Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

Well we finally got ZESA on  Day 11 at 1:40 p.m. We quickly cleaned freezers and fridges and went to get started again with new food. Then Thursday morning—46 hours later it went off. It got dark and rained a few drops here but closer to Karoi it rained hard and 2 power poles fell—so we went from 11 a.m. yesterday and it is Saturday night  and no power! They said they are working on it, but now we are on load shedding so not sure when load shedding will go off and if we get electricity back! Go figure! Maybe we need to send our electricity workers to NYC to help them get their power back (if they don’t mind waiting a month or so )! Our 4 new visitors arrived at 11:10 p.m. Thursday night.   Stephanie and John Woodman and Jim and Judy Eaton. They are retired Americans who live in Panama. Stephanie is on OR nurse and has been with us several times and her husband John has been here before too. They had been delayed in Washington DC for 2 days due to Su...

This past week started with a weekend that was better to forget.   Jordan started Friday morning with Diarrhea and fevers and by Saturday morning 4 a.m. it hit me!   Couldn’t move out of bed for 2 days.   Sue Hahn kept bringing us water.   The best part is the electricity went off at 5 a.m. and never came back and so we had fevers and it was 102 in my bedroom and no fan!   Talk about miserable! By Sunday morning it hit Sue and so we were all on our own! Major’s wife, Patience, volunteered to feed Rick and Chuck for lunch and dinner and by Sunday afternoon Chuck got it, luckily not as bad.   Monday I was able to get out of bed but so weak and still diarrhea so didn’t make it to work. By now Dr. Kellert had a headache and was also not feeling well!   Jordan, Sue and I sat in my living room draped on couches and chairs groaning.   We kept Rick amused sending him to the hospital for Depends for all of us!   We still couldn’t think of food a...

Two weeks back and life continues to be busy.   Summer is here and we are struggling to “keep cool” in 105+ degree weather.   Some nights when we are eating dinner and it is dark it is still 93 degrees!   October is called suicide month here and we understand why!   It is hard to sleep and hard to work! Rick and Sue have been busy unpacking the container.  We are very anxious to get to all the medical equipment.  I came home on Monday evening and found new furniture and a carpet that my forwarding agents had picked out for me to buy.  It is a beautiful and comfortable leather set and we are all are enjoying it! We got our first rain of the season on Saturday the   13 th of October.   It started to rain just as soon as we put the meat on the braii (BBQ) for dinner!   We kept cooking and enjoyed the cool drops.   By the time we got inside the hard rain hit and we ended up getting 11mls of rain in about 3 hours.   Of cou...

On September 22 nd I left for home.   My ticket ride included a limo ride from my home to the airport and on the way the limo driver and I talked about our lives and what we did.   When I got to the airport he helped me to get my entire luggage (3 biggggg bags and 2 hand luggage) on a cart and when I went to give him a tip he gave me a $20 tip!   He said he was so impressed by what I did he wanted to thank me!   Wow what an unexpected blessing! I arrived in Dubai at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday night local time and was picked up and sent to a beautiful hotel near the airport which included a wonderful dinner (choice of 8 restaurants) and breakfast (my last chance to eat Humus-yum!).   I was able to sleep well after sleeping a lot on the 15 ½ hour flight to there.   Then at 9 a.m. the next morning I was on my way to Harare. I arrived at 5:20 p.m. local time and walked right through with my entire luggage (with myself having to lift them on to the luggage ca...

The last few days before I went to surgery I was able to visit with family and friends.  On the first of September, Dr. Dale Erickson, our first doctor at Chidamoyo in 1968 came up to have lunch with Sylvia and I.  He was in San Francisco at a medical conference and drove up to spend the afternoon with us.  He is a nephrologist in Albuquerque now and it was great to see him. On the 3rd-5th of September, Sylvia and I went with my brother Dennis and his wife Kathy to Reno to visit my older sister Carol and her husband Mike.  We had a wonderful  visit and the penny slots kept us busy and got some shopping in! We drove straight home on the 5th and straight to the hospital.  We left Reno at 4:30 a.m. and at exactly 8:45 a.m. I was checking for surgery.  I went in at 11 a.m. and by 1:30 p.m. I was home and feeling well.  I was still a bit groggy from the anesthesia so took a pain pill and slept for the rest of the day and night and woke up about 3 a...

My friend Sylvia who is Zimbabwean and a nurse in a local hospital here in Santa Rosa, California, and I have been spending our time visiting local doctors.  They did ruled out TB and the scans show my liver has enlarged over time.  After consultation with doctors and a surgeon I am scheduled to have my gallbladder removed (it is non-functioning) and a liver biopsy on Wednesday (Sept. 5th) of this next week.  On Monday Sylvia and my brother Dennis and sister-in-law Kathy and I are driving to Reno, Nevada to spend 2 days visiting with my older sister Carol and her husband Mike.  We will stay at the Atlantis Casino and enjoy some penny slots, good buffets and visits with the family.  We will get up to  leave by 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday and drive straight through to the hospital to be admitted by 8:45 a.m. to have surgery at 11:00 a.m.  I will have it done  laproscopically and hope to be home shortly after I wake up from anesthesia.  I told th...

Wow this has been a busy week and we are getting closer to answers about my fevers. Tuesday I had a urethra dilation because of complications from my cancer radiation 23 years ago. I spent the morning in a local hospital where I worked 23 years ago. My urologist told me" I have a urethra from hell." He spent over an hour on trying to find my bladder and then finally found it and put a foley catheter in which will stay for at least 3 weeks he said! I thought 3 days was enough--but I am getting used to it and the good thing is I can drink as much iced tea as I want and not have to go to the bathroom every hour! Ha! To sleep straight through the night is also a new experience! I went to see the infectious disease doctor this week and she thinks I have TB--not pulmonary--so I am not contagious--but somewhere in my body. So more tests were run and I am going for a CT scan tomorrow which they will compare to the one done in April in Zimbabwe to see if there are still lymph nodes...