News from the Medical Wards

Hello everyone,
Now i have had 2 days on the medical service- and all i can say is wow- i was so overwhelmed yesterday that i couldn't muster up the energy to write. There are so many sick people here, probably not that different from 2006 but i had just forgotten. I have started a list of all the diagnosis that i have seen so that when i get home i will not forgot everything.  I won't go into all the details of each and every one of them here on the blog but i am sure a few of you in the medical ward will be interested in some.
Yesterday we had 5 patients in ICU- but they only have 3 ventilators, so 2 were struggling a bit.  One man of 34 years who has underlying cardiomyopathy from viral myocarditis came in few nights before i started with a flare of his heart failure that he had tried to go to a witchdoctor for- he had multiple horizontal cuts on both sides of his abdomen and several on his lower legs that the witchdoctor had tried to push herbs into his skin.Unfortunately that doesn't work as well as medications but one of the sites on his legs had gotten infected and his came in with gangrene and sepsis from it. He lost his right leg above the knee but probably still won't survive. His blood pressure hasn't been above 65 systolic and he hasn't made any urine in 2 days. They ran out of dopamine ( a medication we use to keep blood pressure up in sepsis) and so we were mixing powdered epinephrine with water and making our own concoction- unheard of in america. We have 2 patients with esophageal cancer, one with trismus from diptheria,  many with HIV and its complications. They treat almost anyone with an abnormal chest xray with TB meds empirically as it takes there lab too long to do AFB smears and they were amazed there is now a PCR test that comes back so quickly.  Everyone with diarrhea gets dewormed (with no testing) and everyone with an unexplained fever gets malaria treatment even if the smear is negative as they say some of the lab workers don't take the time to look for the malaria organisms.
Katie is going to be busier than i am- she has gone with the OB/Gyn doctor and today she is with the gastroenterologist.  In between she has been given several projects by one of the nurses which by itself will keep her busy the two weeks we are here.
All is well, we are trying to adjust to the time change still.
Allie, you will be proud of us doing the Yoga tape after work
Deuce, you will be happy to know we met a boy named Gilbert who remembered you from soccer. He was SOOO excited to see the photo we brought from you and your soccer gang.
Dad, hope you haven't had to go to the grocery store everyday this week. We heard that is what happened the first few days we were gone.
Lots of love,
Tracy and Katie