April 3, 2016

They say there is a "strike" among the health care workers in this country now because some doctor was fired because of something he did but I don't know the alledged offense. Anyway now we have had a lot of maternity cases the past few days. One was a lady that came with a prolapsed cord for several miles from another facility but the baby was still alive. It was also a hand presentation that maybe prevented the cord from having the circulation stopped. We have had some stillbirths and a ruptured uterus. We had an above knee amputation for a dead foot and leg but had to pack the stump open because of a huge abcess around the femur which will need some time to get rid of the infection before it is closed. Yesterday we had another strangulated hernia but surgery was soon enough so no intestine had to be removed. 

 
The shower that we had only cooled us for a short time and now it is back to 100F to 110F (39C to 43C) in the house in the day time. It cools down to 85-90F by early morning . Of course April is usually the hottest month here. 

 
It is mango season now and mangoes are falling on the ground which means there are more flies now. Dolores is cutting some up to dry now that the humidity is less than 10%. The humidity in NDJ is 2% today. 

Everyone has recovered from their malaria now. Danae had it last week but is back to work now. 

Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.coim.

Love, Rollin and Dolores Bland
Hopital Adventiste de Bere
Boite Postal 52
Kelo, Tandjile, Chad, Afrique
Blog www.weareamissionarybland.blogspot.com

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

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  

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

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

January 17, 2016

Business here at the hospital has been slower than normal for this time of year. Usually Jan is the busiest of the year with nearly 180 or 200 surgeries etc but it won't be that many this year. The crops were less as the rainy season was less and the oil prices are very low and lots of government workers are not getting paid because no money so the economy is not very good. We have been averaging about 2 prostatectomies per week and we have had several mastectomies and a few vaginal hysterectomies. We have also seen several unresectable cancers of various kinds. We have had several incomplete miscarriages that required curettages. The man that had been shot with a gun in his back was beginning to recover except still had paralysis in his leg; but then he got severe malaria and he died. 

 
We are looking forward to return of Olen, Danae, Lyol, Zane, Addison, and Juniper (which we have not seen yet except in pictures). They should be here in Bere Wed. Jan 20.
A volunteer, David Hendricks, has arrived to be here a few months helping to get some building projects done and usable. We are glad for that. 

Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com.

Rollin and Dolores Bland
Hopital Adventiste de Bere
Boite Postal 52
Kelo, Tandjile, Chad, Afrique

January 15, 2016

The gun and knife club has arrived in Bere. Earlier this week we had a patient that had been stabbed in the abdomen. It had perforated his stomach and his liver. He is doing well. It seems that his cows had gotten into someone's rice so they decided to punish him. Now his relatives have taken revenge and bought a gun (which I thought was illegal here in Chad to own one) and shot the man in his back. The bullet glanced his vertebra and kidney and perforated intestines two times which we had to repair and then the bullet came out his front. We have had one or two emergency surgeries every day this week. We had a c-section in a multiparous lady with some sort of thick band in the uterus that would not let the baby come through and she had had no previous surgeries. 

It is at least 10 degrees warmer than it has been the past month. Now the lows are in the upper 60's instead of the 50's F and the highs are in the 90's F instead of the 80's. I think the harmattan dust has diminished somewhat and there is less north wind out of the desert. 

When we were in Denmark we were told that there were no guns allowed and that even most of the police did not carry a gun which we could see was fact. Denmark also has health care for everybody at no charge. Norway and Sweden have a very low co-pay. Of course they have higher taxes but when you compute all the extra costs in USA that are not covered with taxes or insurance it probably comes out about the same. In USA we have the greedy pharmaceutical companies and lawyers that drive up costs of everything so much. Here in Chad we have so much corruption but there seems to be some almost everywhere. 

We are well and in no danger that we know about any more than normal.
Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com.

Rollin and Dolores Bland
Hopital Adventist de Bere
Boite Postal 52
Kelo, Tandjile, Chad, Afrique

January 3, 2016

Another year has gone into history and one year closer to our Lord's return to take His children home. It seems that New Year's resolutions don't get done anyway so why even tell any. Hope everyone had a nice Christmas and New Years with lots to eat and lots of family time and maybe not too much football. 

I spent part of Christmas Day in the OR, operating on a lady with ruptured ectopic pregnancy that bled a lot into her abdomen and almost died but she has survived with the surgery and a few units of blood given. Today was in the OR with a perforated gastric ulcer with lots of gastric contents in the abdomen. Hopefully he will do well. We had 117 cases in the book for December so have been busy besides having to see the major portion of the inpatients. 

We have watched some Christmas movies and it is still "cold" here down in the 50's F each morning with lots of harmatten dust from the Sahara. Also there is lots of pollen in the air as the mangoes are really blooming now. It seems they are blooming more this year than last year. The beautiful red-orange flowers of the kapok tree are beginning to show. Some say that people are giving more attention to Christmas than they did formerly. There were even some Christmas carols (in English) on the local radio station. One of our neighbors (the hospital administrator) had his radio loud enough each morning and evening so we had the "benefit". On Christmas Day we had a late lunch or dinner and the same for New Year's. 

We got some ripe papayas from our trees by our house today. The kittens over at Danae's house are really cute but wild now. Dolores has been feeding them milk, peanut butter balls, and some fish. They are not weaned yet. Maybe Lyol and Zane can tame them when they get here in less than 3 weeks. There are 5 kittens and already 4 are spoken for that someone wants them. They say that the rats are worse this year than most years maybe because the crops are less. 

No more holidays for awhile so maybe we can all get to work. Ha!
Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com.
Love, Rollin and Dolores

Rollin
Hopital Adventiste de Bere
Boite Postal 52
Kelo, Tandjile, Chad, Afrique
Blog www.weareamissionarybland.blogspot.com