Adjustements

I am quickly adjusting to life in Gabon and at Hopital Schweitzer especially. I still feel a little tired and stomach achy, but it is going down. To me, this indicates that my immune system is adapting to all of the new antigens that are assaulting it. I have also been washing my hands like a crazy person which I think has avoided any giant gastro-intestinal problems thus far. Interestingly I had a lot of problems sleeping the first few nights because all the noises kept me up. Now I sleep like an old log at night and during my afternoon siesta. The sounds of animals, people, wind, water, insects no longer bother me. Speaking of insects, on Monday we had a migratory ant invasion. Apparently, a huge column of ants arrived at 7pm and invaded the house. According to my roommate (I was out at dinner) they covered the drapes and the floor. She fought valiantly against them with water and bug spray, and was able to get rid of them. By the time I got home they were much less numerous. Still you could sweep up giant piles of dead ants and the kitchen sink was full of drowned ants.

In terms of hospital work, there is a French medical student working with me in pediatrie and we are seeing patients all by ourselves all day long. We do the newborn visits in the morning, help with rounding, see patients in the late morning and develop the treatment plans together. We even admit our patients and follow them in the hospital now. Most of the cases we see are gastroenteritis and malaria, but even with the trickier things we are starting to head out on our own. It's a nice pace of work. Sometimes I worry that we are going to screw something up for a patient, but I remember that you can get antibiotics at the pharmacy here without seeing a doctor and that a lot of people use traditional healers still, so we cannot be doing more harm than those two avenues of health care. I do need to organize what I have learned and my work into more of a guide though. That way I will become more efficient and be able to help out even more. For example, today we saw 11 patients in total. I think within a few weeks I should be able to see even more.