My bed, where I wake up in the morning.
When I arrived at the Coast Provincial General Hospital, a couple of us went to Casualties (what we call the ER - Emergency Room). First, we saw a guy who was in a tuk-tuk accident. The nurses showed us how to clean (with iodine) and bandage the cuts.
The next guy fell off a bridge onto a road and was bleeding in various spots from head to foot. His tibia was completely broken near the foot (with an open wound), and a piece of bone fell out. I helped hold his leg as the nurses wrapped the stint around it. I then tried to take him to get his X-ray, but the power went out so I had to take him later. The electricity has gone out three times so far: once at the Mombasa airport, once at the complex, and once at the hospital. In addition to the power going out, the Casualties room ran out of running water, so we had to sterilize with a bucket of purified water and a cup to pour it on our hands.
Another patient had an ectotopic pregnancy, but we only saw the history-taking and diagnosis. The nurse/doctor showed us how to calculate gestation time by the date of last period (subtract 3 months, add 7 days, and adjust the year).
The last patient we saw had been mistaken for a thief and had burning propane poured onto him (not sure how that happened). He had first and second degree burns. One of our group injected pain killers, and then we headed back to the housing complex.
We ate lunch and saw several monkeys roaming around the yard. They're pretty common here.
Monkey in the yard!
Monkey in the tree!
Monkeys everywhere!
After hanging out, reviewing things we saw at the hospital, eating dinner, and playing Uno, we went to bed ready for another 8:30am departure.
Dinner: Mukimo with beef stew (and watermelon/mango).
Pretty intense! Sounds like a real eye opening experience. Just reading it makes me thankful for the quality of life we have here, ya know. From our hospitals to our elctrical and telecommunication infrastructure, we have it pretty good.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe how quickly you are getting to go hands on in these medical situations, that is pretty unelievable, guess it just shows how much help they need.
The pics are realy nice too, looks like you picked out a good camera afterall. You must feel right at home with all those monkeys... ;)
Blogs are awesome, I love reading them and find myself excited to hear about your daily adventures. I also know you must have so much going on, so don't blog for us at the expense of missing out on things there...you'll just need to double up on your next blogs, that's all, haha!! Have fun, keep your eyes open, be alert, and know that you have a lot of fans back home that are so impressed and proud of what you are doing over there!! Love and miss you little brother!!
Cool monkeys.
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