Monday evening

Sorry about lack of posts but our connections have been down. Saturday night we had a difficult case. The principle surgical tech, who actually does much of the surgery, brought his mother to the hospital. She was vomiting blood and her blood pressure was very low. They drew some blood to get her blood type ( B+ ) . Warren was the only one on our team with that type and he immediately donated. They do not have a blood bank, so if we do a case that might require a transfusion then there must be donors at the hospital. Anyway, we brought the ultrasound machine to her bed and checked her liver, it appeared cirrhotic and was likely causing the bleeding, but we needed to verify. Adi does not have a gastroscope for looking into the stomach, but there was an old sigmoidoscope. Warren rigged a light source from another old piece of equipment and we were set. We used a bulb aspirator to blow air through the scope and passed it into her esophagus. There I unfortunately found many esophageal varices. there was nothing more to do but line up more donors and pray with the family. unfortunately she passed away during the night. Hepatitis B is a very common cause of liver cirrhosis in Africa, we see it commonly.

On a happier note, I delivered my first breach baby,(feet first). I was getting ready to do a c-section when the mother had other ideas and began delivering, so there we were, no choice but get him out. Nice healthy boy. The mother walked out of the operating room.

Sunday was a good day. Greg and Gina had a full day of sharing with the youth. Gina and Mary went to the youth sunday school classes and Gina spoke through a translator, Mr. Onzi Langa the english teacher at the school. She spoke to 4 classes, the last had 140 youth. She probably taught between 300 and 400. When Greg, Warren and I caught up after church service, Gina was praying with several to receive Christ! The afternoon was full of youth activities and Greg gave a message to about 150. After the service, several young men came to them to pray about concerns and 4 young men came to the Lord.

Today we revised a colostomy, did a thyroidectomy and a few smaller cases. We changed the dressing on the burn patient that we skin grafted and it looks good so far.

See you guys soon,

Mark, Mary, Greg, and Gina

We had a great visit with Pastor Yoma Balorge Charles on Sun night. He gave us the history of Adi mission, I will share this next time.

Today we had a slow start but by the end of the day we had done a good days work. I lost count of the dozens of patients that Warren saw in clinic. One of the local Docs does clinic with him. Warren has to speak French to the Doc who translates to Lingala, which is the general trade language.Most also speak a tribal language. Some speak english but they are generally from Uganda or Sudan. Adi is only about 12 miles from those borders. In surgery today I did a colostomy revision, we changed the bandage on the burn patient, did a thyroidectomy and irrigated an infected lacrimal (tear)duct on a 3 year old.

We didn't have water last night or this morning and do now, so its off to the showers.

See you guys soon

Mark, Mary, Greg and Gina