I’m sorry that this beginning paragraph is repetitive, so I will summarize it really fast, here we go: breakfast, bike to hospital, devotions, reports, debriefing, rounds. One notable thing that happened though was that a lady came to the hospital carrying a random basket that had some sort of wild creature in it. She came to have a checkup done by one of the doctors and just carried this animal right on in with her on the off chance that she could maybe sell it to one of us crazy mundeli that would consider them awesome exotic pets (otters, owls, lizards etc.) but that most Africans would consider dinner. This animal was a pengalin. I would describe it as a mixture between an anteater and a possum. It had hard scales, long claws, and a very long tail (pictured bellow).

Today rounds took a verrrrrry long time, from 9am till noon…wowza! It was a very thorough morning, which is very good, but it was mostly because there were 5 doctors on rounds and one of them is a visiting doctor. On rounds there is a lot of teaching done for the interns, the Congolese doctors, and the nurses. The American doctors exchange ideas with each other and then with the Congolese and try to come to a consensus concerning the patient’s problem before explaining it to the students. Then the doctors decide what tests, procedures, and drugs they want to start and then the doctors move on. There are anywhere between 5 to 8 patients in one room. The rooms are small, medium, and large sized—but they are all shared with multiple other people.

After rounds we went to lunch and ate at lightning speed so that we could make it back in time for a procedure that would be happening in the Bloc at 1pm. We really didn’t want to miss it because there haven’t been any surgeries for a while (there was a surgery two days ago, but when you spend 9 hours at the hospital each day, 1 day can start to feel like multiple days). The procedure was to realign the bones that had been severely broken and displaced in a man’s arm (x-ray shown bellow that was taken at a different hospital). The whole technique to realigning was pretty creative because currently Pioneer Christian Hospital does not have an x-ray machine. So we used an ultrasound machine during the entire procedure to find, move, and examine the broken bones. At some points I would hold the ultrasound tool to the man’s arm, Dr. Wegner would twist and press the bone into place, and Priscilla would apply pressure.

[Side note: If you read some of my posts and become super confused when I say “we” for almost every situation but do not address who “we” is, do not fear, I am not crazy, I do not have an imaginary friend. “We” is almost always talking about “Priscilla and I.” Ok that is all]

So after the bone was back in place, Dr. Wegner put the cast on, and we put the man’s arm in a sling. Both Priscilla and I have never broken a bone (well I fractured my skull when I was a baby, but that’s different, and no my parents didn’t drop me on my head, I just decided to go on a fun ride down the stairs in a bouncy walker thing), and we were commenting on how we had always wanted casts, but had never had one. Dr. Wegner then said, to our excitement, that we could learn how to really put on arm casts by putting them on each other—so we did!! It was awesome, people were so confused, but we had arm casts for today! We used plaster that turns hard when it is wetted (dampened, moistened—all of these words sound odd), and then allowed to dry. So we dunk strips of plaster into water and then wrapped them around each other’s arms to make casts (there is a picture bellow of Priscilla pretending to be in pain right before I casted her, and then a picture of my finished cast with some fun fabric wrapped around it)! So today I broke my arm!

So that was pretty much our day. After the hospital we returned to the Mission, I ran, we ate at the Harvey’s, and then Claire Harvey braided my hair. It is really nice having your hair braided here, it is soooo hot having long hair and for some reason my hair knots a ton when it is wet which is all the time here because it is so humid that it never dries (try reading that sentence in one breath!)!

Goodnight friends!