And then there were 13

On Thursday, the Riggins and Radcliffes left for their home assignment. They will come back the beginning of January, but with the Myers already gone, we are down to 13 missionaries here. The Bennetts are currently on their way back from a short trip to the US, but the Statons (vols) are here for a few more days to keep us at 13. Since their aren't that many of us, last night we were all able to get together at the Chapmans and have dinner and hangout.

The Riggins and Radcliffes will definitely be missed while they are gone. Aden had recently been coming over to play with me when he would visit Uncle Bill and Aunt Marsha. They got him to call me Auntie Erin, so he would ask if he could come and play. He would knock on my door (which connects the McCoy's and my house) and come over to play. We would play with all the balls I have, or we would go over to the McCoys and get the cars and blocks and build tunnels. He enjoys playing by himself, and will let you know when you are playing or doing something he didn't want you to do. He is quite funny, and very cute. He learned the difference between a volleyball, basketball, football, and we were working on tennis ball and wiffle ball when he left. It is amazing what they pick up on. Look for them at a church near you.

My morning

One of the things I enjoy about working here is that each day is different. Among other things there are different patients on the wards, in the clinic, and ER, different illnesses to treat, different problems that arise, different procedures to do, and different diagnostic challenges. Today was no exception. I started this am checking my labs and Xrays for the pediatric ward. Yesterday, I drained a large leg abscess on a small baby, and now her Xray showed periosteal elevation a sign of osteomyelitis (infection in her bone). I consulted Jim and got the plan to try an aspirate and find more pus, and then open it up. So I planned to do that after rounds. I rounded on all my peds pts - pts with meningitis, pneumonia, dehydration, heart disease, neonatal sepsis, and more. Then I went to the ER to try and find pus in this baby's leg. While there I found a 5 yo boy who had fallen into a fire on Friday, and had 1st and 2nd degree burns on his abd, legs, arms, hands, and face which needed debrided. I found the pus in my osteo baby, and cut into her leg looking for more, then I debrided the burn kid, and saw some more pts in the ER and clinic.

I admitted a college of nursing student with a bad infection of his arm and hand which will need IV abx and may need surgery. I diagnosed a 20 yo male with a hepatoma (inoperable liver cancer) today, and had to tell him and his family that I didn't have anything to offer him to cure his cancer, but we talked about Jesus and prayed. I saw a 8 yo girl who had one of her ribs protruding from her skin since Friday. Her only complaint was pain at night when she rolled on her R side. She has osteomyelitis (quite common here) and what is protruding out is sequestrum, bone that is destroyed from the osteo, and needs removed. She also has osteomyelitis of her R foot and I referred her to Hagen for surgery.

I admitted a pt with pulmonary TB, a baby with dehydration from diarrhea and vomiting. Saw a kid with heart disease who hasn't been seen since June, so now he came in with worsening shortness of breath and cough because he hasn't been on meds for 2 months. I saw a guy who fell from a tree 2 wks ago and continued with back pain, so on Xray found that he has a compression fracture of his spine now. There was a kid who was beat by a security guard at a coffee plantation for trying to take coffee, and now had a large abscess on his buttocks. He couldn't even stand up straight due to the pain, I did an incision and drainage, got out a lot of pus, and he felt much better. I got to tell a pt she was pregnant today, she was excited. I treated a MAF pilot for sinusitis which has been bothering him for 6 wks now. I assessed a pt from the TB ward who has worsening mental status changes, likely not secondary to TB. And many others.

I also saw a pt, Peter. Peter said he had swelling of his face since April. He has been losing weight and isn't eating much. He was cachetic, his L eye was swollen shut, he had a hard mass on the L side of his cheek, a mass protruded into his mouth and in his L nose. Just looking at his face you can see an obvious abnormality of the L vs R. An Xray showed bony destruction as well. I asked Dr. Tom Staton, a volunteer ENT doc, to take a look at him. He confirmed that he has a massive tumor of some sort that is killing him. Peter and family were quite sad to hear the diagnosis. I was encouraged as I talked to them about the Lord, and found out that he was a Christian. We prayed and despite his prognosis, I know Peter is looking forward to that new body that he will get in heaven.

Some of the things we see

I am often amazed at what comes through our doors. Today, 2 cute 5 yo girls came through the door with one of their moms. One of the girls had a hat on, but neither looked sick. I was told the girl with the hat was the patient, she removed her hat, but still looked okay, until she turned to the side. Initially, I wondered if it was just her hair that was sticking out about 6cm from her head, but quickly confirmed it wasn't. She has had this large swelling of the back of her head her whole life, and despite living within 30 minutes of the hospital, she has never been to the doctor. Thankfully, she is a normal kids who walks and talks and plays. Not having seen anything like this before, I consult Bill. He too hasn't seen this before, but we go to our handy ultrasound machine, which patients feel can diagnose and fix anything, to try and help us. It didn't really help, just confirmed it looked like fluid, and an Xray confirmed that the skull was intact. So we are sending her to get a surgery consult to see if this is something that should be removed. We do have one neurosurgeon in Port Morseby who maybe able to help her.

On another note, you may remember Baby Brian. He was born a few months ago and came into the hospital while I was on call with an imperforate anus. Dr. Jim took him to surgery and temporarily fixed the problem with a colostomy. This picture is him on a followup, when he was doing quite well. Unfortunately, he passed away today from sepsis. Thankfully, the Bible reminds us that death isn't the end. John 11:25-26 "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.'" I am thankful for the hope we can have in Christ.

The Hagen Show

Today, Daly and I got to go to the annual Hagen Show with the Dooleys, Brittney, the Statons, and Lena and Jonathon (2 nationals who looked out for us all). We had a great time seeing all the different groups in their costumes and doing their dances. I don't know what they were saying, or why they did them, but it was amazing to watch. Everyone was so nicely dressed, and most so bright and colorful. Some of my favorites were the tigerzebra men (as I call them), the bats, and the skeleton guys. We got there early enough where we were able to go and intermingle with the groups as they were getting ready to go into the statidum, so we got a lot of great shots. Here are some so you can see what it was like.

Daly coaching, computer problems

Daly comes to PNG and still manages to get involved with basketball. She was asked by some of the women to help them with their team. Apparently, a women's team of nearby folks has recently been formed and they have a game this Sat in Hagen, then are traveling to Lae, or Madang or somewhere for a national tournament or something. No one really seems to know what the story is. Anyway, Daly went down on Wed and Thurs afternoon to offer her services to these women. It was challenging for her because she couldn't speak enough Pidgin to really know how to communicate, and wasn't sure how much they knew. Gail Dooley did translate for her, which helped a lot. The women were real appreciative of her coming and gave her vegetables, and were going to make a bilum for her. These are traditional ways that folks her show their appreciation. She enjoyed the opportunity to get out and help out the women here. We recently have had some computer issues. We had 2 guys here to fix our network, but it ended up getting slower in the process. They found some viruses, and were working on removing them to make our system run faster, when they left. I didn't realize how much I used the internet until I didn't have it. It has given me more time to spend with Daly, and read, which is nice. We are getting ready to go to Mt. Hagen tomorrow with the Dooleys to go to the Hagen Show. This is apparently, a big gathering of lots of PNG folks in their tribal outfits doing traditional dances and singing.

Weekend Activities

Friday night we enjoyed dinner with the Chapmans. We had the traditional Kudjip friday night pizza. Diane recently taught me to make pizza, so now I too can enjoy pizza without having to rely on someone to make it for me.

Saturday we got up to say goodbye to Sam and the Bennetts as they headed to America to enjoy their son's wedding, and to see Sam off to college. Then I went on a bike ride with Bill. This picture is about the only time I was this close to him on our ride. He usually is many feet in front of me, and only when he slows down, do I get close. I get close for a short while and then my mind plays tricks on me and makes me think I can pass him. As a result, I pedal as fast as I can to try and pass him, but he always flies by me again. One of these days I hope to stay with him without him having to slow down, but even if I don't, I still enjoy going with him.

After the ride, Daly and I went out to the orchid garden at Avi with Diane, and Ruben and his wife and one daughter. Daly enjoyed seeing all the different animals and orchids. The hornbills weren't as friendly as they had been in the past, but Daly did get one to get onto her arm. Ruben had a hard time getting the kuskus out of the pen, but he finally got her out after suffering some scrapes in the process.

Bill got to work in the garden after being away for 4 months. He managed to turn a lot of ground in order to plant all the things I could not, even without the weedeater and rotatiller, which are not working correctly after I last used them. We did cut into one of the little watermelons, and found it ripe and ready to eat. It was very good. Hopefully, with his help now, we will be able to grow bigger watermelons to enjoy, and more cucumbers.

Our weekend ended with a trip to Suicide Rocks with Bill. We all jumped in and enjoyed the cool refreshing water. I kept trying to take action shots of Daly, but failed miserably, so this pic is as close as you get. It is always a beautiful walk there through the gardens of the villagers who live nearby. One villager was walking the same way we were, so Bill asked him about a plant, which we learned they enjoy as a green, kumu. Always something to learn and see here.

Dentist and Daly

The Work and Witness team here, now, has a dentist, Dr. Mike Bachman, and his wife, Marilyn who is a hygienist. They have been spending their days serving the folks here at Kudjip doing dental work by doing lots of cleanings and extractions. I got to have my teeth cleaned today, it had been a year since I last went. My gums are a little sore, and I lost some blood, but I came away with a clean bill of health for my teeth, just the reminder to floss everyday, which I often don't do.

While I have been busy at the hospital seeing patients, and enjoying having Bill back and getting his insight into patient cases, Daly has been busy painting at the new volunteer house. She has gotten the whole front painted, and is waiting for more paint to keep going. The ladder isn't quite tall enough to fully reach as high as she needs, so she has stood on the top rung at times, despite many folks telling her not to do this. She hasn't fallen yet, but has suffered from a few sores knees. I think she will stay busy with all the painting that could be done here on station in these next 2 weeks. I will take her in the hospital with me at least once. We hope to go to see the orchid garden, go out into the village, and to Suicide Rocks this weekend to give her a little cultural experience. We learned, last night, that playing wiffleball in the house is not a good idea, but we had fun doing it.

Daly is here

My friend, Daly Fuller, who I have known since I was a Jr. in high school, is here in PNG for 2 weeks. After a long flight, and an extra trip to Madang before coming to Hagen, she got here last evening. Jim and Kathy went with me into town as we did some shopping before picking her up. We got to the airport at 1600 for the expected arrival at 1610 only to find out that the plane detoured to Madang and should be here at around 1710. We decided we could go to the nearby airport cafe to spend our hour.

We get there and see the sign that says open 7 days, 7-7. It was only 4pm, so we thought we were in luck. We get to the door and find it locked, despite what the sign said. We tried to yell to see if anyone was there, but no one came. We got back to the car, and then a lady walked up who happened to work there. She let us in and we got a small bite to eat. I got ice cream, it came with strawberry topping. I had asked for no strawberry topping, just the vanilla ice cream. Jim wanted a chocolate milkshake along with his sandwich. She asked him if he wanted strawberry with his shake, he said no, and tried to clarify a few times that he just wanted the chocolate milkshake, and I just wanted ice cream without the topping. Thinking we had things squared away we went to our seats. They had some things for sale near where we were sitting and one was this block puzzle. I was looking at it and figured since we had about an hour I could try it. It took me a while to get it apart, and then even longer to put it back together. During this time, both my ice cream and Jim's chocolate milkshake came with strawberry sauce. We all kind of laughed. Both Jim and I were able to put it together before we left. I decided since it was 10K, I would buy it for my sister and Luke. So I went to pay for it, and she said it was just decoration, not for sale. I said but the others have price tags on them, and are for sale. So after about 5 minutes she agreed to let me buy it.

Following that, we picked up Daly at the airport and headed home. The Radcliffe kids were busy making pizza for us while we were gone, so we then enjoyed a nice dinner with their family before coming home and settling in for the night. Daly managed to sleep from 8:30 last night to 1 this afternoon before I woke her up. Hopefully she will sleep tonight.

Aden/Moning people

I recently took care of one of our staff's daughters. Sister Paula is our Director of Nursing, her husband, Mr. James, had been one of our nurses. They have 2 kids, and 1 on the way. Recently, Mr. James brought Pamela, their almost 2 yo to come and see me with a cough. He apologized for her calling all white people Aden. I didn't hear her talk during our visit, so I didn't think anything of it. That same night, I was on call. They came to the ER as she was now having worsening SOB and some wheezing. Sister Paula was there also. Once Pamela was feeling better she started talking. This time she kept calling me Aden. They tried to tell her my name was Dr. Erin, not Aden, but she kept saying Aden, and eventually it grew to Dr. Aden. I had to go to the ward while I was seeing her, so when I came back she said Dr. Aden. Thankfully she was doing well and was able to go home. They were waiting for their meds at the pharmacy and when she spotted me she said Dr. Aden. It was cute.

Sister Paula apologized for her calling all white people Aden, but I told her not to worry about it. Aden Riggins, who Pamela thinks we all are, at one point called the PNG nationals the moning people. Moning is the Pidgin greeting for good morning. On walks, he would hear his parents and others say moning to the nationals as they walked, so he thought that was their name. Kids are so cute.

The end of Adventures in Gardening

The McCoys got back from their furlough today. It was great to see them again, and now my responsibilities have significantly reduced. I am thankful that Buster, their cat, is still doing well. Buster did end up inside a few times, one time I found him on my bed, but he didn't stay there for long. He would let me know each night that he was hungry, so I couldn't forget to feed him. Marsha's plants are also still growing. I have never been able to keep plants growing before, but maybe that is because I watered them too much. I watered hers once a week and they are still going. The garden is also doing well upon Bill's return, but I did have some recent casualties.

A papaya tree blew over one night and uprooted. It was producing papayas and everything, but it got knocked over. I finished getting it out of the ground, but just left it there as it was a little heavy. This week I think I broke Bill's weedeater. I had done so well for 4 months, but I am pretty sure I didn't mix the oil and gas together this last time. I noticed it just didn't have the power it normally did, so I quit on Tues, and then retried on Saturday. When it still didn't work, I was about to give up when I noticed the gas and the oil sitting there and realized i didn't mix the 2 together. So once I put the mixed gas back in, it worked a little better, but not like before. We shall see what happens, but I will likely be buying him a new weedeater.

So in Bill's absence I have grown some cilantro, onions, squash, cucumbers, beans, peas, cabbage, zucchini, tomatoes, and carrots. I also managed to keep most of the weeds down, and harvested some pineapples and bananas. I am sure he will be growing lots more in the next few days to weeks, but I sure enjoyed the time I had out there in his garden.