Thursday at the Hospital

We ended up just taking the night off last night and hanging out around the compound. I went out and bought a new camera so that I can start making up for the pictures that I lost. It was really nice to take a break from everything and just chill. It helps so much to be able to talk to everyone else about the hospital. Everyone here shares the same frustrations with the Kenyan medical system and how reluctant everyone seems to be to help the patients or to help us help the patients. I know that it is hard for people who aren’t here to be able to understand how awful this situation is, so it helps to be able to talk things through with people who are experiencing this too. I will say it is crazy how used to this very different place I am already. I’m still affected by all the bad things that go on, but I could see myself being here long term. There is just so much need that we can partially help eliminate. We all can already tell that it is going to be really hard to come back home and to see how much excess we have while people here literally have nothing. The people who are below the “poverty” line have no idea how good they have it to still be able to have running water, shoes, and food for their family.
Today at the hospital I got to be in Minor for the whole morning. It was really interesting and cool because I got to do a lot of the hands on stuff. I put my first catheter in today! Okay, so technically I wasn’t successful, but that’s only because the patient had blockage and so would need surgery to put one in. I think it still counts. I also cleaned and dressed several really gruesome looking wounds. I took pictures for those who want to see, but I don’t think I’ll put them on here because they really do look disturbing. One lady who came in had injured her arm and leg in a bus accident about 3 weeks about. Literally, her arm wound was about an inch deep and the whole top of her arm was gone. She doesn’t remember exactly what happened in the accident, which is probably a blessing. Anyways, she has been coming every day or every other day to the hospital to get it cleaned and dressed and so Joel and Mia are very attached to her. I can see why, as I already really like her after just one day. She was so happy and spoke very good English. She’s also a little bit of a drama queen, which is really funny. The first thing she said to us was her name and “I’m warning you, I’m a screamer.” She was very impressed with herself because she didn’t end up screaming as we cleaned it (which is very painful because we have to make sure it’s bleeding a little again). She also showed us how the women here wrap themselves in their sarongs.  It was very cool to be able to hang out with her a little bit. It’s very cool when we get patients like her who only want us students to work on her. She and other people specifically ask when we will be there and work their schedules around so that they can make it to the hospital at those times. It makes us feel very good about what we are doing. Also, we cleaned up a little seven year old boy who was very brave. We went out and bought candy so that we could make the kids a little less scared of being there, so he got a sucker before and after getting re-bandaged. I also spent a little time again in Casualty, but not very much because I’m still frustrated by that part of the hospital.
I took a nap this afternoon and just hung out until we decided to go back to the hospital at 9. We stayed until about 1. Things were actually pretty calm in Casualty so we could actually help handle things and learn how to do certain things. I got a couple of people IV fluids and took vital signs. I also mainly made sure the doctor who was there went over and actually examined the patients there, many of which had been waiting for hours and hours. One elderly gentleman had been unresponsive for 3 days when they finally brought him in. 3 days without being able to eat or drink. We immediately started him on fluids. He was just getting over both malaria and typhoid. The doctor ordered ultrasounds and decided that the patient most likely had liver cancer, as well as possible TB. It’s really scary how many diseases we are exposed to here that we would never be in the US. There is no infection control to speak of, and very little sterile procedure. They often just let things stay bloody or leave blood on the floor for hours before someone cleans it up (and I’m not sure if they even use a good disinfectant). We also had a hemophiliac patient who was bleeding from a mouth wound. The doctor was actually pretty good tonight and was very eager to teach us things. At one point, he handed Angie and I x-rays of a man’s head that had been in an accident and told us to go interpret him and let him know what we saw. That would have been cool to do, if either of us had ever had any sort of training or experience with that sort of thing, but we didn’t. We actually guessed right with fluid around the brain.
That was mostly it for tonight. Tomorrow, I’m going with to an orphanage here to hand out supplies for the orphans like toothbrushes and toothpaste. One student here has an organization (IamAid.org) that actually raises money and brings medical supplies over here and he is running this too. It’s very cool. It should be a fun and hopefully easy-going day.