Another African Adventure Begins
/39 hours is a long time to do anything continuously, especially sit. I don't recommend you try anything for 39 hours. My entire back side was screaming for a break, but at last we were in Kenya! Five hours of flat sleep and I'd be sitting for another 4 hours prior to my arrival at Tenwek. This is my sixth trip to Tenwek hospital where my mission is to teach head and neck surgery to training African physicians. This trip was a long one, but I have a daughter along to sweeten the ride. Allegra and I arrived Monday afternoon and the excitement began. They had been expecting me earlier and had OR cases ready but had to postpone when I was delayed. A quick set of rounds, an evening walk to the Tenwek falls, dinner and I was ready for some shuteye. The power then went out granting me a nice quiet long night's sleep - ok, it really doesn't work that way over here! Yes, the power was out but at 2:30 am the fire alarm started it's warning beep every minute that the power was out! That lasted long enough to fully wake me up and fight jet lag insomnia for an hour or so, only to have the beeping return around 5:30. But it was still better than most residency nights.
I spent today in clinic seeing an incredible variety of pathology. While thyroid surgery is my specialty, they were keeping them off my schedule because of the large number of highly unusual cases of a more demanding nature. They did put one enormous goiter on for later this week - but all the small stuff (which was bigger than anything back home) was postponed for later. Best of all, nearly everyone we saw had some hope of healing. There were two who face grave prospects, but for an entire day in clinic here, that's quite good. I'm here two weeks and we could have booked three weeks of surgery today - so lots of teaching opportunities await! I feel blessed to be back here, blessed that so many warm, familiar smiles were here to greet me, blessed that God would use me for his purposes. I hope to share more if the internet connections hold up. There should be lots of good stories to come!