Of Chickens and Children

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Some More Hospital Experience

Tuesday and Thursday of this week I was to work in the ER. This was not as exciting as it sounds. I have been in the ER when people are coming in with bushknife wounds or broken bones, but most of what I saw this week was dressings changes and feigned illnesses. Thankfully, on Tuesday, Dr. Erin Meier didn't have anyone working with her, so she offered to take me under her wing for the rest of the day. She is a family practice doctor by trade and so we worked in outpatient, sitting in her office and seeing patient after patient. Dr. Erin is an incredibly good teacher and was very eager to help me learn techniques and diagnoses.
She had me take patient's blood pressures, inspect ears and eyes, and feel abdomens for irregularities. Not only did she show me the how, but she also told me the why - which is very important for a person like me. We didn't see anything too dramatic or out of the ordinary that day. Dr. Erin did discover rectal cancer in an older man and the neatest part was watching her pray in Tok Pisin with the patient and his wife.
Another man had paraphimosis where the foreskin is retracted and is unable to be pulled forward, due to infection in this case. Erin tried, she had me and Dr. Bill McCoy try, and we were all unsuccessful in our attempts to correct this. He was given antibiotics and told to come back in a week. I was also able to assist in holding down two young patients (a 1 year old and a three year old) for a lumbar puncture (spinal tap). There was suspected meningitis is both of these kids and so by collecting the cerebrospinal fluid, the lab is able to test for infection.
Thursday was much different. I again started off in the ER, but soon joined Dr. Bill McCoy in outpatient. Dr. Bill served for a number of years at a Nazarene Hospital in Swaziland until it was nationalized and has been serving in PNG since 1996. He's a little crazy, can be very loud, but is just the nicest guy, and a very compassionate physician.
We saw patients in his office and looked at a good deal of X-rays and ultrasounds (these are about the only imaging tools that they have at this hospital). Dr. Bill was called in to another room in order to take a look at a baby that had pyloric stenosis - something Bill said he only sees once every 2 to 3 years. Another baby was a year old and severely malnourished and underweight. I could feel his vertebrae poking out just by just running my finger over his back, his ribs stuck out, and his arms literally felt like skin and bones. This baby also had thrush, an indication of a weak immune system that Dr. Bill thought might be indicative of HIV. The HIV test was negative and Bill had the baby started on an IV and supplements. The baby will likely live, but the malnourishment has inhibited crucial brain development during the first year of its life.
Anita is a girl about 12 years old, blind in one eye, and suffers from convulsions due to chorea (Dr. Bill called her the little chorean). It is a very sad case to see, but of all of the hundreds of patients that I have seen at this hospital, none of them smile as much as Anita. She is always so happy, and loves to shake hands with people. It certainly made me realize that if this girl, in her condition, can be chronically and incessantly happy, then I have no excuse not to be as well.
I finished with Dr. Bill before 4:00 and still had time to swing by the operating theatre and see the draining of liver abcesses. Afterward, I went by the neonate part of the maternity ward and saw a baby that was born yesterday with no legs, a tiny stub (3 cm) of a left arm, and a small right arm that ends in just a thumb. This was really sad to see. Since the baby also had an underdeveloped jaw, it is not able to latch on and feed. This produces a pretty big ethical dilemma for the doctors, because it is unlikely that the baby will survive and if it does, it will have a poor quality of life.
However, the best part of the day occured during my outpatient time with Dr. Bill. A mother and father came in with their two month old baby suffering from a skull fracture. Bill asked the baby's name, only to find out that he had not yet beened named, which is not that uncommon in PNG. Dr. Bill told the parents, "You are going to name this baby Brian, like him ". The parents smiled and nodded and the father told me that they could now have the naming ceremony. Dr. Bill wrote "Brian" on the baby's health records and it showed up on the X-ray. Dr. Bill then referred to me as "Big Brian" for the rest of the day, because we obviously wouldn't want to get me confused with Little Brian. That's right people, I have a child named after me. Namesakes are fairly common around here. Many of the missionaries have at least one. It is definitely an honor to have someone name their child after you, but you are expected to contribute if the child has medical expenses. Though, considering major surgery here costs $60 US dollars, I can probably swing that.

Church's Chicken

This Sunday I went to Usnung Church of the Nazarene with Mike and Diana Chapman (two missionaries) and Marshall Harris (a fellow Olivet student). This church was way up in the mountains, about a 15 minute drive on the paved road, and then another 15 minute drive on the narrow, dirt-paved, puddle-filled, you-can-only-get-through-with-a-Jeep road. This was a momentous occasion for the two year old church because it was the first time that missionaries (or any other white person) had ever attended. Also in attendance were two tribal elders, Gola Kos - magistrate and tribal chief of the Highlands, and a man in his 90s whos name escapes me. We four white people and two tribal elders were given chairs to sit on for the church service. It was quite the affair.
After the service is when the real fun began. The congregation led us beside the church where they had a gift for us visitors - 20 to 30 pineapples, over 200 oranges, a bakery cake all the way from Mt. Hagen that had "Usnung Church of the Nazarene: Wellcom Work and Witness Team" written on it (this was a really big deal), peanuts, and four chickens. Mike and Diana Chapman have been missionaries here for quite a few years and had never experienced anything like this before. We thanked the congregation and loaded up the bounty into the Landcruiser after sharing half of the cake with them.
The Olivet team is leaving tomorrow morning. This means that they cannot use the chickens that were gifted us. Therefore, we gave one to Gola Kos (affectionately known as "Papa Gola"), Chapmans took two, and I got one. I had to stop at my house really quickly after church before going to Sliding Rock with some missionaries, so I put my chicken in the shower to prevent it from running away. It was still there when I got back. One of my neighbors gave me a plywood box to keep it in. I hope it enjoys its accommodations tonight because tomorrow it wil likely be residing on my dinner table. I'll be sharpening my bushknife tonight.

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Comments

[Michelle Sweeten]

Wow
Really enjoying your posts!!!