Male Ward and Markets

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After general rounds, my assignment was to go to the male ward. Once there Dr. Emmanuel was doing rounds and I observed patients with subarachnoid hemmorhage, chronic renal failure, alcoholic cirrhosis, etc. I observed several dressing changes and removed a foley catheter. Rosalind joined me and got me to begin teaching a head to toe assessment to the nursing students on the ward, while she observed to see what I actually remembered. We went through all the systems and taught them our assessment style while they took notes. The head to toe took a while and then we breaked for lunch.

After lunch we hired a tro-tro to take us back to Akatsi market. Once we arrived we checked the garments section because the coming weekend we had a wedding to attend. I bought some wicked cool colours and later on went to the seamstress to make the material into a poncho I could just throw on over clothes. The girls all made various dress designs while the Duke decided on the toga approach. Also picked up some bird feed for Deth Claw, an instument, food, and finally sharpened my knife. On our way back we stopped off at our local baker's, where fresh bread was newly ready to be eaten. It smelt so good!

The following day I headed back to the male ward again, with Marina in tow this time, and jumped right into things. The nurses were already doing dressing changes and I asked if I could do one for the next patient. I had no idea what I was getting into. The patient was an 80 year old man who had had a stroke several years earlier and was bedridden. He had been living with his relatives but due to either malnutrition and/or lack of repositioning, developed massive pressure sores on almost every bony prominence on his body. Some were absolutely massive. The dressing changes began with me using their equipment and technique but Marina went back to get our dressing supplies we had brought along with us and then using our equipment continued. All in all it must have taken about an hour and a half and at some points I was sweating like a rabid beast to the point where some of the students were laughing hard. We left some of our supplies for everyone to keep using. After lunch we returned and did a head to toe assessment on a man with liver cirrhosis. I think some things may finally be sinking in (maybe)! Our assessment took a while and then I pretty much circulated around.

The evening revolved around playing soccer in the sand fields behind the hospital for a while with all the seemingly superstar players and did weights at Dr. Kugbey's.

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