So it's been a busy week and the time has flown by without having time to blog! Monday I finished my rotation in the pharmacy. I enjoyed it, but was ready for something a little bit more exciting. We have an arrangement with a couple friends of ours that they will cook us meals if we have one person learning to cook with them each time. So Monday night was my first shift at Yandeh's house. I was slightly nervous and didn't know what to expect, but it was so much fun! We made Turangetta, or what we call porridge, but with a Gambian twist. We used a giant mortar and pestel to grind peanuts with rice grains. It was pretty entertaining to watch me attempt this. They were even trying to teach me tricks to do like clap while pounding. We added a sauce made of peanut butter, boaboa, and bananas. It was great! I loved the food and had even more fun making it. I got to see how the typical Gambian lifestyle is. At about 6 it was bath time and all of the kids got bucket showers outside! It was adorable! I am so glad we are getting this opportunity to get to know such a warm, welcoming family.
After dinner our group decided we wanted to sing the national anthem to our friends at the lodge to share the holiday with them. They thought it was so neat and wanted to hear all about it. Ibrihim couldn't believe we actually worked on our Independence Day! It was definitely a 4th of July I will never forget!
Tuesday I started in the Inpatient Department. It was a little boring at first, but got a little better as the day went on. Its a huge unit with 5 different wards: male, female, peds, acute, and ER/ICU. I enjoyed following all of the doctors during their rounds and seeing how they manage such vast amounts of patients. However it did get a little tough when I met Sally Camara. She's an adorable 8 year old who is HIV positive and battling bronchiopnemonia. It broke my heart when she came in with a 106 degree fever, went unconcious shortly after, and started seizing. I could barely stand to be in there! She's so sweet and it makes me so sad that they don't have the resources to help her the way she needs them to. Yesterday the electricity went out all day (like it does constantly) and the doctors refused to see her because her room was "too dark" to see her. I was so mad. Finally Stephanie and I pretty much insisted on getting them a flashlight so someone would help her. They put in a feeding tube and I actually got to feed her with a syringe in her tube. It was interesting from a clinical standpoint, but was so hard to do on someone so young. I have been praying she can make it through.
Today I went with the Hands On Care, or HIV, unit out to a small community called Sukuta. We visited their small health facility and counseled pregnant women on the importance of getting tested for HIV, Syphillis, and other diseases. Overall, we tested about 89 women so we were very pleased with the result. I got to sit in the lab and watch blood draws, see HIV testing, observe Hemoglobin analyses, and even do the urinalyses by myself! We only had 3 positive results from the tests which I thought was great. After testing and recording the data, we had to help notify the patients on their results. Gladly I only had to watch, because I don't know how I would have handled telling someone something like that.
Tomorrow I will rotate to the area I am most excited for-Pediatrics! I can't wait to weigh and examine babies and interact with them all day!
Foinyato! (talk to you later)
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