Christmas 2019 and Happy 2020!

-

It has been a busy December and finally I have time to sit down and catch up everyone on news of Chidamoyo.  Welcome to 2020!  We all made it!
Major’s daughter, Carolyn, arrived on December 14 after finishing her finals for first semester of her sophomore year.  She did very well and got all A’s and 1 B+ which she was disappointed with.  She was ready to be away from studying and she slept a lot and I kept her busy with Christmas shopping and we went to a stage play, out to eat with many friends, went to a movie and spent time at Christmas with friends.
It was so nice for me to be home during Christmas—it has been a long time and I really enjoyed all the activities, decorating and outside lights.  The activities at church and with family were so nice.  We went looking at Christmas lights one night and visited a church who made up a little town of Bethlehem with live animals including a camel.
Carolyn and I made Christmas cookies, went in our PJs to a women’s church party for Christmas, and went with friends to see White Christmas on stage.
Our family does Christmas Eve, so after church service Christmas eve we came to my brother’s house for our Ravioli dinner and then opened gifts.  There were 9 of us who were together that evening.

On Christmas Day I flew to Seattle, WA as my friends had sent me a ticket to come up and see the 49ers play their football team the Seahawks.  We met for Christmas dinner in downtown Seattle—6 of us—Jo and Dr. Derik Taniguchi, Cheri and Larry and Eli Gail and me.  We also got to visit a Gingerbread house exhibit that was a fund raiser for Juvenile Diabetes.
I stayed with Jo and Derik and we enjoyed going out to a movie, spending a day with Cheri Gail and going to the game.  What a game it was, and the 49ers literally won at the last second!  Seattle fans are the loudest in the NFL and I kind of took my life in my hands to wear 49er gear to the game—but they were nice, and we had a good time cheering for our teams.  I was glad we walked away winners. Let’s hope it continues to the Super Bowl!  I feel so lucky as I got to attend two 49 er games in person this time home and it was so fun for me!  Thank you to all my friends who made it possible!
On January 2nd I went to get my right kidney stent replaced. My urologist here in Santa Rosa did the procedure.  It was an in and out procedure and I came home from the recovery room.  They put in a longer lasting stent and so I won’t have to have it replaced as often as I have in the past (every 3 month) but hopefully this will last 9-12 months.  They are getting me a couple to go back with to Zimbabwe.
Carolyn went off for an all day hike the day before she left, and they walked 11.9 miles!  She was sore!  She went with Courtney Walker who was a Chidamoyo alumni in 2018—a nurse who works here in Santa Rosa.  We met her a couple of weeks ago for lunch out at the ocean.
Carolyn left on Sunday the 5th and niece Gloria took her on a tour of San Francisco before she got on the plane in the evening to fly to Florida.  She went to spend a week in Florida with Dr. Kris Singh and family, a dentist there who comes to help us at Chidamoyo.  He is going to work on her teeth before school starts on the 13th.  We are so thankful for this.
Now I am booked to leave on February 12th and am anxious to get back home.  Things are not good in Zimbabwe with another drought looming, no electricity for 2 months at Chidamoyo, and the dollar continuing to devalue.  Life is tough, no doctors are working in government and city clinics.  Nurses in town are working 2 days a week because they can’t afford transport to get to work—we are back to 2008 again!

 We were able to have a Christmas party for our staff at Chidamoyo Hospital and give them all a bag of groceries to take home to celebrate Christmas.  This meant a lot to them and they were so thankful as most people had nothing for Christmas this year.  Thank you to all who support us to do this for our staff each year.
I continue to keep busy with doctor visits, seeing friends and family, watching football games and enjoying being home.  Let’s all pray for a better 2020 wherever we are.

Christmas tree 2019



Great nephews Alec, Max, Santa and friends with Carolyn


Carolyn in Little town of Bethlehem with Camel


Chidamoyo staff enjoying their grocery bags for Christmas


Making Christmas cookies

Going in our PJs for Xmas party


Lunch with Courtney at Tamales Bay



Christmas with the family






I got new boots to wear in the Operating room!



Larry and Cheri Gail in front of Gingerbread house


Eli Gail with Cheri and I


Christmas dinner with Taniguchis


The boats in Seattle decorated


Go 9ers!




Happy New Year

Buying Crab for dinner


Carolyn and Kathy Rose to celebrate her last dinner with us!



Carolyn's beautiful hike up Mt. Tam



Courtney with Carolyn--they made it to the top!



Saying goodbye on 5th of January


Exploring SF before leaving

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 18, 2020 at 10:40 PM

    Hospitals are established primarily to facilitate the recovery of the sick and should be subservient, the essential reason for the existence of a hospital, as such Best Private Hospitals in Dubai

    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