Day 13

 October 18, 2011

So I’m not sure how to begin…last night as I was lying in bed it started to rain extremely hard, so hard that it was blowing in through our windows. It softened up so it was much more peaceful until I was startled by this huge blast of thunder, it was so loud and close that I could feel it in my chest, I just about wet my pants (I definitely jumped). Anyways that’s only part of what happen. So my phone died yesterday which I am using for an alarm clock. I woke up and saw that it was 9:00 pm and I knew that couldn’t be true, so I fixed it, or I thought so. My alarm went off at 7:10 just like every day. Sarah and I got ready to go and just as I was putting on my watch with the time here, it said it was 6:50. Great we woke up an hour early! Way to start off the day!

 So we relaxed until it was time for worship. Again we spent the day with Dr. Trixy in the exam room. Today I was feeling a little bit better about myself. I got to do the history, basically did the whole thing by myself and I also got to do some physicals; listening to their heart, lungs, feeling their stomach, checking ears, nose, mouth and throat.  Today was definitely better than yesterday. I learned so much today, it was amazing, we also saw some interesting cases of things I have never heard of before. Some of the patients we saw today had malaria, which is typical, but we also saw a keloid, angina, fungal rashes, women trying to get pregnant and the other nurses got to see a case of scabies. Each day so far I have seen something a little different however there are always those cases that occur time and time again, still each person it different.

After work Trixy had a chat with all of us volunteers on how to diagnose certain illnesses and she even gave us homework! Then Sarah and I went to market in Great Soppo, which is basically across the street in order to get some food for this week. We also stopped and got another ice cream…ooops. After market we came back and made some gnocchi, it was alright, but I’m kinda getting tired of it now. I put some laundry in and now I am writing in my blog, but as soon as I am done with that I will work on learning more about pneumonia because that is our homework for the night. Then I think it will be time to go to bed seeing that I woke up an hour early.

This was part of the process in making gnocchi, and boy does it take a lot of time!

This is our final product, it was pretty good, fried gnocchi with tomato sauce and fried onions!

And yes of course, TIA (this is Africa) and this is how we do laundry in Africa, what a joyous occasion let me tell you!

But wait one last thing…

Quick story from yesterday!

Just yesterday we had a man that came back for his check up because he had a back case of herpes zoster that infected his eye. He was so grateful for us, he said that we treated him much nicer than any other doctor that he had seen and that he felt as if we cared for him. He didn’t know how to thank us enough. This was really rewarding for me to see this because this man was obviously able to see Christ through each one of the employees or volunteers that work here at the clinic in Buea. And that is my prayer, that God will not only shine through us but that He will also lay His healing hand on each one of the patients that comes to our clinic. He did both of these things for the man with herpes zoster, it was amazing; God is amazing.

This is my desk, mother do you approve? or is it too messy? Who would have thought I would be studying here!? This is a learning experience after all so I best take advantage of it and learn something from it right!