Our second day of clinic

MIRIAM's JOURNAL

Feb 1, Tuesday

I slept well last night ... the dogs, heat and bushbabies didn't keep me up all night!
We were ready to open our clinic by 830am and there was already a long line of people from the community ready and waiting to be seen. I worked in the pharmacy today - dispensing medications the physicians had ordered and giving discharge instructions. Yesterday, I had worked at triage and it was a long, very draining day. We are trying to rotate the nursing staff so that we all don't get to exhausted by working in one area all the time. At triage, you are in the heart of organized chaos. So many people; so many sad "stories" and all the illnesses; seeing the faces of all the people - young and old who have walked short and long long distances to come for care.

Today, were were able to see, evaluate and treat about 140 people from the community and about 100 MCF children. We finished up at the clinic about 630pm. Dinner, pow-wow of our day ... then, off to bed. I'm feeling really tired right now and not able to think and write more.

SARAH's JOURNAL

Tuesday

What a different world and way of both living and thinking. As we our finding out, our purpose is both to serve MCF and the community through our medical clinic. So far, we have spent about 75% of our time with patients from the local area. Ndanali is a remote region with the nearest hospital being about 12 km away. Many people will walk 4-6 hours to see a doctor. One of the first patients today was a 95 year old lady who had walked for over an hour. The chronic pain and illness is so hard to see; knowing that we can only offer temporary medications to help. And the children ... my heart broke as so many are malnourished and barefoot with very few clothes. One baby yesterday was so dehydrated that the doctors hooked up an IV and ordered immediate transport to the nearest hospital. I wish we could offer some food for them to eat, as we are told that many Kenyans do not eat lunch - only breakfast and dinner because there is not enough food. It makes me so grateful and thankful to have food, water, clothes, and a bed to sleep in. We finished our last patient shortly after 6pm and headed for dinner.

When dinner finished, we gathered together to recap the day and make suggestions to be more efficient at our clinic tomorrow. At one point, we wondered where our surgeon, Neil had disappeared to ... turns out, he was out in the bushes, trying to spot a bush bunny. Being the adventurous sort, I went after him in my flip flops (not a bright idea as I stepped in a muddy hole - but, oh well!) It didn't take us long to spot them, as they are quite noisy. We got as close as the thick bush would allow us. We saw 4 of them and took a few mental picture as they scrambled around in the branches. SOO cool! They have a long bushy tail and huge glowing eyes. Well worth the muddy feet I walked out with ... until we were told to make sure we didn't get any ticks ... YIKES! I checked my clothes and all over before calling it a night. I'm tired and hope to sleep better than the last couple of nights.