Busy two weeks and more visitors!

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Our workshop near Harare that Major and I went to went well on 22-23 May.  We met with 10 other mission hospitals that are involved in AIDS work and shared our ideas and challenges in AIDS work at our hospitals.  We received an award for Success Stories in Operational Research for our 3 Research projects we are involved in to better lives of people on ART treatment.

Major returned home on the 26th with a new to him family car.  He bought Dr. Megan's car when they left for the US--so we celebrated when he brought it home.

Work has been very busy at the hospital and with only 1 doctor for the month of May it has been especially busy.  I have been seeing Out-patients everyday while Dr. Munodawafa was busy with in-patients and surgeries.

On May 25th we had a holiday--Africa Day--and so got to work just in the morning and then enjoy some relaxing time in the afternoon.  Have been enjoying "The Crown" from Netflix.

Since it was a holiday weekend our Nurse anesthetist went away and I was on call for anesthesia.  Got called just before midnight on Saturday night and when I got home and 2 p.m. watched more of "The Crown" to go back to sleep.  No visitors, so I got to sleep in until 7 a.m.!

Then during church I got called again for another C/Section and then went home to cook dinner as Patience Mereki's birthday was that evening and they were coming for dinner.  Got everything ready to heat up after night church and just as I sat down for night church at the hospital I got called again.  The woman we had done the C/Section on a few hours before had started bleeding and we had to open her again and try and stop the bleeding.  I helped be a scrub nurse this time and we worked for 2 hours to try and control the bleeding,  Finally tied the uterus off and sent her to Chinhoyi for a hysterectomy.  Unfortunately she was gasping on arrival and died shortly after arrival.  So sad!

Finally we got to eat the birthday dinner about 8 p.m. and enjoyed celebrating Patience's birthday.  Their son, Michael also has his birthday on the same day and so we called him to wish him Happy Birthday at school in South Africa and described the food we were eating as he had cooked his Top Ramen for dinner!  We will celebrate his birthday with him again when he comes home for his term holiday in a couple of weeks!  He said he was saving his appetite. 

Patience was very happy as her family bought her a microwave for her birthday present and she was so excited!

The hospital continued to be busy this week and on June 1st Dr. Isala came back to work and Dr, Munodawafa went off for a few days in Harare so I continued to help in Outpatients.

Tuesday I had a meeting with 19 of our Village Health Workers in the area to strengthen our follow-up of defaulters on ART medication.  We use them as our arms and legs to follow up on people in their area and get the people back in treatment. 

On the evening of the 1st we welcomed visitors who drove from Tanzania to be with us.  Fielden and Janet Allison came to present a Marriage Seminar for leaders and ministers in our churches.  They have been involved in this ministry all over Africa and they have been here twice before to work with our Ministers and Wives.  The started their seminar on Friday morning and it runs through Sunday afternoon.  About 25 couples have been attending the seminar and are all very happy with the meeting.

The hospital quieted down a bit this weekend and we look forward to return visitors from Seattle arriving tomorrow afternoon (Sunday).

Winter is here and we are having nights and morning down to the mid-50's but it always warms up to 80's during the day.  Beautiful blue, blue skies with hardly a cloud in the sky.  The days are getting shorter and it is hard to get up in the morning when it is cold and dark until about 6:30 a.m.  One of the plants that blooms in the cold weather is our Poinsettia trees and they are in full bloom right now!

ZACH Meeting


Major and I and the award we received

 Mereki family new car

Patience's Birthday Party


 The cakes on fire with all the candles!

Opening presents

 

Village Health Workers Meeting

 
 

Janet and Fielden teaching with Major translating

 Lunchtime at the Seminar




Seminar on Saturday with Gill translating

 

Poinsetta tree in bloom



 

Comments

  1. LindaJune 29, 2017 at 10:33 AM

    Great post, I love the pictures you shared here and seems that it was fun filled event. Thank you for sharing it with us and keep posting further proceedings with us

    ReplyDelete

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