July 5th (Thursday)

To start the day we went to morning devotions. Gordon is still not back yet so Dr. Lipsi did the devotions once again. Even though it wasn’t a holiday there wasn’t many staff there. I think they must know that Gordon wasn’t back yet and assumed that there wasn’t one. Dr. Lipsi spoke about Abraham offering up his son Isaac on the altar as God told him. After the devo was concluded we began ward rounds. We then officially met the famous Dr. Ros. After we finished ward rounds in the ICU Dr. Ros said that this is where she parts ways and goes to the paediatric and maternity wards and if any of us wanted to join her. I said that yes I would join her. She warned me that today would be much slower as she got to know each of the children’s cases fully. She is very knowledgeable and kind! Nicole also joined us as we went first to the maternity ward to see a baby that was not well from the night before and ultimately was diagnosed as failure to thrive. Jack then came to get one of us (Nicole or I) and I said that Nicole could go as I scrubbed Tuesday. It turns out that Nicole actually went to help JR do a D&C. She said that it was cool though as she was the anaesthetist. Fiona went to the ER to see the patient there -he had very low hemoglobin (2) and he was on oxygen, the plan of action was to give him blood. She then went to speak with Ruth about trying to go to Chingola with little/not very promising results. Then we had tea break which was nice, we met Alison’s friend Janice. Joey, Owen, and Dorothy were there too. Dorothy told us a story that was scarring for all who heard, one of those TMI moments, haha! You never know what she is going to say next!

I went with Dr. Ros to finish rounding in the paediatric ward then we looked at the babies in the maternity ward and she showed me how she likes her baby checks done -note to self: measure head circumference!

Meanwhile, Fiona went to check to see if she got any messages (she didn’t unfortunately) and she returned to the hospital. I also helped Nicole hold down Mercy (along with her mother) and Graham put in a new IV cannula. My heart breaks for Mercy, she is both blind and almost totally deaf so she lives in constant fear not knowing what is happening around her. She often cries uncontrollably and who can blame her?

Then Nicole was helping JR with Mary as JR did a tonotomy and then Nicole and Mary finished the plastering for a child with a clubfoot. At that time a trauma came in. A man had been in an accident, he was driving a motorcycle and crashed into a lorry that was carrying logs, but thankfully he was wearing helmet (they don’t often do around here). He came in covered in blood. He had a fractured femur, a split lip, the side of his face was very swollen, he had a basilar skull fracture, facial fractures, his nose was bleeding constantly and there was a bit of bleeding coming from one of his ears. I was finishing with Dr. Ros and about to go for lunch so I went to go find the girls.

I walk into the theatre where Fiona was bracing the man’s neck (which was in a C collar) and Nicole was suctioning the man’s nose and mouth. At that point, they were about to take some more x-rays and I gave my extra pair of hands to provide traction for his leg that was fractured to keep it aligned and hopefully alleviate some of his pain. In the x-ray room we put on the lead aprons and held him in a position so that x-rays of his neck could be taken and sent to Dr. Rodney in Australia to clear his neck so we could take off the collar if there wasn’t a C7 fracture. It was cleared and then Dr. Lipsi put a pin into the tibia to tie a 10kg weight to provide traction for the femur. He then stitched the man’s lip.

As we were finishing with the patient Mary came into the theatre and said a patient was crashing and they were doing CPR in the ER. So Kate, myself, and JR all went to help and Fiona was tasked with staying with the other patient who was stable. Meanwhile, Nicole had gone home when everyone was stable to go make us lunch. Kate said to us “I told you! Emergencies always come in 3s!” We got to the ER and they were in fact doing CPR, Kate went to the crash cart and started drawing up drugs to give and read the heart rhythms. I did get in there and help with a few rounds of CPR. The man was kind-of still breathing on his own. In the end they gave 4 doses of atropine, 3 doses of adrenaline, one thump, one shock, and intubated him. It was a successful resuscitation. After he became more stable and we were just observing JR asked me to do a manual BP check so I was in the process when all of a sudden his arm jerked away in a fist and I looked up and said “he’s posturing funny, I can’t get the BP.” They looked up and we all realized his eyes started fluttering and he was seizing. JR asked for some diazepam. It was found and drawn up and Alison administered the diazepam and he calmed down and stopped seizing. I then was able to get the BP which was normal. Also, his breathing was better and therefore his sats also improved.

After we were sure he was somewhat stable only Alison was staying with him and I went to go help move the man from the theatre to the ICU. We got him in the bed and got his traction set-up and then he vomited more blood (which we expected as he swallowed a lot of blood that came from his nose and mouth). Thankfully we had a kidney dish nearby. Fiona and I then returned to our house (Nicole came to see what happened to us) and we finally had something to eat and time to debrief about all that happened. We then just relaxed for the evening. I caught up on my journalling, haha. Fiona wrote thank you cards with my and Nicole’s input as we are getting very close to the of our time here.//

PS. We had asked Dr. Lipsi earlier if he was going for lunch and he replies, “I had lunch yesterday, I may have lunch tomorrow…” hahaha his dry wit is too funny!