We were
told that we would be getting a new house guest for the week. All we were told was
that he is an Ethiopian doctor. So when we arrived back from the safari we were
surprised to see a white male with a Scottish accent greet us. Minor miscommunication
(which we are getting use to) being told he is Ethiopian.
Our new
roommate is named Ryan and he is a surgeon from Scotland. He is here with a
group of coworkers and they come to KCMC every year to teach the new surgeons about
how to use a laparoscopic machine that was donated by their hospital years ago.
There group has been coming for 11 years
and it is nice to see how organized and stream lined their time here is. We hope
that station 88 can continue sending our nurses every year and continue on our
new bond with the cancer care clinic.
Today
was a chemotherapy day. Kari and I did a morning presentation on how to
calculate drip rate. After practicing a few calculations with the nurses we
headed over to the infusion clinic to help the nurses put their new skills into
practice. Today we realized how challenging changing a person’s work flow can
be. Having the nurses not only do drip
rate calculations but also stand there and make sure there chemotherapy is
running at the correct rate is a tedious task but much needed. We felt like Nazi’s
continually making sure that the nurses were calculating correctly. Hopefully
the nurses are not to upset that we just added more work to their routine.
Today
was a crazy day. Not only was there many patients to be seen in the infusion
center but also a pharmacist from Germany named Peter is here and is also
trying to help streamline some of the processes in the infusion center. We have
made a plan to have a group meeting with the Furaha, Oliver, Jane the RN, Peter
and the CCC pharmacist to discuss some changes that will hopefully help improve
the workflow.
On a
side note our poor Natty was not feeling well today, she had a headache, fever
and upset stomach. Being that she just returned from Kenya we decided it was
best for her to be tested for Malaria. Luckily she was negative and we think
she is just a bit dehydrated. So we are pushing fluids and sending her to bed
early. Hopefully tomorrow she will be good as new. (Also, the rapid malaria test looked like a pregnancy
test, they pulled it out of a box and put a drop of blood on it.. one line
means negative and two lines means positive!)
After
work we headed home so tired from the day. When we arrived home we were pleasantly
surprised to see we had an underwear bush! Fatuma our house keeper had done our
laundry and had no room left on the clothes line and decided to put our underwear
and socks on the bushes outside. Money doesn’t grow on trees but I guess
underwear and socks in Tanzania do! Below is the greeting our new house guest
will get when he comes home today.
The other
girls decided to go to one of the restaurants that were recommended to us. We were
told that this was a very popular muzungu place that we would probably like. So
they called our trusty cab driver Festo and were off. They said it was so nice
to eat some pizza and pasta, we all our missing our American food.
So now
it’s off to bed for us here. Tomorrow Kari and I will be doing a 1 hour
presentation on what is chemotherapy and safe handling. This presentation will
be to the nurses from the CCC and hospital. Wish us luck!
Until tomorrow,
Brittany
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