Last week

sadly, the last week here. Which I guess is bittersweet. Had a great experience but definitely were out of our comfort zone and got comfortable with being uncomfortable.

A lot of the same this week, saw Matt and his kid again at St Elizabeth's. He is doing great with the kids considering he has never really taken care of kids before. He bought her a snack on the way home. He told me a funny story of how they left him in a room with the naked twin babies in a tub and they both immediately started wailing but he figured out what to do to bathe them and calm them down.

Actually today, I had much more responsibility at the hospital. My attending was not feeling well and basically shoved the charts at me and said "here you do it". At first I thought she was kidding but when she didn't go into the wards with me I realized I was in charge. Thankfully the first patient's son spoke English, as did the nurse, but not enough for me to explain different things like why the kidney function was off. As I suspected, I was much better prepared to do this a few weeks in when I learned their shorthand, systems, what meds they used, saw more of the endemic diseases etc. so I bumbled through with the help of some Med students ( all people at that level are fairly fluent in English and it seems like English is the medical language here - charts written in it etc, so good for me). The attending eventually came but basically was like my translator. I even did two discharges myself. Great with two more days left haha I wish I had more time. I drew a little boys blood and he screamed and I got some on the sheets ( that they have to wash by hand has anyone seen American horror story hotel? That laundry lady? Haha). We were perplexed by his abdominal pain etc the last few days and his mom today was like oh by the way he has sickle cell disease. Well that's the culprit! It's interesting how these things come up. I'd say the unique things about the patients here is everyone is grateful, no ones whining, no one is even carrying on about pain - which in the US is sometimes legit sometimes not ( and all they get is ibuprofen. Funny story Matt's coworker Allen was complaining about a headache and Matt gave him some ibuprofen and he thought it was a miracle drug...if only this was the case in the US), everyone is respectful to doctors and don't refer to the female ones as "nurse" , and family is ALWAYS present ( nothing worse in the US when you have a confused patient and no one answers the phone). Obesity is rare-ish so it is easy to get a good physical exam and draw blood. It's crazy how different the diseases  are here- Africans are succumbing to these infections that with better sanitation,water, education would not happen while in the US they are succumbing to ones of excess and vices- food, drugs, alcohol. Drug use besides marijuana is unheard of here and alcoholism is fairly rare. So both counties have some work to do.

Speaking of medicine, Nelsons girlfriend from Rwanda cornered me as she found out I'm a doctor. As English is her 4th language it was hard to get all of it out leading to her showing me prescriptions written in French from the hospital. The whole issue ended up being she is scared she'll never have a baby. the rest of the story was interesting from a cultural perspective about marriage and the importance of babies as opposed to career. I think I explained some helpful things to her in the end. Matt was outside as the guys had barbecued meat to eat by a bonfire which "goes good with konyagi (gin) " according to Nelson. Needless to say the boy convo outside got spicy and I don't think Nelson is really thinking about creating babies haha. That brings me to the relationship dynamic here - even though she came to visit he does his own thing and she is mostly left to the couch ( listening to the same song over and over and taking selfies). The guys tend to socialize and go out with the guys and the women are left behind. One time she was on the couch and he was outside on a chair texting and playing on his phone for hours. Apparently it is common to have "little houses" or other side relationships which I think is the case as he is always out when she is back home.

Another roach in our bedroom. I got it quickly w a shoe. Maybe came through the window? Tanzanians, interestingly enough, don't really believe in screens as the dust collected is harmful. I wish this wasn't the logic. Now we need to close the window and it is so stuffy! Ugh all night I wake up thinking of bugs crawling on me. At least we found a hedgehog meandering in the backyard - I can't get enough of those!

Starting to pack up.. We overestimated some things like too much sunscreen etc so worried about making the low weight limit for the flight to Dar. Matt is putting the kibosh on more souvenirs so barely bought anything! Maybe in South Africa. I know I'll be wearing like 3 sweatshirts and loading my pockets with heavy things for this flight...sigh!