A day to explore!

Day two of work was much like day one very busy with patients of all kinds. We had the pediatric patients again which was nice. Four of our patients had malaria and anemia and one was the little girl that had the head injury from the day before. I definitely got in the groove of how things work in the hopsital and was able to function a little bit on my own which was awesome! Since we are seeing many malaria patients I am learning quickly the signs and symptoms and how to notice changes within the disease. I asked the nurse I was paired with how they direct the plan of care with the patients who have malaria and she said they go in one direction or the other. In other words the patients will either pull out of the disease so to say with the assistance of Coartem (an anti-malarial drug) and many blood transfusions or they die. Unfortunately many of the patients die because the parents take them to witch doctors or the local "physian" to get looked at and then come to the hospital too late. Many times the patients end up with cerebral malaria when they come too late which can cause serious brain damage. On a high note I was able to play peek-a-boo with a little lady which made my day after all the sadness with my patients. 

Caitlyn and I were able to sit in on a bowel perforation repair surgery. The child was three yours old and had contracted typhoid. For an unknown reason typhoid causes a perforation in the bowel at the terminal ileum (sorry for the medical jargo). So we sat in on the surgery and she did great! She was awake and alert about 20 minutes after surgery and the Dr. said she looked great the next day in recovery. 

Caitlyn and I were very excited!

On Wednesday Caitlyn and I had a chance to explore Mango! Bill and Melonie the pseudo house mom and dad for the short term missionaries took us to see the beautiful sites of Mango. 

They took is to the future Christian radio tower which looked out into a huge valley and a river down below. The valley stretched for miles and miles and was luscious and green! They said it was a stark contrast to the dry season when everything is brown ... Those of us from Arizona can relate :) 

(This bird picture is for my dad) 

After we stopped at the radio tower we took a drive and went to market. Market is the main way for people to by food, goods, and fabric. It was a little overwhelming because everyone was telling us to buy something and we just kept say "no merci." We were able to buy fabric for skirts to be made before we come home! 

Thanks to everyone to us sent me words of encouragement along the way! I so do appreciate it! I am going to be sitting in on two surgerys today (Thursday)! I hope everyone is enjoying my posting and really getting a little taste of what it's like here in Mango, Togo!