Another exciting week at Chidamoyo!

-

One thing you quickly find out at Chidamoyo you can never know what the week will hold for you!  We started last Friday with a meeting for all senior nurses from our Province.  I had to leave by 5 a.m. for the meeting starting at 0830 a.m.  Michael (Major’s son) went as my driver and did errands.  We picked up the 2 nurses from Karoi District Hospital that needed to go.  We arrive only 30 minutes late and the meeting didn’t get started until 1030 a.m.!  Typical for here--the last people to arrive are always those who live in town not those of us who have to drive 4 hours to get there!We left by 4 p.m. and got home at 8:00 p.m. just in time for prayers on Friday evening and to meet Zimbabwe Christian College students who came that evening.  

Since 1992 we have been hosting all graduating college students to teach them about making hospital visits and working with sick people, especially people with AIDS which they will encounter in their future congregations.  They come on Friday night and then work with me Saturday morning, sit in on counseling patients and then make visits on all the in-patients and Msasa (pregnant women) Waiting shelters.  Sunday we take them to the different churches and some here to preach and then also Sunday night at the hospital church they preach.  Monday morning we round off our weekend with discussion.  They seem to really like that and they always are able to see the reality of AIDS. 

 We enjoyed having them for prayers on Friday night and then Saturday I worked with them in the hospital teaching and then giving them practical experience to sit in on our counseling sessions and visiting all the patients on the ward.  Saturday night I cooked for all of them and we had dinner with them and Major’s family to plan the activities for Sunday.  Sunday kept them busy with 2 groups going out to Mudzimu and Stop areas and the others staying to help with the local church here.  Then Sunday evening we were together for our church at the hospital and afterwards had a dessert fellowship at my house to review the day.  Monday they visited patients on the wards, sat in on counseling sessions, talked to our  counsellors and then headed for home.  We will continue with 2 more groups the next 2 weekends so that all the graduates learn.  They are to graduate on June 6 and are most anxious!

On Saturday evening we were happy to have an alumni of Chidamoyo arrive for a short visit, Megan Parker Ninneman.  She was part of a TB conference in Lusaka, Zambia and she was able to get a lift to the boarder and our driver picked her up on Saturday afternoon and brought her to us for a few days.  Megan was with us in 2001 and 2002 and has since married and is a Physician Assistant in a state TB ward in Florida.  It was great to have her with us from Saturday through Wednesday.  We talked a lot about TB care and we had a new MDR (Multi-drug resistent) TB patient to see together and set up her care.  

On Tuesday Major and Megan and I drove to Harare and had a day of running errands.  We had lunch and dinner with friends and on the way in we got a text message from the Norwegian Embassy that said they were getting a donation ready for us.   We were thinking medicine or supplies and suddenly they said to come the next morning and pick a vehicle that had been donated! The next morning after dropping Megan off at the airport we went to the Embassy where they presented us with a 2013 Ford Ranger double cab 4 x 4, diesel truck!  It had 10,000 kms (6,000 miles) on it!  We were shocked!  It is a beautiful vehicle and high off the ground and just wonderful for our roads.  They said they choose the furthest in the bush mission hospitals to benefit from this program and we were the first of 85 hospitals to get one!  Wow--we were so excited!  God is so awesome!

We also picked up the architect plans for the rebuilding of the hospital and the government recently gave us $25,000 to start the rebuilding.  Now we are looking for a construction company.

We arrived home at 1 a.m. Thursday morning and by 5 we were up and getting ready for a visit by a Deputy Minister of Health.  We got the hospital in shining state and of course had so many patients--as it was CD4 day (every Thursday).  We kept working hard to get our work done so we would have time when the Minister showed up--but he never did and we never caught up with work until 6 p.m.  Went home at 7 p.m. finally and ate dinner and fell into bed exhausted!  At least we got the hospital cleaned up!

Today (Saturday the 17th of May) my niece, Hannah Jane McCarty graduates from Villanova University in Pennsylvania with her Bachelor’s in Business.  I wish her love and lots of fun today!  She already has a job with Citibank in NYC.

Megan at Chidamoyo


   Major receiving the keys of the truck

The new truck


Major on the inside


Driving the truck off the lot


Happy Graduation Hannah Jane McCarty!


Comments

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