TIA

Hard to believe tomorrow completes my first work week at Tenwek.  It's been interesting from a physical therapy standpoint figuring out the places I can best plug in and help.  It's also been interesting seeing the differences here in medicine and in the people and culture. 


As we were rounding the first day, one of the ortho docs from the States who has been here a year asked me, "How many narcotic pain medications do you think I have prescribed in the past year?"  ZERO!  We just finished going around to these patients who have had open fractures of tibias, femurs, just a couple total hip and total knee post-op patients, and he has prescribed ZERO narcotics, just NSAIDs.  I was blown away.  "They're tough!" he said.  The past 2 days I have been working with two ladies, one with a total hip and one with a total knee.  Post op day 1, they were both out of bed walking with a walker.  They said it hurt, but they just cruised right a long.  Today, the lady with the total knee was out of her immobilizer and I was asked to start range of motion.  90 degrees of flexion after about 5 minutes of working on it with no problem.  I was shocked!  The doctors asked me about patients in the US, if they had CPM machines and the continuous ice units - I said "yes, and most of them don't do nearly as well weeks after surgery as these 2 ladies have done 2 days after surgery."  Indeed, they are tough.


There is a phrase I had heard in a movie, but apparently it's also pretty widely used by ex-patriots here in Africa.  Sometimes you just have to shrug your shoulders and say, "TIA" which stands for "This is Africa."  That's all you can say in some of these situations.  For example, there is a tribe near here that is known as the warrior tribe.  Primarily, they shepherd cattle.  They believe that their god made *all* the cattle for them, so therefore, cattle that is owned by people in nearby areas was stolen from them and they fight to get them back.  So when people from that tribe come in, it's bound to be interesting.  One man had an arrow wound to his neck...with a piece of the arrow still intact.  Don't see that walking around the hospital everyday!


There was another man I met the first day who had an amputated hand and an injury to the other hand.  Apparently, this man, Peter, was owed the equivalent of $3.50 from another man.  He went to collect his money and the other man took a machete and cut off his hand.  Insanity!  I've heard stories like this, but it never really crossed that border from storyland to reality until I was standing there looking at this man who had lost his right hand.  *TIA*


Sometimes it's funny though too.  Like when a group of us walked down to the waterfall and were stopped by a Kenyan couple who took pictures with us for 10 minutes because we were white.  Apparently they weren't from near Tenwek.  It was like we were Hollywood superstars.  *TIA*


I'll end tonight with a prayer request.  There is a dear old lady in the hospital.  She has a really bad infection in one of her legs.  The best course of treatment for her at this point is to amputate.  She has refused to have this done.  She's over 80 years old, still keeps her home and garden and is really independent until she began having leg pain and was brought to the hospital.  She will not accept that this is what is best for her and does not want to give up her leg and independence despite her family's pleading.  She told them point blank, she would rather die.  It's just a really tough situation, so please pray for wisdom, discernment for all of those involved.


Also for me.  The language barrier has been tough with patients.  And it's taken a few days to start to figure out where I fit in among the more long term folks working here and how I can best help them. It's going so well though.  Tenwek is such an amazing place and I know God is working powerfully here.