Hyman, the ER doctor from New York who looks like a younger version of Dr Sanja Gupta on CNN, was at breakfast. He works for IRC--International Refugee Center in the summer. IRC is a big NGO with 4x4 vehicles and in-town offices complete with a cook, and no doubt their own clean water and electricity. They are not allowed to ride motorbikes for insurance reasons. CDC people are arriving this week to collect data on fatality rate in the under 5 age group so things will be busy for him. Interns however weren't impressed with large NGOs, citing waste and bureaucracy. They thought a small group like GAF was much more hands on and effective. No one asked me but I would take the car, the cook, and all the water and electricity.
Uncle Ben has a cavity so he drove me and Kulani to the clinic and he could be the first patient. Unfortunately one of the tires had a problem which was pointed out by someone on the road so he had to find a garage. I was late to work again.
Monday is the busiest day in the clinic and we hit the ground running. The demand for extraction was simply overwhelming with everyone pointing to one or more molars, take your pick. Inevitably some had to wait around for the proper forceps to finish boiling. The woman with the exposed pus oozing bone we saw the first day came in for a follow up as arranged. Pus was gone but the bone of course was still exposed. We referred her for surgery in Freetown again and I could only hope it would happen for her. I suggested that Sahr James keep her on his radar. A very overweight man could not move air too well, he was snoring just trying to breathe. The woman with the huge swelling still did not come in today so I asked if we could call her. Sahr James said she did not have a phone or other contact information. High blood pressure prevented a few from getting extractions. No children at all today.
I dicovered I was bad at telling people's age. A woman said she was 35 when I thought she was 60, a man was 32 and I thought he was 18.
We took a 10 minute break and I ate the half bun I had saved from breakfast. I asked Sahr James if he ate lunch and he said he was fasting, which meant eating once a day at 6pm. He did this during difficult times he said, he would fast and pray. He did not elaborate on the difficulties but said things were tough financially due to the small salary. A bag of rice takes 1/3 of his salary.
Nurse Andrew looked better today still recovering from malaria. I have to remember to bring the bottle of OFF for him. He told me he had heard some praises of our work around town, even the people who had to be referred for surgical extractions. Kaiba looked different today and I finally realized he had shaved his head. He will take a leave soon because the clinic no longer needs a driver since the clinic vehicle has been broken for a while. He has not been as smiley this week.
We finally finished seeing patients at 4 and Sahr James wanted to prepare for the radio interview. He wrote down things we were discussing--oral hygiene, good habits, bad habits---. I realized I was in trouble when we started talking about diet. He named 5 or 6 things ( one of them being palm seeds ) and I had no idea what they were. Everyone nurses the baby for a long time here, we definitely have to talk about that.
Ali, the mechanic/driver/and clinical assistant, took me home on the bike and he made an effort to drive "small small" and I told him I appreciated it very much. He asked me when I would go home and I said Thursday. He said oh we don't want you to leave yet, we wish you could stay two more months. I thanked him for that sentiment.
The radio interview was scheduled at the prime time of 6pm, but does it really mean 6pm?
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