I'm flattered!

I've been neglectful of my blog!  It's nice to know that people actually read it, as I've gotten a few emails saying that people missed my blog.  I'm happy that others are enjoying my ramblings.

The last little while has been SO busy! When I have come to the internet cafe, either the power has been out, or the connection too slow to make anything productive.  Add to that a typhus outbreak amongst the sisters, and it's a bit of a challenging week!

A HUGE blessing for me is that I found a place to live.  It's in a condominium building, and it's quiet, private and generally really great!  Its about a 15 minute walk to the sisters, so it's nice.  It took me nearly 3 hours to clean the bathroom, but I"m grateful for the western toilet and hot water.  I feel very spoiled to have so much space to myself.  By N.American standards, it's a very small studio apartment.  But, I found out the other day that the previous tenant was a family of 4. I've slept there two nights now, and it's an adjustment to sleep without the noise that I've grown accustomed to.  It's nice to have a place to go to after work.  Its very emotionally draining sometimes to work with some of the situations that I encounter, and it's a relief to get away a bit and allow my brain to process some of what I'm experiencing.  I feel like for the past 3 months, so much has been new and although I've been journalling and reflecting a bit, I haven't really been able to enter into the emotional aspect of things.  It's becoming more and more real every day. 

I was hopeful that things would begin to get more Christmassy once advent started.  But, then I realized that poor people don't decorate! ha ha!!  I HAVE seen a few Christmas trees in shops and when we passed the Sheraton (the ritzy hotel here), they had garland and bows and stuff.  But, at the compound, outside of an advent wreath in the chapel, there are no signs of Christmas.  In some ways, I'm kind of grateful.  I think Christmas gets TOO crazy at home.  It's a relief to me not to have to go do all that shopping and get all stressed out about gifts and such.  I've been listening to Christmas music on my ipod and I have a nice manger picture in my new place, and that's enough. It helps me to focus more on the real meaning of Christmas and to work on preparing my heart instead of gifts.

The longer I'm here, the more I get involved in things.  It's kind of fun to be given more responsibility, but at the same time, its sometimes challenging.  I had the opportunity to take a patient to a hospital here.  The patient's condition worsened significantly despite any treatment we offered, so we decided to transfer him to hospital.  I was kind of dreading the experience as I have had terrible experiences with hospitals in Gambia and India.  Thankfully though, it was a private hospital and I was pleased to see the high quality of care that is available here in Ethiopia.  Unfortunately, they were not able to give any clarity as to why our patient is not improving.  They refused to keep him after his tests were completed, so we took him back and we will continue to pray.  I find it interesting to see how hospitals can refuse to admit or keep patients.  This seems unethical to me.  So often we admit patients who have gone to 2 or 3 hospitals and been refused care.  It blows my mind.  We are NOT a hospital and the services we can provide are very basic.  Its frustrating to see these patients suffer for no reason.  I honestly don't know how they can turn them away and still sleep at night. It makes me angry to see people treated so poorly. Some of the patients we get from hospital barely survive long enough for us to give them a bath.  It's inhumane!

Every patient has a green admission card. On the card is written their name, their age, where they are from and what they are admitted with.  We write any tests that have been done, and any medications that are ordered.  Twice a day the cards are passed out, and all the patients line up to receive their medications.  Somehow, on Sunday afternoon, the cards for room 2 went missing.  All day Monday, they were missing, so no one in that room received any medication.  We thought that one of the workers who was absent on Monday might have put them somewhere.  But, on Tuesday when that worker returned and we still couldn't find the cards, it was beginning to be a bit of a problem.  Wednesday we had the task of trying to fix this problem.  Remember that I said that there was a typhus outbreak amongst the sisters?  Yeah, well that means that the men's ward is up to me and my 4 nurses.  So, all we had to go on was a list of men who gave their names saying that they didn't have their cards.  We went through the register, found their date of admission and the diagnosis they came in with.  After that, we had to meet and assess each patient and prescribe medications all over again.  There were about 50 patients.  It was okay with the malaria and typhus patients as we could generally figure out how many days of treatment they should have left.  But, when it got to the hypertensives, strokes and ascites patients, it got more challenging.  The whole time, I was praying that I wouldn't kill anyone!  I only prescribed for 5 days of medications, so after Sunday, I'm not responsible for any of the deaths in room 2!  I'm hopeful that he doctor comes in the next day or two and he can alter what needs to be altered.
I have to be going.  Thank you for all your encouraging comments. I hope you are all enjoying the cool weather and snow! The weather here is warm and sunny. It gets cool at night, but you never need more than a sweatshirt to keep you warm. Not missing the cold at all!

Happy Advent!