Day 8

The team split up today with Mike and Caitlin going on home based care visits, Brian working with the microloan program and the rest of us at the SCCP clinic.  Saw a poor lady who was bit by a snake 1 year ago and now has partial paralysis of the left arm.  Nothing to do except start some physical therapy and strengthen what function she has.  I made a squeezy ball with gauze stuffed into a latex glove.....it actually worked well.  I then took care of an 11 y/o boy named Gilbert who got his foot caught in the spokes of a bike wheel when he was riding on the back.  He had a nasty wound, couldn't move his foot and probably has an ankle fracture.  I took him to the hospital and debrided the wound under ketamine anesthesia, got him admitted for IV antibiotics.  He'll need an x-ray, but will have to wait until tomorrow to be sent to Mansa since the x-ray equipment isn't functional yet at Samfya hospital.

The good news of the day is that Mr. Zulu from Mansa is arriving tonight and will be around tomorrow to investigate the autoclave and possible get the x-ray equipment working.  I think I might handcuff him to the autoclave until its operational.

Mark and I then drove 50 miles to Kaishe, where Becky had identified a couple of possible surgical candidates last week.  Unfortunately, only one of them showed up to be evaluated and actually didn't need surgery.  The 3 other potential patients got scared I guess of the "mazunga (white man) with the knife".  Oh well, we did manage to buy a bunch of beautiful and tasty bananas on the stalk from a roadside stand. 

We've got cases scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday and Friday so Holly and I are excited.

Prayer request:  That Mr. Zulu would show up and get the autoclave operational.