February 10th

Another exciting day in Africa. I went on rounds with Laura again
this morning. There is nothing like firsthand experience. I’m still
not 100% certain, and probably won’t be until I actually do it, but
I think medicine could be for me. I really like it, and I love getting
to know I’m helping someone. I love to serve and help people but
I have trouble seeing the big picture and like to know right away
what I’ve accomplished, instant gratification if you will. While
medicine isn’t always simple instant results, it can often be.
Rounds went pretty well this morning, nothing really new. After
finishing up rounds, I followed Tom and the medical students to
one of the procedure rooms where they were going to look at
some ulcers on a diabetic ladies feet (sparing the gross details)
and they confirmed that they will have to do some amputation as
long as the woman consents, if she doesn’t she’s gonna lose a lot
more than part of her foot because from what they said it’s
getting worse fast. After that we headed up to the house to await
lunch, not a pleasant prospect following what I just experienced.
After lunch I headed off to school for a few periods with my favorite
students, the SS 1s. I drew some pictures on the board of a butterfly,
caterpillar and a pupa. By no means are they works of art but I was
proud of them nonetheless. The kids were worried I was going to ask
them to draw them on a test, they all think that they have horrible
drawing skills and while in some cases I’m inclined to agree, they
could be worse. After classes I headed back to the hospital. My task
for this afternoon was to assemble two of the bike from my church,
which just meant put the handle bars back on. They’ve been around
for a while but you can’t imagine how hard it is to get the
handlebars and the rest of the bikes together when they are stored
separately. There is always just so much going on we never got
around to it. It would have probably been a while longer if not for
the fact that the medical students want to ride them. So I got the
handlebars on (one was missing the bolt so I had to find a substitute)
and aired up the tires. They are fit for riding, but they need adjusted
for size, which I’m not going to be able to do for Saturday which is
when they wanted to go riding. I’ll explain in a second so as not to
further disturb the chronology of events as I already do badly enough.
After I got that done I had to go to the market to pick up some beer
for beer battered fish. Karen has a guy who she provided fishing lures
for and so he occasionally brings her fish (monstrous fish) and she
likes to prepare them that way. Reverend Usman came for dinner
this evening, he didn’t stay too long after dinner, but it was
interesting to see him outside of a formal setting. After dinner I
decided to read some more. Tomorrow I have to go to Freetown to
pick up an incoming medical student. Karen just found out tonight
that she comes in tomorrow, until tonight she thought the student
was coming Monday, good thing she double checked tonight. We
almost stranded the poor girl. I will be back Saturday, but that will
be too late to prepare the bikes for Laura and Emily (see, I explained
why I can’t do the bikes without interrupting the chronology).
Anyway, that’s about it for tonight, I hope everyone has a great
evening and a great Friday.

Blessings from Kamakwie,
Ryan Brooks