Andy's Fourth Medical Journal Entry

22.Jun.2009 -- Day 12

Egbebedo! Dog-be. Yo-lo.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, the workers labor in vain.”

Sorry it’s been so long between emails. Four calls in 7 days, several deaths, lots of heartache, some joy, and not quite enough sleep. (Although I did get one of the brownies Cari made for me for Father’s Day!) Life has picked up here in the last couple days. The new short term surgeon, Dr. Harris, is here, which will be a good relief for Dr. Briggs, the Family Doctor who’s been covering call. Dr. Harris’ wife, Hillary, is also an anesthesiologist – they jumped in on a case just a few hours after arrival. They are from Cape Town South Africa, although Hillary grew up in Zimbabwe (travel was only two planes and 8 hours for them). They have two boys, ages 12 and 11 so the place is loaded with kids now. (Harris - 12 and 11, Briggs - 21, 17 and 15, Ebersole – 19 and 17, a family from Mango – 14 and 13, Jade a 21 year-old college student, and Taylor – a 20 year-old college student). The Harris’s are also thinking about and planning for long term missions. The teachers arrived over the weekend and started their training today. Cari hasn’t been able to help teach yet this year but she’s contributed with some of the prep work.

John Briggs invited me to play tennis on Tuesday and all the teens were on the court for street hockey on Thursday. Drew, Tony, and Cari finally were able to use the pool this week. Cari’s been to market in Adeta. Andy’s been attacked by army ants a couple times and Cari’s been attacked by mosquitoes (no snake stories yet). We’re not too happy about the rooster crowing at 3 or 4 in the morning, but the boys enjoy helping ATsuTse (aChooChe) feed the chickens and collect the eggs. We’ve learned that a couple chickens outside the coop happens a lot and is no big deal so for the moment no more exciting “farm-Cari to the rescue” stories. Andy has been mostly working or sleeping but we have managed to squeeze in some Carcassone and Settlers. Cari says she has plans to write an email at some point but can’t get her nose out of her Jane Austen books (maybe when she’s read through them all once?).

The medicine has been a bit rough. Stayed up almost all night with an unconscious man who had seizures and then stopped breathing – turns out he had taken WAY too much insulin (10x his dose) and gone into hypoglycemic coma, took us a bit to figure that out and almost lost him, but after about four hours and tons of glucose IV he suddenly woke up and started pulling out his various tubes! Insulin is hard to explain here, even if you have a fridge to keep it cold. He had long-acting and short acting which usually are given together to optimize sugar control. He had been using his short acting vial first and then when it was gone he was going to start using the second vial (long-acting)!!! I had two kids die on the same day – one of renal failure after toxic epidermal necrolysis (very bad…and two weeks after taking medicines we gave her here at HBB) and one newborn baby. Then Russ had two more die in the next 16 hours – one was a six year old whose twin brother had passed away less than a day earlier (Witchcraft is common here, and the Togolese nurses asked about it. Apparently there is another family in the village with long standing animosity against our patient’s family – so some suspect a curse was put on them. Our other working hypothesis was cashews, some of which can be very poisonous, although mom had also eaten the cashew meal and was fine. Of course, we will never know….). We’ve also sent home several patients to die including an elderly lady with pneumonia and a 5 year old with renal failure from nephrotic syndrome. We currently have seven babies in isolettes (31 week and 32 weeks premies doing great, 32 week premie not feeding well, 28 week premie born today, 2 week old recovering well from sepsis, 3 day old with seizures, and 3 day old with heart failure and probable seizures). One of the things we could really use is IV nutrition (TPN) – we joke about how much sugar kids in the States get but some of our babies are alive because of sugar IVs! The 5 year old MVA has awakened from his coma and is drinking a tiny bit but hasn’t talked yet and doesn’t really follow commands. He’s got a long road. The caustic ingestion kiddo is doing well (hide your bleaches!!!!!!).

It’s been a rough week. Tiring, and I’ve made a few mistakes (several with adults, even a few with kids). A reminder that God is the one doing the work here (Ps 127:1, Is 31:1 and Zech 4:6) not me. And my job is to be obedient and humble, to find my identity in Him (Luke 3:16), not my profession. Thank goodness we have a God of power and forgiveness, might and mercy. More rests to come this week. Maybe even a chance to join the kids in the pool.

We hope all of you are well. Happy Father’s Day Tom and David and all you other fathers. Everyone give your kids a big hug and thank God for another day with them! May God be the source of your strength and your song.

In the Shadow of the Almighty.

CADT (The Robertsons)