Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

The past 2 weeks have been great at work--some slower days as there have been a few drops of rain here and there.  People are anxious to get their fields ready and plant soon, so only the very sick have been coming. Unfortunately after a week on IV meds I had 6 good days and then sick again, so back on the IV meds, waiting for the culture, but am already feeling better.  I manage to work and do everything with my IV cannula in!  Patients kind of give me a strange look! We were very happy yesterday to spend the day celebrating the wedding of two of our staff members who met here at the hospital and now are married.  Alvern Mparadziwa, our theater and ART nurse married Prisllar Chimbavaira, one of our data entry clerks. They were married in Magunje--an hour towards Karoi from here.  We took 3 car loads of staff and enjoyed the day. It was very hot and crowded in the small church for the 2 and half hour ceremony, but we got outside and stayed there for the ...

    This past week I took some days off and went in to my townhouse in Harare.  I had planned to be gone for 10 days of rest and relaxation in Harare as soon as all of my visitors left at the end of September.  I hadn't really been away since the visitors started in April and had lots of errands to do and also sort out some things at the townhouse.  I put in for 10 days of leave a month ago and as soon as I did the surgeons from Harare scheduled to come and month end reports had to be done, so I postponed for a couple of days and on the 11th of October took off for Harare. My first stop in Harare was my doctor because I hadn't been feeling well for about 3 weeks.  She couldn't figure out what was wrong either and so ordered a bunch of blood and urine tests and the only thing that came back positive was a  bad Urinary Tract Infection going on.  She switched me to some new medication as the ones I had started on didn't seem to be working and...

We had a busy week of work and on Thursday we were joined by Megan and Matt.  Megan is a Pathology resident from Stanford and is working with us on a Research project over the next year.  She had been home to California and just came back and wanted to come out to get some information for her project.  She brought her boyfriend Matt with her. We put Megan to work in the Lab reading some samples for us and Matt helped Major put some paperwork in the computer.  They were a big help for us and we enjoyed having them around. Yesterday, Friday, was Matt's birthday so we celebrated with a cake!  We were giving him a bad time that Hurricane Matthew was named for him since it was hitting FL on his birthday. Friday evening we were joined by our surgery team of 4 people from Harare.  They arrived shortly after 9 p.m. and after they arrived I fed them dinner and then they went to work.  They worked all night after working all day in Harare!  They did...

This has been a pleasantly busy week with lots of new patients visiting the hospital.  One of our doctors was away for a 2 week workshop and the other was gone 4 days last week and 4 days this week for workshops, so I have been in charge.  One doctor came back last night so this morning we split the rounds. I managed to keep everyone alive and well and did several deliveries, removed retained placentas, and augmented slow moving labors without having to send any patients to Karoi District Hospital this week.  Major was saying yesterday "we didn't have to send any ambulance to Karoi this week," and I said "don't say that too loud or you will break the record!" Last Sunday was my birthday.  It started at 2:30 a.m. when I got called to help with a delivery problem.  Got back to sleep at 3 a.m. and then was called by 0700 for an induction patient who started bleeding.  We sat on her for a couple of hours to stabilize her and she continued to bleed so we e...