Malaria and Eggs

Well, it's been an interesting week here on M/V Africa Mercy. Last weekend a group made a trip to Ghana for the weekend. When they returned 3 people from the group got sick with malaria and ended up being hospitalized here on the ship. Thankfully they have all returned to good health. Interestingly, malaria is so common here that we don't ask patients if they have had malaria - we ask them when they last had it. Then last week one of our security guards was on an early morning run with a group and was hit by a motorbike. Included in the group were 4 nurses, a surgeon, and an anesthesiologist. So they got him out of the road, tried to stop the bleeding from his head, and called an ambulance and someone from the ship. He never lost consciousness. The Mercy Ships vehicle showed up first, then a minute later the ambulance arrived (which was just a car with a red flashing light on top and a stretcher they put over the seats). The ambulance driver got in an argument with the Mercy Ships people because he wanted to take the injured man to the local hospital. Luckily there was a random European running by who spoke French, so she explained to them that the ship is a hospital, and he needed to be taken there. So the ambulance drove him to the ship. They did an abdominal x-ray and a CT scan, and there were luckily no internal injuries. He lost about a liter of blood, and has some pretty bad facial bruising, so he's still hospitalized, but it looks like he'll be alright.

I had some very grateful patients this week. One 9 year old boy I took care of had a release of his ankylosis - basically, your mouth is frozen shut. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankylosis. I'm not sure the cause of his, but it can be caused by untreated trauma or infection. To fix this the surgeon needs to break the jaw and reset it. The patient then has a bite block in their mouth for 24 hours. After the bite block comes out they need to begin jaw exercises - here we have them stick more and more popsicle sticks in their mouth hourly. If they do not do the exercises the jaw will become locked again. Obviously this whole process is very painful. This first day I had this boy he still had his bite block in, and when he wasn't sleeping he was crying and asking for the block to be taken out. The next day I came back, the block was out, and he was a new boy. He was so happy because he could stick his tongue out for the first time in his life! Another man I took care of had a mass removed from his cheek. His wife came in to see him, and gave me a bag of eggs! There were about 20 eggs in it. One of the translators told me that eggs are a blessing. I was very touched by this.

I went to the fabric market on Friday. There are so many beautiful fabrics, I could go crazy there! I bought 4 types of fabric - one is a rooster print that I've seen a few people wearing. I'm excited to make skirts or pillows or curtains when I get home!

Well, I am off from work today and tomorrow, so I think I will do some exploring with a friend, and I'm planning to make a quiche!