Monday, September 15th

My time in Ferke is drawing to a close. I had a good last day at the clinic. I started the morning watching dressing changes in the hospital. I saw a girl who had been badly burned and had probably not had any care or at least not any good

care. She had developed contractures in her left arm and had come to the hospital to have surgery to release some of the skin and ligaments. I also saw an osteomyelitis where you could see right down to the inside of the bone on this boy's leg. One guy with a massive calf wound was just about through the roof with pain. They don't medicate before they do the dressing changes. I'm not sure what the pain management regimen is in general, but when we were doing pharmacy inventory the strongest pain medication I saw was Ultram.

The other crazy thing about the dressing changes is that there are two beds in each little pod, so each guy is just watching his neighbor's dressing being changed! One guy had some sort of anal wound....his "roommate" was really quite interested!

I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon with Dahiri in clinic. Diane wasn't feeling well. Turns out she and Sarah both have malaria. Bummer!! Another reality check for me. That's just the reality of being out here, plain and simple. You will get malaria. They both feel like CRAP and I feel terrible that Diane has to drive me to Abidjan tomorrow. I wish I knew how to drive a stick so I could drive for her!

Being in the clinic with Dahiri was fun. His English is really quite good and he just has such a nice disposition. He is fun to work with. He explained a lot to me and I was actually starting to get the hang of the charting. I could look at a chart myself and kind of figure out what was wrong even with everything written in French! We joked about me being ready to start working on my own except for the fact that I still can't talk to the patients. We didn't see anything too out of the ordinary. Just some really sick kids. Malaria, anemia, the usual.

I can't believe I am already leaving tomorrow. I just finally started to feel ever so slightly functional today and I wish I could stay and enjoy that feeling just a little longer.

OH! I made gingersnap cookies tonight and I sifted the flour as I put it in. Diane failed to mention that the REASON I was sifting the flour was to get the WORMS out. Ew! There were all these little larvae just squiggling around in the sifter. ICK!!!

Dahiri in clinic.

The room we shared with Basson.

Basson seeing patients.

At lunch with the missionaries.

The doctors before morning rounds.