June 27th (Wednesday)

This morning we headed off to the “Old Hospital” as there is usually a teaching session there on Wednesday mornings, however, there was no one to teach this Wednesday. So we then went to Kariba to join ward rounds. Except we had to clean up the tea room from all the baby bundle stuff from the day before. So we were able to skip out of ward rounds this time and clean up the tea room so that we could have it ready when we would break at 10am for tea.

But then as we finished that task we were informed that they were setting up for the bowel obstruction surgery. Fiona scrubbed in and set-up all the instruments (it was her first time so it was a bit challenging to differentiate them all). I was helping Jack doing the circulation nurse’s role. Nicole and I were also assisting Alison and Dr. Mwansa with anaesthesia while Dr. Lipsi performed the surgery with Kennedy, Queen, and Fiona. The surgery went through tea time so Nicole and I switched off with Alison to bag the patient while we went for a drink of water and some peanut butter cookies.

Later when the surgery ended it was roughly time for lunch and Dorothy had kindly invited us for another lunch with the visiting men and Alison came along as well because she’s home alone as Chris has gone to China to get some things and he is trying to organize a test flight he has to pass for some sort of additional inspection they changed for every 3 years to every year.

At lunch we heard some repeat funny Dorothy stories and some more of Dr. Lipsi’s fascinating stories of where he has lived and some of his experiences as a US military surgeon and as the son of a missionary in Brazil. He is very wise and experienced in many things and I have a deep respect for him as a person, a doctor, and as a fellow believer. He at times speaks slowly and very measured, you just need some patience because you will likely learn something interesting and valuable.

After lunch we returned to the hospital to see what we could assist with at the clinic. There wasn’t much going on so we returned to our house and had a more relaxing afternoon. We didn’t eat much for supper as we didn’t feel overly hungry since we had eaten our fill at Dorothy’s. We played some games to end our evening and I got in a quick video call to Caleb to wish him a happy graduation day and say that I missed him and wish I could have been able to attend his Gr. 12 Graduation.//