new calipers and pads (that Danae had brought back) on the front  and had not finished bleeding the lines but the brakes worked somewhat anyway.   My 4-wheel drive did not seem to work but we made it about 45 min to where they were stuck.  We finally were able to get the pickup jerked out of the mud.   The 4-wheel drive does not seem to be working on the pickup or my 4-runner or Olen's.  It was rice fields to the side of the "road" so almost everything covered with water.   We got back to Bere after 0100 by being very careful.   
Our emails are  drbland42@gmail.com 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