christmas story follow up...

For those of you who read Warren's story at Christmas...the one about the girl they were able to facilitate cardiac surgery for...in Sudan, with Italian surgeons!?...here is the follow up from Samuel(Warren's Kenyan colleague. He is able to communicate with her.

Hi all,
Am filled with great gratitude and joy as I write this. All your effort towards
Maria's medical care has been awesome. She is back home with her family and
tells me that she is literally running around.
Maria and her family are very grateful to you all that facilitated her surgery.
May the good Lord bless you. Have a great 2011!
Samuel.

Beth, from Boston, was the primary instigator in making this happen. She is an incredible woman who was here for a few months as part of her medical residency. She knew of the surgeons in Sudan, she found a sponsor, she offered up her own ID...copies of passport and credit card to be presented at the airport for proof of purchase...or whatever it is when you have to show who bought the ticket...risking the misplacement of this information. Maria is very fortunate to have come to Kijabe during the time when Beth was here. Warren and Samuel were able to do ground work here...both the US and the Kenyan connections were needed. Very cool to see a great outcome!

Warren, Erika, Joe, and our new Swiss friends who are here for a few months, all went to Uganda this weekend so that they could raft the Nile! Warren just texted me,"BACK AT TENT. WOW! SO WORTH IT. WE MUST DO THIS TOGETHER. MORE LEGIT THAN I GUESSED. BOAT FLIPPED 3 TIMES!"
John and I stayed back because he was signed up for the SAT today. We really should have bagged it and gone!!

hair kenya style...

It seemed like a good plan...get hair twists, as the Kenyans do! and have hair that won't require much of anything in terms of care for weeks, even months. Wow! 2 days and 16 hours later!?! Erika has a head of beautiful twists, an adaptation to braiding that gives a slightly softer and very incredible look. She also has 4 packs of synthetic extensions added in! If she can tolerate it, it should stay for up to 2 months. It is a lot. We will have to see how it goes. She is determined to stay with it at this point. It is fun to try it, and besides...after investing 16 hours of time into the process you don't want to take it out too quickly. Apparently the removal process is quite lengthy as well.
It does look quite amazing...and the Kenyans Love it! So she has started well, already participating in a very common cultural activity. She looks lovely.

Today we spent time in Mathare, a slum in Nairobi that I referenced earlier. It is quite the place, impossible to describe. But the children were there...ready and eager to begin their "how are you?" chant. Children are adorable, playful and ready for interaction everywhere. Such a gift.

erika arrived!

Erika made it safely to join us on Thursday night. She has already managed to go on a hike, coach a soccer practice and get a bit sunburned...Watch out for equatorial sun, esp. when leaving months of Seattle winter! But all is well. Today she left on the back of the pikipiki driven by John...headed for a hike up Mt Longonot. Don't want to waste any time! I am sure she will be driving the pikipiki next time. I don't think she has been sleeping much...her body wants to be on the other side of the world. But there is a lot of new stuff to keep her attention during the day...and she will adjust quickly.
It feels great to wake up and remember that she is here with us.

Warren is adjusting to all new workmates. January in Kenya is like July in America in terms of working in a teaching hospital. All the new interns have arrived and the trained ones have left! It will take a few months....

The other day one of my local vegie seller friends came by because she had been experiencing pain in her ear for 4-5 days, leading to pain in her facial area and jaw. She looked tired and quite ill. She wondered if we could help her. Warren walked up as we were talking and I asked him to check her out. He looked in her ear and thought he saw something. It ended up being a tiny black Maasai bead?! Easy fix!
Who knows how it got there!? She seemed to have no idea. But we put it in an envelope so that she could show her friends back at the vegie market. Now this is a source of great amusement when we see them all. She is back to normal and feeling great. You never know...

Joe went to a neighbor's the other day and learned how to make butter from the cream we get from our fresh milk delivery. We have a very nice container of fresh cream butter in our fridge now. We used it on pancakes this morning...along with fresh passion fruit, mangos and bananas...Pretty nice.

Happy New Year!!

christmas in kenya....

Christmas Eve camel ride on the beach...
Christmas Day snake killing!? Black Mamba came out of the pool!!! And was promptly done in by the staff at the beach cottages where we were staying. Apparently this snake is the most poisonous in Africa. Wow. It was 6 feet long!!
Boxing Day...ant infestation. One of the boys we were with woke in the night to ants, millions of ants...covering his mosquito net, inside his mosquito net all over him, covering the floor, coming out of the sink. No apparent reason, just decided to march in....
The next day/night we were exploring to make sure the invasion wouldn't be repeated, this led to torching the trail...fireworks used to burn the biggest pile...lots of DOOM (the spray)...etc. So much entertainment! They still made their way back?! Boys weren't sleeping in the same room of course!
Trip home....crazy, arduous journey around trucks, goats, cows, people, speed bumps that are random and everywhere without any paint or warning, lots of passing and many potholes!
Just before leaving the coast we loaded John and Joe onto a "Simba" bus for a trip to Tanzania and Zanzibar for New Year's. At last report they are in a hostel in Zanzibar.

Modern Magi

A Christmas Story...

A patient I have been treating for the past three months named Maria is the subject of my story. She is 30 years old and I admitted her to the ICU in September for a number of serious problems. She was in pulmonary edema with a low blood pressure, on Coumadin with an INR well over 35 with a low HCT requiring emergent blood transfusions, and she had a loud systolic heart murmur. She spent a few weeks in the ICU and ultimately was stabilized and went home. Since that time she has been stable on a mix of medications. An echo showed severe mitral valve stenosis. The valve is so damaged that it is just a matter of time before she decompensates again. This is where a friend of mine comes in. Beth is a doctor from Boston who spent four months working in our ICU and somehow has connections to a group of Italian heart surgeons who do charity care. Maria needs a valve surgery that is not available here in Kenya. She is a rural Kenyan who has never flown on an airplane or had the need for a passport. She speaks no English and has little money. We were able to send her medical information to the heart specialists who agreed that she was a candidate for a heart operation. It just so happens that this Italian group is based in Khartoum, Sudan. The Christmas miracle is that we were able to get Maria a Passport, Visa, plane ticket, and spending money. Three days ago she flew to Sudan by herself and is now in a hospital preparing to have her heart fixed. Merry Christmas