The morning started out very normal until we went to the Morning Handover meeting, and found that the goat had gotten locked in the room where the meeting normally is all night long and had pooped and peed all over the floor. It was actually quite hilarious to watch the matron’s face when he opened the door and this goat walks out like it’s normal. We ended having the shortest Handover meeting yet in the physical therapy room, but afterward I couldn’t find Dr. ABD for follow on his rounds.
While I was looking for him, Marcel came by and told me that the ‘new guy’ had arrived. Callum (pronounced like Collin but with a british accent and an m at the end instead of an n) from Ireland had just gotten in. He is between his third and forth year out of five of medical school in Ireland and will be here for about five weeks. Because I couldn’t find Dr. ABD I gave him a quick tour. Once I found Dr. ABD, I followed him on the quickest rounds yet. About halfway through rounds, a helicopter landed in our lawn, which is a first. Apparently a guy who works for African Minerals, a German based company, got in a big accident. African Minerals pays for all their employees to get med-evacuated when they are sick or need surgery, so they were only landing there because it was convenient to load the guy there, but it’s a step toward a relationship with the company, which is good.
After rounds, it was into the theatre for surgery day! We were going to remove a lump from a woman’s breast today, but Dr. ABD determined that the problem was worse than just a lump and decided to reschedule so that they could determine if the whole breast needed removing, and to perhaps recommend someone more capable to do it. Then there was a hernia repair, which had been strangulated. It didn’t look like there had been any real damage to the bowel, but we will continue to watch and make sure everything flows normally through there in the next couple days. After that we opened up a woman to explore when she had severe pain in her abdomen, and it turned out to be a GIANT hole in her liver that was also infected. They couldn’t really close her up because of the infection, and because they don’t really know what to do about the hole, so they cleaned her up as best they could and packed her full of gauze, then closed her partially. In a couple of days they’re going back in to clean it and hopefully fix the whole and close.
After surgery it started pouring again, but we decided to go to town anyway, and as soon as Dr. ABD dropped us of in town it stopped raining, which was perfect. We walked around and got fabric for Elizabeth and found extensions for me, not for the price I wanted but I didn’t want to risk asking Abie’s friend to bring extensions when she does my hair tomorrow and totally get the color wrong. Hopefully she doesn’t charge an arm and a leg because I don’t have much money left other than the money I’ve set aside for the modem.
John says he’s going to Freetown tomorrow and will buy the modem for us!!! I really hope he gets the one we want, and that it works. I’m a little scared that either it wont be right or that he wont get it at all and I’ll be out that money. I don’t know how much to trust him, so we’ll see.
After a visit to the tailors, we went to St. Mary’s and grabbed some water, and then Elizabeth and I jumped on a motorbike to get back. Halfway there, it broke down. We were fine, we just coasted to a stop, but we weren’t back yet, so he had to find us a new bike. He told us that we wouldn’t have to pay any extra, but our replacement guy told us that we were supposed to pay him 1000 Le each, rather than 1000 Le total, which was the original agreement. Oh well, it’s only 25¢ or so. After we got back we had dinner with a whole bunch of our fellow expats here at the house and now it’s chill time.
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