Happy (late) Thanksgiving! This past week has been busy with starting in Peds and all of the Thanksgiving festivities. Emily and I were a little fearful of being really homesick and missing out on this family holiday, but the missionaries here are so warm and inviting that it felt like your typical family Thanksgiving. Plus, we ate REALLY well! I am thankful for so much this year, but it would probably take me a million pages to list them all. I do want to say ‘Thank You!’ to everyone back home for supporting me in this journey. I know lots of people probably thought I was crazy when I said I wanted to go to Kenya for two months, but all of my family and friends have been absolutely amazing and I know I would not be here without all of them cheering me on with their kind words and prayers. I’m grateful for every single one of you in my life, Thank You!
Since Thanksgiving is obviously not celebrated in Kenya, we did have to work a full week. We got a very nice meal Thursday afternoon for lunch with the White family: chicken noodle soup (perfect for the cold, rainy afternoon we were having), green beans covered in these fantastic herbs (only green beans I’ve ever been able to enjoy), bread, and apple pie. Then for dinner the Roberts family invited us over for turkey and dressing as well as a wonderful chocolate, pecan, and butterscotch pie. They also streamed in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. We played the game “How well do you know the Macy’s parade and what character is that?!” because it was a little choppy video coverage, but still enjoyable. Yesterday, we got to have the big Thanksgiving Day feast with most of the missionary families in the atrium above the surgical theaters. It was amazing! We followed up lunch with pie time at 5 and the movie ‘Elf’ at 7. There was also the option to watch some college football games at the Roberts house, but we were so exhausted we went to bed early. All of the families here act like one giant extended family and it was a fantastic day getting to experience that and feel like part of the family. Definitely one of my top Thanksgivings!
The Thanksgiving feast
Celebrating Thanksgiving with our new friend, Laura
Happy 1st Thanksgiving, Laura!
The pie table :)
The past week in pediatrics has been somewhat busy, especially in the nursery, and it’s also been an interesting learning experience. I try to compare it to what I would be seeing at home and it doesn’t really match up. If I were at home, I believe I would be in a clinic seeing regular check-ups and mostly acute illnesses such as ear infections. In Kenya, I have seen whooping cough, possible enteric fever and malaria, sickle-cell disease, and lymphoma. We also had one child who had a dog bite who was being treated for rabies. The little boy I spent most of my time with this week has recently been diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome and cannot movie his arms or legs and has constant sharp pains in his legs. In the US, if he had been seen upon onset of his symptoms (weakness and pains in his legs), we could have done plasmaphoresis or given him IV Immunoglobulin to hopefully help. Those are not options here so he basically does physical therapy to keep his limbs from stiffening up. He has been in the hospital for over 20 days and now has pneumonia for the second time since being here. We are hoping to get him over the pneumonia and home soon after, but he will basically be a quadriplegic the rest of his life. Please pray for this little boy and his father who has been taking such good care of him in the hospital.
I’m also a little sad because one of my favorite patients to see is no longer at the hospital. Mark introduced us to this boy named Washington who he was doing physical therapy with because he had to have one leg amputated. He will be receiving a prosthetic leg hopefully very soon from a team in Atlanta, but for being such a young kid and having to go through something that traumatic he never was without a smile. Once I started in Peds this week, I got to see him cruising up and down the hallway every day in his wheelchair or walking on his crutches and he smiled every time. He even saw me from afar one morning walking up the hill towards the hospital and gave me a huge wave with his big grin – it melted my heart! I’m glad he is home but I do miss his joyous presence. I will also miss the Kenyan medical students, in particular Liz and Sylviah who I spent time with in both OB and Peds. They were both wonderful help and fun to talk to, but I look forward to keeping in touch with them and hopefully seeing them again one day.
Liz and I in the nursery
God Bless everyone!