Crooked, Crooks and Chicks

So much going on, but lots of the same...

Orthopaedic Ward

Dr Nana was gone again Monday and Today to meetings in Bamenda, so I had to run the clinic and theatre (operating room) myself and it amazes me how many absolutely crazy crooked people are around.  Just person after person after person coming in with one crazy bent, twisted contorted appendage after another.

We have done spine surgery the last two mornings.  Lumbar decompression yesterday and a L1 burst fracture again today.  It was going very good and I was very proud of Dr N, as I really didn't do or touch much and tried to let him do it all.  We then got to the decompression and there were nerve roots hanging out, so the young man is likely to have some permanent nerve deficits.  It kinda soured the end of the case and I pray he will still have a good outcome.  He should hopefully be able to walk, but we will see.  "The nerves be spoiled" as they tell the patients about how surgery went.  We are operating of a chief of a village about 8 hours north of here tomorrow for stenosis/slippage, should be a good case.  Have another scoliosis on for next week and pretty much have a spine everyday till I'm gone. Dr Nana has several spines booked for after I leave as he wants to "stay hot for the spine." He is excited to keep it going which is good.  The case we did today was sent from the biggest general hospital in Douala (5 million people), which is crazy that they don't have the ability to care for that kind of spine injury. 

The boys, Gaudee' (Godlove) and I took a exploratory trip up the mountain yesterday.  We had hiked Sunday down to the airstrip and from there hiked the back way up to Dr Sparks house.  There was some bushwacking, tree swinging over a river involved so Amy didn't appove.  I'm so proud of how good a hikers' I have.  The pictures from the air strip show the waterfalls I'm going to have Amy hike to, the one on the left is the one we went to last year, the big one on the right is the target for this year.  I found a path up a waterline they hand dug in the hillside this spring to follow up to the top. The boys and I sat on the rocks between the two, so now all I need to do is get Amy up there and the final decent to the base of the big falls should be achieveable...Saturday.

View from airstrip of two falls, red is our hike path.

Top arrow is where we sat, lower is where I'm getting Amy to Saturday.

Waterline trail

View from top

We had some excitement this weekend which is where the crook comes in.  During church Sunday an out-of-towner broke into one of the missionary's houses on the other side of campus.  Smartly he knew most everyone would be in church, but, he picked the wrong house though, the head of building/construction for the region and he actually had an alarm on the house, so when it went off, neighbors responded and apprehended the guy.  We knew nothing of it until we went home from church and there was a huge gathering and commotion going on a the hospital reception.  Everyone in Mbingo wanted to see the face of the thief, eventually the police took him from security off to jail.

The last is part of things you only see in Africa.  Chicken in a bag in the hospital waiting area:)

All are good, Grace still homesick and bored,  Boys just fine.  Amy worried about what she is going to wear tonight to the "formal dinner" for the graduating internal medicine and surgery residents.  So I must go as dinner starts in 30 min.

-  Pa Joe  - 

 a.k.a Father of Joey (my name from the neighborhood kids, I apparently didn't respond well enough to Uncle, so they decided PaJoe worked better;)