Visitors from Home

-

On October 12th our visitors, Sharon, Shanena, Wendy and Jill, nurses from Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital in California arrived in Harare.  Dr. Kellert and I used to work at this hospital and so we were happy to welcome our friends.  Dr. Kellert went in to meet them and they spent the night at the flat in Harare and arrived here on Sunday afternoon in time for dinner.  Of course our electricity went out on the Saturday night they arrived and we never saw it again until the 22nd of October (10 days later!).

All of the nurses are Maternity and ICN nurses in my home town and we have been planning for them to come and visit for a long time.  We put them to work in delivering babies, counting pills, getting pills ready for our ART clinic, helping with immunizations and Antenatal Clinics.  They are having a great time and were very tolerable without electricity and in our heat of summer.  All week it was 110+ degrees!

They also brought suitcases of goodies from home (even See’s candy—wow) and things to give out to patients and staff.  We really appreciate all the extra things they collected and bought and brought.  It brought a lot of happiness to all!

On Thursday the 17th we took off for 3 nights on safari at Rhino Camp on Lake Kariba.  We had a wonderful time and saw lots of animals.  We even saw 9 lions come to drink and walk a long the shoreline.  We were so happy.  We had a choppy boat ride back to Kariba before we arrived home Sunday evening.

This week we were again busy in the hospital.  Monday just as we were going home from work we had a C/Section.  We finally got home to eat at 7:30 p.m.  Three of the ladies had gone out for Immunization clinic at 2 places and one was our baby nurse for the C/Section.  That day our borehole (the only functioning one) broke down and it was so hot and no water!  We are really making them appreciate the small conveniences in life taken for granted in the US!  I jumped into the pool before bed to cool off since we had no electricity and no fan!

Tuesday we woke up to cloudy weather and it was cool all day—only up to 85!  That is a big drop of 25 degrees and we loved it!  Today we woke up to clouds and our first rain of the season.  Of course rain brought an electricity fault but they are working on it as it is affecting Karoi too (yeah—if it involves them they work on it faster)!  The hospital work was not so busy today since people didn’t want to come out in the rain.  It was a nice break and allowed us to catch up on some office work today.

We got word that a container from Sebastopol Christian Church was on its way to us today.  We hope with the rain it won’t get stuck a long the way.  We are anxious to see the goodies it has brought.  We are so thankful to Sue and Gene Beckstead who spend hours sorting through medical equipment, packing it, storing suppliers in their garage and packing the container.  It is such a big help to us!
Cheryl, Sharon, Jill, Wendy, Shenena
Eating lunch at Rhino Camp
 
 
 
 

 On the boat to Rhino Camp
Kariba sunset--Jill, Wendy, Sharon, Shenena,Cheryl

Shenena, Sharon, Henry (our guide) Jill, Cheryl, Kathy and Wendy
 
 

 Group saying goodbye at hospital
Look at those beautiful lions!
A beautiful Kariba sunset

Comments

  1. Black SmithOctober 26, 2013 at 3:15 AM

    Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more information? It is extremely helpful for me.

    Hollow wear Utensils

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousDecember 21, 2013 at 3:52 AM

    Awesome time for me posting this information with you sir, we export various kind of medical equipments. Thanks for sharing

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unpacking cintainer, interviewing a new doctor

-
Image
It has been busy this week unpacking the container that arrived recently.  We have been unloading it a truck load at a time and bringing it up to the hospital to unload.  Carolyn Mereki has been helping to unload and sort and then she delivers it to the different departments. We are really happy with a lot of good supplies that we are unpacking to use at the hospital. We are putting the barrels and boxes in the hallway outside my office and opening them when we have time.  It is always fun to see what we get! On Friday this week we traveled to Kadoma (1 hour south of Harare), about 4 1/2 hour drive for us.  We met up with Mashoko administration to interview 6 people for jobs at Chidamoyo and Mashoko as doctors.  We have tentatively made decisions, but have another 2 people to interview--so please pray with us that we choose the right doctor. The doctor strike continues since 1 March.  No settlement and government hospitals only doing emergencies so we can't really refer o
Read more
-
Image
 I stopped chemo in mid-February and the oncologist tried a period of Immunotherapy by itself to see if it would work.  In March I started to produce a lot of abdominal fluid (ascities) and had to go to the hospital every 2 weeks and then every week to be tapped to remove the fluid.  They got off up to 8.8 liters a time which gave me a few days relief before it would come back.  It made it hard to breathe without laying on my sides and I couldn't really eat without pain. So, I was in bed a lot of the time. They decided I needed to start Chemo again with the Immunotherapy.  My Oncologist said it was not time to give up yet!  He said the chemo helped before to shrink the tumor a bit so they felt if I could shrink it again I wouldn't have to go for tapping.  I was all for that. He did remind me there is no cure only remission and that I have months not years to live but he felt there were other drugs to try if these don't work.  I am usually not in pain so I am so thankful for
Read more

Happy Boxing Day

-
Image
Our Christmas dinner theme was Hawaiian Retro Christmas--so we had dress 1950's Hawaii. Michael, Major's son decided to add some tummy to his costume to look like his Dad! Enjoy these pictures!
Read more