New Experiences

I came to Kenya to experience and learn things that I could not in the United States, and that I definitely have.

One notable experience was with a child who came into our hospital with a slight fever, anemia and was vomiting blood. We immediately tested the boy for a variety of diseases, but the tests all came back negative. Finally, a nurse mentioned that the local children often go down to the river to drink. Unfortunately, they drink up baby leeches along with the water. These leeches attach and grow. Sure enough, a leech was the culprit. We removed it and the child began to get better.

A woman who lost her ears also came into our hospital this past week. The story of her injury is found somewhere in the depths of dating the wrong guy, a jealous girlfriend, etc....needless to say, conflict managment is much different when an ex-girlfriend solves things by cutting off new girlfriend's ears. We are going to wait for them to heal a little bit more before Dr. Rhodes does some skin and bone grafting to make new ears for her.

There also was a man who came in with a machete in his head. He had arrived home late and his wife was in a tirade. She took the machete and hit him. It was so deep that during surgery we could see his brain. Unfortunately for him, we were out of general anesthisa. We had to put him back together using only local anthesia. He is doing fine, but the lack of anesthisa is becoming a serious problem here.

More later...