Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

This week went very quickly.  On Tuesday the 19th I picked up a new visitor, Julie Gibson, from CA and Florida.  She has been accepted into Medical School in July and came her to get some hands on experience.   She has been busy and her first day here she learned to draw blood and watched some bones being set. Thursday we went to Harare and got registered with our truck to be able to transport.  We bought a baler box and packs for tobacco to start transporting to Harare and Karoi soon.  We are excited that we will be having money to help the hospital, with the truck. Friday we had 8 visitors who came for Harare to spend the day and night with us.  Dr. David Katzenstein, from Stanford University, lead the group and brought Lab and ITC people with him to talk about the start of our research project we will be doing together.  We will be doing Viral Loads by drawing blood and Dried Blood spots to look at adolescent/children from age 5-18 who are on ART (AIDS medication) and how well

Last weekend after 2 days of rain our weather took a turn for the cold.  It got down to the mid 60's in the early morning which is winter weather around here.  Mid-April is too early for winter here.  I even had a fire in my fireplace last Saturday evening, brrr....  It warmed up again this week--back to high 80's during the day and 70's at night! This week we had an interesting patient.  A women was doing her wash in the dam right behind the Secondary School at Chidamoyo and was attacked by a crocodile on her hand.  It was a small croc so she was able to beat it off and get out of the water.  When she came to the hospital we took an X-ray and noticed that besides three breaks in her fingers--the croc lost a tooth inside of her!  We pulled it out and are bandaging her wounds everyday! On Wednesday the 13th it was Dr. Isala's birthday--29th!  We made him wear the turkey hat on rounds and then we had a birthday cake for his birthday!  We surprised him--he didn't

This week on Wednesday a container arrived from Sebastopol, CA that had been sent the end of December 2015.  A truck delivered it first thing on Wednesday morning.  We have had 2 times to open and unload some of the things. This container has supplies for the hospital that are so needed and helps us not to have to spend money to buy things that we need.  We were so happy to unpack syringes, sutures, gauze, tape  and other needed things.  We have been waiting for these things and it will help us for many months.  We will be able to unpack the container slowly, day by day and it is always exciting the things we get.  It's like Christmas for the hospital! We are so thankful to the many hospitals, doctors offices and pharmacies that save supplies for us and for Dr. Palleschi who spends time making contacts and picking things up for us.  We also appreciate Gene and Sue  Beckstead who collect the things from many hospitals, store it in their garage and pick our containers for us.