The Excitement of the Peds Ward!

The last several weeks have flown by. We are down to our last week here at Karanda. I can't believe 5 months have actually gone this fast. We've had our moments here, and there's been times I thought the end would never arrive. But as I sit here with a week left to go Shea and I both feel so lucky to have had this experience, and the thought of leaving is bittersweet. Many of our local friendships have blossomed, although saying goodbye won't be quite as difficult since we've decided to return in January. We are excited about the ministry opportunities here, and glad we can be a part of the ministry here in the near future. Its been great having Rhonda around, and we have all benefited from her marvelous cooking (especially our waist lines).

The last several weeks have been great for Shea and I as we have been in charge of the Pediatric ward. Its been quite an experience. We have really enjoyed working with the children. It has been both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Its painful to see these innocent little kids stricken with such devastating diseases, yet encouraging to see kids at the brink of death return to life with proper medical and/or surgical treatment. The ward has also been a wonderful place for evangelism as many of the families are eager to hear about the gospel, and have been very receptive to His calling!

The Pediatric ward has been so busy that it is often quite stressful trying to make rounds and keep all of the patients straight. The other day we had 32 patients in the ward. The capacity is actually 24.....but here in Zimbabwe we really don't have to worry about petty things like “fire marshals” and “regulations”. I've been told by several nurses that the previous high was 30 patients, so you can imagine it was quite a zoo. The actual room the ward is located in is about the size of an average 2 car garage. So you can imagine trying to fit 32 sick gets, there moms/family, IV poles, oxygen tanks, and what little staff we have was quite a challenge. We still have sick kids sleeping under the beds of other sick kids trying to make enough room for everyone.

We've had an incredible array of pathology the last several weeks. We've been stumped on many patients, but we have enjoyed the challenge of figuring out the correct diagnosis, and delivering the best medical and surgical treatment possible. We've seen patients with diagnosis ranging from measles, tetanus, meningitis, cerebral malaria, a necrotic thigh and tuberculosis to pneumonia, neonatal fever, burns, traumatic amputation (her dad was chopping wood and slipped), femur fractures and clubbed feet.

We've had at least 5-7 patients with hydrocephalus some who have received new VP shunts and others that have had VP shunt malfunctions and/or infections. We had one young boy who was evidently playing with a hand grenade and it went off. It took off a good portion of his right hand. (Don't ask me how he got a hold of a hand grenade....I've asked several family members and no one seems to know). We had another young boy who had 2 large tumor growing out of his back and buttock. We removed them both and are waiting for pathology results as well as his skin graft to take.

We had another young boy who was presumed to be bitten by a cobra (never a good thing). He was starting to improve and his family wanted him discharged even though we felt he would be better suited to stay another day or two. We obliged, but unfortunately the boy and about 18 or 19 others were involved in a mass trauma when a large flat bed truck carrying 12-15 people collided with another small truck about one half mile down the road from Karanda. The irony of the situation was that most of the people in the truck had just been discharged from the hospital and were leaving to go home. The trucks hit head on, as they came around a tight corner probably only going about 30-40 km/hr. The impact was still great enough that it sent most of the passengers through the air, and some ended up with significant fractures. All that to say the boy with the snakebite did fine, aside from a couple of lacerations and bruises. We did get our wish and got to keep him in the hospital another night.(I guess they should have listened to us in the first place). Also, Shea got quite the surprise when 20 injured people from that wreck showed up at the OPD right before her lunch break. That's a whole other story, I'll save that one for later.

Anyway back to the Peds ward. We've also had 5-6 patients with severe malnutrition and all are currently on our high protein feeding program. One such patient also had something called a Noma. A Noma is an ulcer on your face that usually eats through your skin and tissue until your teeth and gums are exposed from the outside. This typically occurs in severe malnutrition. This particular patient is a 9 year old boy named David who came in weighing 10 kgs (22 lbs). David was completely emaciated when he arrived. He was also unable to walk and HIV positive. Both of his parents have passed away from HIV and he is now being raised by his grandpa. His grandpa is very attentive and never leaves his side (I think David is his only family). David initially couldn't even turn to look at me during rounds. Now with several weeks of proper nutrition (aside from the occasional lolli-pop I sneak him) and treatment he actually smiles during rounds and has become quite interactive. He goes outside with his grandpa and its just wonderful to see him happy. According to our scales he now weights 15 kgs (its quite a jump, not sure I always trust our scales here, but I'm just encouraged he continues to improve). So with the Lords help David will continue to improve, and with proper HIV treatment and education he may still have many good years of life ahead of him.

So as you can see the Peds ward has been very challenging, but also quite rewarding. The rest of our time has been spent in the maternity ward doing C sections (Shea and I actually got to do a twin C section together...it was great), in OPD seeing patients, in the theater operating on an array of pathology, and at home chasing kids, and changing diapers (although a few less since Beau is starting to use the toilet alot more). Overall things are great, and were excited for one more good week of work here at Karanda. We really look forward to see all of our friends and families real soon. God Bless!