Week 1

Week 1

Stories…

The pace of this year has prevented me from daily posts.  We worked over 72 hours in 5 days.  Each day produced some excitement or a heart rendering story.

Day 1… we had a fire outside which filled the recovery room and OR’s with smoke.  We had to abort a surgery because we were unable to intubate (get breathing tube) in a baby whose airway was stenossed.

Day 2… My little baby who most likely had some kind of URI brewing pre-op developed a full blown pneumonia.  He remains in the PICU (quasi) poor little guy is breathing 50-60 a min, has sternal retractions and cannot keep his O2 levels above 90 on 4l of oxygen.

Day 3… “Life”, “Godknows”, “Wonder”, “Perfect” all names of children we have cared for this week. It is common in Zimbabwe to name children a name that describes an event or feeling of the moment.  So for little boy Life his mom named him life because she did not think he would survive.  She had never seen a baby with a cleft lip and palate.  Her village believed the mother and child were possessed so they were ostracized.

Day 4… Kenny

Kenny presented himself to our team last year in Oct.  He had a softball size lipoma (fatty tumor) on the back and side of his neck.  We were unable to do his surgery last year due to severe high blood pressure.  So he returned after 8 months of triple drug therapy…still with very high BP…but the team decided to proceed using local numbing and conscious sedation.  Kenny was so happy he said..I will finally be able to sleep laying on my back.

Day5… My little guy still remains in PICU… changed antibiotics, still doing chest percussion and albuterol treatments.

Another little guy 5 years old comes for palate repair also has 3+ tonsils which causes airway obstruction.  Turned into a 5 hour recovery.  Did fine in the end but had a hard recovery phase.

The weekend..

Some much needed R & R.  10 of the 18 member team headed off to Victoria falls for the weekend.  We hired a pilot and chartered a plane to Vic Falls.  I am not a fan of flying… it reminded me of my days in Alaska and flying in small planes…only white knuckles for take off and landing.  The pilot buzzed the falls 3 times what a spectacular view.  After we landed we walked along the falls edge for about a mile. Then we headed off for a evening game drive and dinner.  Sunday morning we went on a sunrise Elephant ride… ELEPHANTS are freaking big especially when you are on top of them.  Our elephant was named Tattoo, she was the matriarch so she took up the rear.  I only freaked out when she decided to kneel down unexpectedly and eat a tree.  This was followed by a walk with the lions.  We went to a Lion conservation program where the lions go through a 4 stage re-entry into the wild to attempt to increase the numbers of lions in Africa.  We walked with a Brother and sister for an hour.  Oh wow was this so cool.  They were 14 months old and about 90 kg.  NO KIDDING the paws of the male were 6-7 inches wide.  In the next stage they will have no human contact, then increased wild life conditions and competition for prey, then finally reintroduced into the wild.