Goodbye dinner :)

Pics of our new zealand friends little baby Zoe!

How to weigh a baby in kenya

Yesterday I went out with community health to a town about two hours away from tenwek to help vaccinate babies. We had 3 public health workers, two preachers and two public health students with us. When we arrived there were about 60 moms in line with their babies. I was assigned the job of weighing them....so they strapped up a big metal meat hook to a beam and we began! The moms would wrap the baby in fabric then we would weigh them on the hook, then send them in the next room to receive two shots ( one in each leg) and polio drops. It was a busy afternoon and I had fun playing with alll the precious little ones. A few pics for you:

Biking!

Mar and I took off on some borrowed bikes yesterday on our day off. The hills are crazybig here, and I was so proud of her perseverance! We saw some beautiful countryside and finished our climb at a roadside cafe for coke and chapati.

Bacterial Meningitis

Is another big killer here. Kipkirui's story, however, served to remind me how much hope there is with medicine and prayer. His family actually cut off his uvula (the dangly thing at the back of your throat) at home because of an unremitting cough. It became infected and somehow led to meningitis. His prognosis seemed grim, as he presented unable to respond and global neurological deficits. There were many prayers, and God gave him a full recovery. His mother's guilt also was healed and she gave much praise to the Lord afterwards. These were pics during the middle and end of his healing. He didn't care much for the muzungu ('foreigner') doctors who were treating him as he awoke :)

Congenital Heart Disease

I think heart disease may be killing more kids at Tenwek these days than Malaria. Rheumatic heart disease is practically unseen in the US since the common strep throat is treated so effectively. This rare strep complication is common here and leaves little that can be done to stop it. There is a Peds cardiac surgery team that comes to Tenwek twice a year from Vanderbilt performing more surgeries per year than are done in the rest of the country. Still, the pediatrician here wishes for a strep vaccine that would wipe out RHD.

Hirschprung's Disease

This was an easy diagnosis. It occurs when there are a lack of nerve endings at the distal colon thus causing distension of the rest of the bowel as evident in this picture.
The 2nd pic is Nicholas, one of the radiology techs, who is mixing Barium to make a contrast agent for indicating the Hirschprung's zone of affected bowel on an xray. One of the cool things about Tenwek is seeing the 'old-school' ways of making diagnoses and doing tests.

Back at Tenwek

It has been exhilarating to be back here at Tenwek Hospital in western Kenya. God has grown this place and people in remarkable and beautiful ways since I visited 5 years ago towards the end of residency. It is fun to see how the pediatrics ward, nursery, and clinic are still run similarly by Dr. Chuck Bemm and his hard-working rotating interns. Yet the scope and capacity of pediatric care has grown along with many of the medical services that Tenwek Hospital offers. There is now a more polished ICU service which is carefully being evolved to try and figure out how to balance resource spending with proper choice of medically reversible cases to place in the ICU. There is now a CT scanner here, so one can imagine the decisions to be made which have to take in account the cost of such things that literally may cost the patient's family a cow or a piece of land. The space and time are too short to review all the other developments here, but I have been so impressed by its breadth and its centrality on the compassionate healing that comes through Christ Jesus. There is even a hospice ministry which travels crazy terrains and distances to bring prayer, medicine, and touch to certain suffering patients.
The work has been busy, as I have been working in both the Emergency ("Casualty") Dept as well as the Peds ward. Here are a few pics/cases:

Peds ward

Spending time with kids in Peds ward yesterday

More photos

Sunday church and lunch

Hanging at Guesthouse

Saturday

Today was Cody's day off so we went with a small group to visit an orphanage about 10 kilometers away. They had about 40 kids there and most of then were older. They actually lived in very simple but beautiful surroundings on the side of a hill....they each had beds and small tins full of their items, better than the kids in Uganda! We played soccer and games with them for about an hour, and Cody played hard with the little boys and promptly slid into a cow pie. He was covered in brown poo so he had trouble finding friends to sit next to him in the van on the way home.:) everything else is well here....it's pouring rain outside now. We have met so many good friends already- a sweet couple arrived from Michigan, Sidney and bob. They are in 60s but very spunky! Bob is pulmonary specialist.Also, friends named Liz and Keith - our age, but have been married 10 years already. He is surgical oncology fellow. We als have good fronds from new Zealand named destiny and johnno and their 3 Month old baby Zoe. They are her for 8 months and are amazing people. Cody is working tomorrow, and I am hoping got go to church with friends...apparently it is an all day eal here, which often includes lunch at a locals house.
We are here until next Thursday and will do our best to continue to update and call. Please give our love to everyone and send them the link if they would like to read. Thank to you for your prayers, we need em! Cody
Has hard very tough cases at hospital....seems almost ever time he comes home there is news of a death. Hard reality,but we have confidence the little ones are all in heaven with our faster right now. Love and blessings, m

Orphanage pics and tenwek

Our home

Morning! Thought I would post a few pics of our cute apartment so you could get a visual :) yesterday I babysat some of the mission family kids....3 two year olds and a 5 and 6 year old. One of the families here has a trampoline so all the kids wanted to JUMP! I helped proctor an exam at the nursing school in the afternoon, then Cody and I ate dinner with the crew and had a relaxing, rainy night. I'm going to go work with the hospice program today, where they do home visits to the terminally ill. Please continue to pray for us and all the staff and patients here. Love you! M

Nursery

Spent the morning getting settled with phone and Internet and then went up to the baby nusery (basically a NICU) to offer to help with the feedings. One mom named Joyce had twins (one boy, one girl) and they are 19 days old but still only a few pounds. She was happy to have help so I got to take the tiny girl out of the incubator and feed her at the 10 am and boo feeding tines. So precious! I have never in my life seen babies as tiny as the ones in there. Tenwek has implemented a system called "cup feeding" where the mom basically milks herself into small cups and then you just tilt them in the baby's mouth until they have eaten it all. It works. At the end of the feeding Joyce offered to give me one of the babies and asked if I wanted the boy or the girl.....

Cody's been busy splitting his time between Er and Peds ward. Seen some rough stuff. Heading to our new Zealand friends house for dinner now. Love, m