dr. and mrs. b. have been gone to the usa to receive an award from the ama (american medical association) entitled “excellence in international medicine”. yes, that is very impressive. only one physician receives this award each year. if anyone deserves it, it would be dr. b. another doctor and his wife moved in to the house to keep the 2 junior b.s and myself company. they like very much to cook elaborate meals, which is fantastic. the man is an ob/gyn, and i have been shadowing him all week at the hospital - i’ve been learning a lot. gynecology involves a lot of clinic time inspecting a lot of… you guessed it. also a lot of counseling women on how to get pregnant. also, we have spent a lot of time in the operating room - laparoscopies, tumor and fibroid removals, hysterectomies, and an ectopic pregnancy removal (read blood, blood and more blood. the fetus implanted itself in the fallopian tube and the placenta vigorously attached itself to every organ within reach). also things like the results of female genital mutilation and spontaneous abortions that are happening right then and there. it gets pretty intense sometimes. it can be really rough being a woman in kenya. for example, there is a girl here who was forced into marriage when she was 14. she immediately got pregnant, but when she gave birth the baby died and she got a fistula (urine and stool were coming out the wrong hole). thus her husband abandoned her. so she went to live with her brother, who decided that she wasn’t worth feeding, so she became extremely malnourished. to top it all off, when she came in to have her issue repaired (which it turns out was far easier said than done) it was found that her husband had given her hiv. she’s not even 18 yet. very sad.
the other day i got to watch a baby get delivered for the first time! it was extremely exhilarating, and i was just watching! i’m just glad i’m not a woman so i don’t have to dread the experience, especially since that first baby had a huge head and left a trail of destruction on its way out that required many stitches to repair. by now i’ve had the chance to see more deliveries - in fact in one 1 hour stretch there were no less than 5! in other news, i got really sick but thankfully recovered in about a day, took a matatu into nairobi and got lost for most of the day (but it was the good kind of lost), and got the most terrible back pain i have ever had from twisting it playing basketball as well as bouncing around in the matatu. the trip back from nairobi was so crowded that this elderly man who had clearly been smoking far too much pot in the recent past had to legit sit on my lap the whole trip home. i think he enjoyed his “trip” a little more than i did mine. not to complain though - the babies definitely made this week one of the best yet!
the other day i got to watch a baby get delivered for the first time! it was extremely exhilarating, and i was just watching! i’m just glad i’m not a woman so i don’t have to dread the experience, especially since that first baby had a huge head and left a trail of destruction on its way out that required many stitches to repair. by now i’ve had the chance to see more deliveries - in fact in one 1 hour stretch there were no less than 5! in other news, i got really sick but thankfully recovered in about a day, took a matatu into nairobi and got lost for most of the day (but it was the good kind of lost), and got the most terrible back pain i have ever had from twisting it playing basketball as well as bouncing around in the matatu. the trip back from nairobi was so crowded that this elderly man who had clearly been smoking far too much pot in the recent past had to legit sit on my lap the whole trip home. i think he enjoyed his “trip” a little more than i did mine. not to complain though - the babies definitely made this week one of the best yet!
