Monthly Archives: July 2019

Parental Prayer Request

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In a few hours, we will put David on a plane headed to the USA. His grandparents have generously offered to fly him to Dallas to work on his driver’s license, spend time with them, and maybe even make a few college visits. Thanks, Abo and Carol!

His family will miss him though and we’re all a little nervous about this solo international travel. Please pray with us that he will make it safely to London, not fall asleep and miss his connection, and then fly on from London to Dallas without problems. Thanks for praying for all the things, small and large, that we post here.

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Obstetrics

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I am back on the obstetrics service. Family doctors are good at floating in and out of different areas. Within the last year we have had family doctors working in pediatrics, internal medicine, obstetrics, the outpatient department and emergency room. For most of us it is a pleasure to move around the hospital. It keeps life interesting. The reason I am back on obstetrics is one of the volunteer obstetricians is leaving, and so the consultant staffing is a little bit low. So I am back to fill the needs of the hospital. We are starting this call right with a woman with severe pre-eclampsia, pulmonary embolism, and treatment with warfarin and one previous cesarean section scar needing an emergency surgery. She also has a large anterior uterine fibroid. Without explaining everything, let me say that is a tough case. Below is the team that will take care of it.3bbf7f3a-0dab-492a-b47c-947430d038ed

 

When Old Friends Become New Again

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In Kijabe we have had people, especially from Abilene Christian University, come and visit us unexpectedly. They are either passing through, or they are involved in mission work in Africa, and they call to stop by. It is the greatest blessing for us to see them. We are always happy to be remembered! Again just this past weekend we were honored with a visit from friends we may not have seen for 20 years. We took them up Mt. Longonot which is a hot and dusty hike. We all came down ready to eat lunch, and then waited for 2 hours for our food to be served. So I think we may have lost old friends just as soon as we made them again after putting them through that sufferfest! 🙂 Everyone is welcome in Kijabe!

 

Another Obstetric Call

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The next thing I heard was a scream!

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All my obstetric calls seem to take me on to places I do not want to go. My last call started with a older woman with severe high blood pressure at about 26 weeks pregnancy. These pressures were so high she was at risk of seizing, and her baby was not getting the blood flow through the placenta that it needed to live. So off to the operating room we went to deliver this too young baby. To complicate the matter there were big benign tumors all over her uterus. God is good and we were able to deliver her baby without too much difficulty. Unfortunately 2 days later her baby passed. 26 weeks is a threshold age for premature babies at our hospital where the chance of survival decreases. This same mother did end up seizing 2 days later from her pre-eclampsia, and is still in the ICU being treated for very high blood pressure. As this was going on we had a call that a patient was coming in with a molar pregnancy, which is a non-viable pregnancy that can transform to a cancer. She had been bleeding, although she was stable on arrival. Then another call came with a possible ectopic pregnancy arriving (an ectopic pregnancy is a non-viable pregnancy outside the uterus which can cause massive bleeding killing the mother). We started evaluating her, and a another call came in letting us know that a woman with a cancer of her hand (she was going for amputation of her entire arm the following day) who happened to be pregnant had unfortunately lost her baby. It is called an IUFD or intrauterine fetal demise. Did we need to induce now or wait until after surgery. We decided to wait and get the arm taken care of first. Another older woman rolled into the casualty (ER) with severe pelvic pain. We admitted her and it turned out that she had bilateral tubo-ovarian abcesses that were causing her to become septic. This are major infections of the female reproductive organs. Somewhere amidst all of this another woman arrived. She was 38 weeks pregnant, and she had a huge vulvar abcess due to an infected Bartholin’s gland. We admitted her to prepare her for surgery the following day. It was a busy night, and not all of it is exactly the bread and butter of family medicine. Oh yeah. I have just been switched off of medicine to do a month of full time obstetrics. The needs of the hospital must be met. 🙂 What have I got myself into?