Babies

Dr. Faile and Christy Lee (4th year med student)
Dr. Faile delivering a baby
The triplets. To keep the track of which triplet is which, the first has nothing on her hand. The second one to be delivered as a string bracelet wrapped once around her wrist. The last to be born has the string bracelet wrapped three times. It's quite a blessing here that not only were they delivered safely, but they are surprisingly large and healthy.

TRIPLETS!

Sorry, I've been busy this week. I'm having difficulty getting my pictures to load! :-(

I have seen a lot of death here. BUT this week, I thankfully have been enjoying the start of life! Dr. Faile delivered via C-section a set of triplets! In all of his time here, he said this was a first for him. All girls, and all looking quite pink, healthy, and cute! I will admit I've missed the actual C-section, but I've been to 2 other C-sections this week.

I think I'm getting more skittish about waifu (manpruli for snake). They tell me it's NOT snake season, yet we are treating so many snakebites. And just for my edification, one of the patients brought in the dead waifu to show me. People are bitten by carpet vipers and cobras around here. The venom causes the patient's blood to not clot.

I'm becoming a budding surgeon around here. Today I took out a large lipoma myself (a benign fatty tumor). And I know by the time I get back, I will be an expert at incision and drainage of abscesses of any sort and any kind. I really wish my pictures would load, because I have great pictures of all the above mentioned things.

Medical Differences

**I am going to discuss medical related material, so please self-select if you are not the type to enjoy reading about medical things.

This is a goiter.

Today was another crazy day in clinic! It was only Dr. Faile, Dr. Hewitt, Christy Lee (another 4th year medical student, who is staying the entire time I'm here), and myself. Throughout my short stay, I've been impressed by cultural differences in medicine between the US and here, but today they stuck out more than usual.

One of my first patients today complained of "piles." Maybe some of you know what that is, but I did not. So I ask her to show me in the exam room, which is behind where I talk with patients. By the time I get back there, she is completely naked, prostrate on the floor (we do have an exam table, but she chose the floor) with her bum in the air, as she points to her hemorrhoids. It was slightly different than how that would work in the US. :-)

Then there are the COUNTLESS number of translational issues. I often sit for 5 to 10 minutes at a time with my interpreter and patient chatting vigorously, to then have my interpreter say ONE word about what is wrong with the patient!

No one has back pain in Ghana, but EVERYONE has WAIST pain.

I have taken quite a few good medical photos, but I think many are too graphic to show on this forum. If I get a chance on a weekend, I will try to upload them to snapfish, and people can go look at them there.

A few more pictures

A compound we visited on our trip.
A country school we stopped at along the way.
Making foofoo

Come and Go with me to my Father's house

Yesterday, I was on call. It was a rough day. I treated 4 snakebites, incised and drained pockets of pus on two patients, sewed a cut finger back together, put a chest tube in (after the patient ripped it out the first time), and helped out with countless other short procedures and admitted a few other patients. Overnight 3 of my patients died. It was heartbreaking, but there wasn't anything else that could be offered here, although in the US I think some of them would have made it. Two were children. It's a fact of life here, but it's hard nonetheless.

Today I got off the BMC compound, and went to church with Tommy Harris. It was a rather nice break from the hospital work. Tommy is somewhat of a legend around here. From what I can gather, he came here around 1984, originally working on the compound. He is still a full time missionary, working on his own. He travels to several villages and is a lay preacher. I really can't do his story justice, but he does amazing work. He has the best mastery of the local language and culture, he farms along side of them, and ministers to them. He is sort of like a circuit pastor, going on a schedule to different villages to preach. If you are wondering, they have traditional churches here in town too. But I thought it'd be more fun to go with Tommy.

Dr. Fuller and Dana joined us too, as well as various locals we picked up along the way. Getting to church was interesting. I had been on the dirt roads here, but Tommy goes way out, he basically drives over what would be considered maybe a path. In some cases, it was more like adventure off-roading, I have no idea how he exactly got his truck over some areas. Needless to say it was quite bumpy. You should have see the truck ford a river we drove over, it was quite impressive.

Service was held under a tree. It was rather refreshing. There's alot of dancing and singing, then the message. I read the children the story of Zacheus from a children's Bible I brought, the children loved it. Except for Tommy telling us occasionally what was going on, I have no idea what was said, but I can tell the people love Jesus.

Afterwards since Dr. Fuller was with us, we extracted any teeth bothering the congregation. Then we headed back for a foofoo, a traditional food here. It's similar to the teazet I ate the other day, but it was made from yams. It has the consistency of play-doh, and you pick it up with your hands, then dip it into a soup. I think it is an acquired taste. :-)

Dana and I were quite exhausted (and still a bit hungry) when we got back, so now we are checking our e-mail while enjoying a tall glass of coke! It tastes so yummy!!!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Pictures from the our trip to the bush yesterday! It was a good day for us to leave the hospital because there were alot of medical volunteers at the time.

Here's our sheep we were given for our work, we named him Fuller after Dr. Fuller. Goats and sheep look very similar here, and I still don't really know how to tell them apart. Apparently this is a sheep though, not a goat.

Dr. Fuller's ingenious set up to clean teeth.
And Dr. Fuller training his newest dental associate--ME!

Dentistry in the Bush

Last night we met Dr. Fuller Robinson, who has been visiting BMC yearly since I was born (someone told me that he's turning 80 years old this year). He is a dentist in Virginia. He is here with his granddaughter, Dana, who is just 15. When he comes, he spends most of his days going out to the bush villages and extracting teeth. He has taught some folks here how to extract teeth as well. Two of the other volunteers and myself had the opportunity to with him today. We headed out to a village 5 miles from the Togo border, it was somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half drive.

One of the medical assistants with us was from the village we went to, and it turned out that his mother made us lunch that day, which was quite yummy, but we'll get to that. Dr. Fuller had fully briefed us on all the customs that go along with these visits, he had prepared us for dealing with the chief, which is the first stop at the village. You usually go into the chief's hut, and you have have to bow on the ground and go through all this ceremonial stuff before the chief sends you out to do the work you came to do. This was Dr. Fuller's first time to this particular village, so he wasn't sure what to expect. So we get there, and we walk down to meet the chief. They sit us outside this hut, and honestly I thought we were out there waiting to be invited into the hut. Come to find out though, this was actually the chief and his elders out there! I guess this chief was really relaxed compared to some. Mainly he was interested in having us white girls take pictures with him, which we certainly obliged him with.

Then we headed down and set up shop. I won't be able to share enough pictures to really give you the picture. BUT the back of the truck is set up so that we can extract teeth. The front of the truck, we attach inverters to the motor, so that they can do cleanings in the front. Dr. Fuller went to the school to sort over the children into who needed what. I was left behind with Isiac, one of the assistants, to start numbing people and extracting. Yes I'm in medical school, not dental school. Yet within a few minutes I was extracting my first teeth. In fact, by the end of the day we all got pretty good at it. Anyone need a tooth out?

At some point the chief came down to preside over us. But mainly we just had at it. Afterwards they invited us to lunch. Now often it's one of the chief's wives who cooks for us, and Dr. Fuller has many stories about the weird things he has been forced to eat. However, since Thompson, ones of the assistants with us is from this village, and he is an assembly man here, his mother cooked Teazat for us. This is a very traditional food here. It's essentially a cooked maize, that you pick up with you fingers, and dip into a soup. The soup had guinea fowl in it. It was actually really good. We were glad to not be eating a chicken with ALL of it's parts in a soup.

After lunch, the village presented us with a gift for our work. We became the proud owners of sheep and a chicken! Faith, one of the volunteers, and a third year resident in CA, accepted the gifts, which we had to load in the truck to bring home with us. We thankfully were able to give the sheep and the chicken away to one of the other workers, and we are sad to say likely they are no longer living.

The ride to and from the village was a trip. It was a mix of dirt and paved roads. However, with everyone with us, there wasn't room for all of us inside the truck. I volunteered to sit in the back of the truck. We actually sat on a wooden bench we were bringing to the village. The locals do it all the time, but they thought as a white girl, I was crazy. They absolutely insisted I wear a surgical towel on my head to protect my hair, and surgical mask on my face so I didn't breath all the dust, when you added my sunglasses, it was QUITE the ensemble! And with the dust from the road, by the time we got back, I had the Ghana equivalent of a spray on tan. I was COVERED head to toe in red dust.

It was a really fun day! Dr. Fuller bought us all coca-cola and cookies on the way home! (kind of funny for a dentist to buy us soda and cookies)

Tonight we had a station meeting, where we sing hymns, a little devotional, pray together, and then had a birthday celebration for Mona Hewitt (Dr. Hewitt's wife). It has been a pretty exciting day!

PS I have great pictures from today, but they aren't loading, so maybe I'll get them on another night.