Awakened: Day Two, Buswela

We are down to only two clinic days - amazing! It was another full day where we saw just under 200 people. We saw a number of elderly today and a large volume of hypertension. Hypertension is a tricky thing when treated in a situation like this because the reality is when they finish that medication their BP could rebound and almost be worse. So, while in Canada, the individual would be placed on multiple anti-hypertensives. Here, in this situation, we place them on a much lower dose so that they won't rebound as severely - it will make a difference for sure. Healthcare in a mobile clinic like this is not ideal by any means, but it is something more than they have ever had.

They night is marching on so I am going to try and write some memories out in point form - memorable patients from today....

they very adorable little girl with an actual afro! Most Tanzanians have extremely short hair, but this little girl actually had a hair band in hers! Matari referred to her as "Afcan" I believe, meaning that she is 1/2 African and 1/2 Arab.
Susy - a 12 year old girl who presented with high giver of 39.2 and confirmed malaria. In fact, the whole family had malaria, but Susy was remarkably sick. We gave her a STAT dose of malaria medication and some Tylenol. Not long after that she vomited, poor thing. The miraculous thing is that the pills she took did NOT come up in the emesis. I watched her town up and looked through it afterwards and there were no pills there! I even had Marilyn look to be sure. We told her Mom that if she got sicker or didn't improve, she needed to take her to a clinic - whether she could afford that or not is another question. We prayed over Susy and I am trusting that she did not progress to a cerebral malaria. If I remember the stats correctly, a child dies of malari in African - it is a ridiculously common ailment that could be so easily prevented, by consistent use of mosquito nets. I just couldn't shake the concept when I looked and worked with Susy that she could be one of those children.
The village Mayor, Veronica, who came with her own children to be seen. "You are welcome to my village again", she said.
Two women with goiters that we saw - they will be referred to Urafiki - we came with a certain amount of money budgeted to assist with patients that require further investigation or treatment, so what a joy to be able to provide that for people.
Akisa - one of the women we treated, for STI's with Syphillis yesterday. We had wanted her husband to return but he was working until evening. We sent the treatment home with her so hopefully they will both be cleared and then will remain faithful and stay clean of further STI's. I felt like I bonded with her and she with me. We had a nice photo taken together. Beautiful woman.
The lady who returned for a second day of clinic under a different name! She was a sneaky one - luckily we recognized her face.

We also had the delight of visiting an orphanage close by - but that deserves its own blog post!!!!