Today was our second last clinic. We are all feeling the push and pull of wanting to do more yet missing home. Today we say 580 patients with a variety of concerns. Some of the more common things we see in clinic are significant numbers of hypertension, upper respiratory tract infections, peptic ulcer disease, diabetes, wounds and malaria (testing and treating). We have a set list of medications we use that cover the majority of infections we see.

Medications is another area that fundraising dollars go towards. We have made connections with specific local pharmacies where we order our set list of medication every few days. Its hard to "guess" what we might need so we do keep stats on diagnosis and treatments. This helps us ensure we are stocking up on what we are actually seeing not just what we "think" we are seeing....more about stats later.  It ensures we are not wasting dollars/meds because we know that year to year some things change and we need to change with it. If it is a big year of hypertension then antihypertensive medication is top of the list etc. We want to ensure responsible spending of our hard earned funds so we spend locally, small batches and ensure we get restock every few days.

Today's clinic had such a beautiful flow to it...lots of patients but they were well spread out throughout the day....any nurse or health care professional reading this understands why that is so lovely .....volume is fine as long as there is not rush/quiet/rush/quiet!!!

Ironically , after writing yesterday's post about how wounds this year seem less severe.....we had quite a few severe wounds in today. One gentleman noted that he has been struggling with his significant leg wound for 10 years.....pretty unimaginable for most of us. We were able to clean it up, dress it and make plans for follow up. We all wish him well in obtaining ongoing treatment.

We have made significant inroads with the local health departments. We have now identified at least 11 that serve the people of the villages we visit. It is tricky because we hear that medication is sometimes hard to secure or that wounds won't be managed at certain locations etc. We are in the early stages of our relationship building with them and really do hope to secure a firm direction for patients when we aren't here.

All in all we are doing well, a bit of an emotional time, as I noted above we are all missing home and our people but also enjoying the work. Saturday our travels home or further on to vacation time starts.

We had a bit of a funny time on our way home from clinic today....a few of us had planned a delicious coffee date after a long hard day of sweating and working....we thought about it ALL day long!!!! Ok home time....we pile into the van, the excitement buzzing around the van...coffee....coffee...coffee....until.....we heard a weird noise and the van pulled over....Jerry sticks his head in the window, smiles sweetly and says with a giggle and a laugh "Welcome to Africa, now you get the REAL experience....we have a flat tire"....out we go...all of us, standing around on the side of the road ( in safety of course) watching as Jerry and Jeff...and a few kind strangers...one of whom introduced himself as James Bond.....changed the tire with the use of cleverly placed boulders and sheer strength..it was baffling and went against everything we thought we knew about changing tires.......as if 10 exhausted, giggling Canadian nurses standing on the side of the road wasn't enought....the universe felt we needed a torrential downpour to make it even more "special"...and boy was it special....we laughed and laughed about how silly the whole situation was.....what a great memory for us to take home. Check out the pics....they certainly aren't our finest moments but moments together none the less.....its a lot of work with a few solid laughs

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