Good
Morning!
I
have a cup of coffee at my side and my light blue scrubs on. I am preparing for
another day at Mt. Meru Regional Hospital. This week Heather, Ben and I are in
pediatrics. But before I go on to explain the wide arrange of complications we
have witnessed in kids 6 weeks to 8 years of age, I want to catch you up on my
weekend.
As
I stated in my previous post, most of the volunteers have left. Because our
house is a lot quieter, so was this past weekend. However, Heather and I did
take an adventure Saturday night.
During
our Eid encounter with our neighbors I mentioned how much I loved the henna
tattoos drawn on their 4 and 6 year old children. They were beautiful. Immediately
after seeing our faces in awe they offered to take Heather and I for henna one
night after he arrived home from work. Heather and I knew we were working in
causality Friday night, so we told him we’d love to go Saturday night! He
readily assured us he’d make an appointment with a family friend.
After
a fun Friday night in causality on full of baby deliveries, a few facial
lacerations, a split toe, and a psychotic patient we were excited for a
relaxing night of henna. All Saturday morning we worked on various tasks at
FiFi’s, which is a popular tourist coffee shop. After one cup of coffee too
many, we walked home and completed a roof workout. I was feeling particularly
lazy and decided to only kick the soccer ball around on the roof. A powerful
kick resulted in the ball flying off the roof and into the street. I ran as
fast as possible down eight flights of stairs to retrieve the ball. Upon
bringing the ball back into the gated complex, six neighborhood kids surrounded
me. I willingly kicked the ball to the kids and we began playing a little keep
away.
Apart
from the times we got the ball stuck under cars and in gutters, I had a great
time playing with the little guys.
A
honk at the gate interrupted our game and I was pleased to see it was our
neighbor! After his two young girls ran to him screaming “papa!” with joy, he
turned to me and told me he was ready to take us into town. I ran upstairs with
the soccer ball to grab Heather. We piled in his company truck with his wife,
and three children. First stop was to drop mom off with a friend, and papa went
to purchase henna ink, all the while Heather and I were left in the car alone
with the two kiddos. The time was 7p, which is dusk in Arusha… this is also the
time that the town becomes very skeptical. As we sat in the truck with the
windows down we were grabbed one another’s hand. We gave each other a look of
shear fear. We had never been outside of the apartment alone at night. As we
sat frightened, the girls were jumping around us telling us their favorite
shows, and favorite foods.
“Spongebob
is a girl when he wants, and a boy when he wants.”
As
I tried to interact with the children I stuffed my debit card, 12$, and phone
in my bra. That way I could easily hand over my bag in the event of a bad
situation.
I
must’ve nearly broke my neck I turned around so many times to peer out of the
back window, hoping to see our neighbors face. A century later (more like 5
minutes) we caught sight of him, and we were instantly put at ease. He jumped
in the car, and we drove to a new location not far from the parking lot we were
just in. It was now pitch black outside. Our neighbor mentioned that he was
going to go shopping at a near by grocery store while we got our henna. We
began to bombard him with questions: “when will you be back?” “Is it safe?” “Where
exactly will you be?” He assured us it wouldn’t take him long, and that the
woman doing our henna was a family friend that he and his family had known very
well. We stiffly walked into the building and up to the 5th floor.
We entered an apartment and were greeted by a family from India. I immediately
picked up on this once I noticed the Bindi and Sorry worn the mother of the
household.
The
younger daughter greeting us and then preceded to get us chairs to sit on while
she did our tattoos (the only furniture in the house were four plastic chairs,
surely meant for outdoor use). The artwork she gently, and meticulously drew on
my arm was breath taking. Each design draw was different but the designs
together spread down my arm with great harmony.
The
paint was thick. Because of the language barrier, once she completed the tattoo
Heather and I were unsure how to make sure we treated the henna with the proper
aftercare. We were told different things by three others and finally decided to
use our American instincts and Google search. Papa arrived back just in time for us to be on our way (the
tattoos only took 90 minutes!). We left the home, thanked our artist, picked up
mom and traveled back to our apartments as a group. I felt so welcome in their
family. Although there was a small language barrier, and apart from different
skin color I felt like we were family.
Heather
and I have been enjoying our Henna… taking artsy photos of our arms where ever
we go.
As
for Mt. Meru, we have had an AMAZING week in pediatrics. Being in a foreign
country, we are used to the language barriers. Most of the time the language
barrier hinders our learning and our ability to understand diseases, but this
week we have been blessed. We have been completing rounds in peds with a doctor
and three medical students from Oregon Health and Science University, two English
speaking doctors from Mount Meru, and many English speaking medical students.
Because of the large number of English speaking doctors and students we are
able to better understand conditions and talk through the pathophysiology of the
diseases seen in the ward.
The
diseases seen at Mount Meru are diseases not seen commonly in the western part
of the world, as one might assume.
Some
examples of the diseases we have seen this week in peds are: Viral Meningitis,
Patent Ductus Arteriosus, extrapulmonary tuberculosis (TB), rheumatic heart
disease, interception of the bowls, brucellosis, suspected anthrax, suspected
Friedreich’s ataxia (congenital genetic disorder found on the 9th
chromosome), suspected diabetes insipidus, suspected pituitary tumor,
It’s
been a gift to expand my knowledge in the field of medicine by seeing so many
rare conditions.
As
you guys know, I have been raising money for the hospital. Each day I witness a
new obstacle that could be solved by a simple resource. Please help my fellow volunteers
and me by donating even a small amount.
Five dollars can help someone stuck in causality suffering immense pain
because we ran out of Diclofenac or Tramadol. If you can’t donate please send a
prayer over to Mount Meru and twins like these two below will thank you, among
many other patients! Xo
https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/fpqrb/ab/a3poZ3
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