Clinic #3 – Mundungu, April 26/17

By day 3, we were a well oiled machine, loading the van, setting up and starting with minimal fusses. Everyday started with an introduction to the community leaders, a song and a prayer, to bless the day and all the people taking part in it. We rotated through triage, meds, learning opportunities, and assisting with various other tasks. Meds turned out to be a lot harder than I expected at the start. Just trying to locate the specific medication and correct dosing you were looking for was difficult... but then came all the (albeit basic but still challenging) math. We all seemed to catch on quick, because our brains were truly put to the test with pediatric dosing calculations. Thank goodness for the buddy system for checking medication orders. And really, if anything, a little organized chaos is the spice to life. That, and music. Sarah, one of the Kenyan nurses also provided us with the opportunity to see a birth control rod inserted into a patient's inner arm. The insertion itself was fairly straightforward, and nothing a little lidocaine couldn't fix. Lidocaine was inserted into the arm directly under the skin first to numb the area, and then a rod was inserted in to the…

Continue ReadingClinic #3 – Mundungu, April 26/17

Clinic #2 – Budaywa, April 25/17

Hello from the other side. It appears that I have survived! Clinic #2 was a mystery to me, but the others gave me the breakdown of the day. To start off, I had my first interaction with Solomon, CNFA's number one fan. No one gets as jazzed about us being here as Solomon. He is an angel in every way, and helps facilitate the gathering of the community and blessing of the day by prayer. The clinics work as such; patients register first with their name, age, community and stated complaints. They then come to triage for weights, temps, blood pressures and heart rates based on their ages. We identify people that are very sick at this point and fast track them to the clinical officers immediately, as some of these people need transfer to hospital ASAP. The next step is to speak to the clinic officers who order their meds, and then to the medication table to get them dispensed. The Kenyan nurses provided education on medication administration and answer any questions they may have. Usually at this point we also provide wound care where appropriate, or extra supplies such as reading glasses. As a triage nurse, patients come to you to do vitals.…

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Clinic #1 – Inegero, April 24/17

Unfortunately, some of us were not off to a great start this morning. While I stayed home and puked my guts out, the rest of CNFA was off touching the lives of the community of Inegero. Here is a rendition of what I have been told. The first timers of the group were feeling nervous, not really sure what to anticipate in terms of the setup, schedule or flow of the day. Since this was the first mission most of us had ever done, we had no baseline in terms of what to expect. However, with the help of our fearless leaders, we were brought up to speed quickly, and fell into the motions of triaging, dispensing meds and connecting with our patients. Every person was incredibly patient, had travelled far and was unbelievably thankful for the help we provided. This created an overwhelming sense of heartbreak but also the amazing feeling of being able to physically see your actual impact on a person's life. This clinic brought the first year of rapid diagnostic testing of malaria, which is a WHO best practice guideline, and is only possible due to the funding CNFA received this year. In the first day, 50% of the people tested…

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Kakamega/Kisumu – April 23/17

Jambo!! Breakfast lead to some very interesting discoveries: 1) if someone offers you something called arrow root, do not accept 2) if you do, be prepared for it to look like a purple potato, be the texture of spaghetti squash and generally taste like cardboard. But hey, when in Kenya, do as the Kenyans do. We loaded into our almighty Jesus van to pick up some RDTs (rapid diagnostic testing) for malaria from the local chemists', and then ventured to Kisumu to pick up our delivery of 29 boxes of various meds for the clinics. Low and behold the journey was a trying one. The roads are definitely something out of a roller coaster ride. That being said, the scenery helped take away from the jostling and bumping roads. Oh, and not fixating on the fact that they drive on the left hand side here. The chemist welcomed us and our girl (+Brian) power to lug said boxes into our car and get pumped about the start of clinics! This also gave us time to explore some local markets and the talented artists, partake in some sweet, sweet bargaining and hit up the local Nakumat (aka Kenyan Costco). There is something so interesting about hitting…

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