Diana's secret

Diana admits she is in a position of power in the theatre. But she reveals the source of her power. She has the keys to the storage areas for our supplies, and she has the bottle opener for the cokes that Todd and I bring in.

Friends and family, 2013

Friends and family members always seem to request a consult when we are here. Sometimes they lead to surgery. This time, no. Susan broke scrub for a quick lunch when one of the hospital anesthetists showed up with his son who has had a history of sore throats and thought maybe his tonsils were giving him trouble. His tonsils looked fine but he is suffering from a virus. Just like back home, the cold and flu viruses seem to be pretty popular here, too.

Lunch

Lunch is brought in daily for the "ENT surgical camp". This is a typical Kenyan lunch. a piece of fried chicken, rice, cabbage, and a chapati.

(Homework assignment for school kids: what is a chapati?)

Wednesday surgeries

There are 5 surgeries scheduled for today. In one room there will be a large tumor removal that will take all day. The other 4 cases will be in the other room.

Diana runs the show

...from her perch between the two operating rooms.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, the team had their first day in the O.R., or the operating "theatre" as they say here. Seven surgeries were completed. I'm not sure what the cases were but know they included at least a thyroidectomy and parotidectomy. The last surgery ended around 9pm. Afterwards, we had our bus take us to dinner at Mama Mia, a favorite restaurant nearby. 

The nursing team spent a lot of time sorting through the supplies we brought and organizing them and the stock room that we use in the theatre area. Diana has negotiated that a smaller room be dedicated to ENT supplies. Todd and I will look at it today and see if we can work with the hospital buildings/construction people to build storage shelves. Hopefully if we pay for the materials they will obtain them and supply the labor. 

Sent from Kyle's AT&T iPhone

Drinking water

We have abundant drinking (and tooth brushing) water at IU House. Every day water is filtered and then boiled in this giant pot over a propane burner. It is then poured into large urns from where we can refill our water bottles.

Weather forecast

With apologies to those back home suffering in the sub-freezing temperatures, here's our weather forecast. By the way, we also have low humidity and comfortable breezes...

Entrance to IU House complex

The picturesque entrance to the IU House complex.

Room at IU House

Here's our room at IU House. Kind of like a big dorm room. Basic but functional.

Guard dogs

The intimidating guard dogs at IU House.

Monday, end of day

Clinic ended around 9pm Monday. The team saw 60 patients. They signed up many for surgery. Others require CT scans or additional testing and will be reviewed again in clinic in the next few days.

After clinic, we had our bus take us to Siam, the Chinese restaurant. It was nice to finally kick back and relax a bit.

In these pictures, Kristina is taking a moment to teach a med student while seeing a patient in clinic, and Todd is feeling the effects of being jet-lagged and sleep deprived. We were all running on fumes by Monday evening.

Staff bus and luggage

We have been given use of a driver and the hospital's bus. The picture doesn't show the bus's age. It's rather old but functional.

Our luggage arrived in Eldoret about 6pm on Monday so Marisa, Todd, and I and our bus retrieved it. Wow, that's a lot of heavy luggage. It's hard to maneuver it through the narrow isle and onto seats.

Watch your step

Elgon View Road, outside of IU House. Watch your step as you begin your walk toward the hospital. Your shoes will get dirty enough without stepping in a "pie".

Monday clinic

Here are a couple of snapshots from Monday afternoon clinic. Note in upper photo, many med students are being instructed while the patient is being examined and "scoped".

Full house at Indiana House

This board shows who's staying at the complex. It's way past full. But this gives an idea of the scope of the IU-Kenya partnership and participation.

Indiana House

Ahhhh. We have safely arrived at Indiana House in Eldoret. We will have an orientation of the complex, then have lunch, and then head to the hospital and the medical people will conduct clinic.

Flight to Eldoret

Ready to board our turboprop to Eldoret. Row 9 for me. It's the last row of the plane!

Back to the airport

Time to rally and go back to the airport for our early flight to Eldoret. We had about 3 hours or so at the Fairview hotel. It's hard to imagine being so tired but hardly able to sleep because your body knows its 5pm back home and should be watching NFL playoff games.

Arriving in Nairobi

We arrived safely. Here we are rounding up our 22 pieces of checked luggage at the Nairobi airport.

Delayed in Amsterdam

We are delayed leaving Amsterdam due to a problem with the motor for one of the cargo doors. So far it's been 2 hours. Hopefully we will depart soon.

Sent from Kyle's AT&T iPhone

Arrived in Amsterdam

The JFK group has arrived in Amsterdam. Hopefully we will meet up with the others soon.

Heading to Amsterdam

We have boarded our flight to Amsterdam. We are at JFK. Others went through Detroit. And one couple is flying from Seattle. But we will all meet up in Amsterdam for the flight to Nairobi.

Who's on this trip and how many times will they have been to Kenya? (R)= rookie. 😄

Susan (8) and Kyle (6) Cordes
Ed (3) and Donna (3) Weisberger
Kristina Hart (R) and Todd Harder (R)
Bryan McRae (R)
Diana Sullivan (4)
Marisa Dunn (R)
Debra Rose (R)

Susan, Ed, and Kristina are ENT surgeons, Bryan is an ENT Resident. Diana, Marisa, and Debra are nurses. The others, us spouses, are "support staff".

Indy airport

Many of our group are at Harry & Izzy's enjoying our now traditional pre-flight lunch.

Departure day

Today we begin our journey back to Eldoret. The hardest thing for us is to leave Moshi behind. We will take him to his sitter's house In a couple of hours. It's tough to leave but we are anxious to get under way and to finally get there on Monday.

Our good friend and neighbor Larry Lazarz will haul us and an extreme amount of luggage to the airport. Susan is very good at maximizing the supplies we take by ensuring that we and all participants use their entire allotment of checked bags. We just discovered this week that Delta will allow Susan and I to each check three 50# bags, plus bring a carry-on. We can check three each because of our frequent flier status. It will be a relief when we get it all checked in and an even bigger relief when it is all in Eldoret.

Speaking of supplies and extreme amounts of luggage, we have made arrangements to have the bulk of our luggage sent by truck from Nairobi to Eldoret. It is too much to take on our Kenya Airways flight to Eldoret. We should arrive in Eldoret early Monday while our luggage should catch up with us late in the afternoon.

RUMA Upholstery

Riley hospital retired three old surgery stools. Because they are used in the O.R., They have foot-powered hydraulic lifts so a surgeon can adjust the height with their feet (and not their sterile hands.) They have backrests but not arms(again for sterile reasons). These made their way to Susan Cordes to donate to the IU-Kenya program. They weren't in horrible condition, but they weren't pretty. The hydraulics still worked fine. The leather upholstery was in terrible condition. I replaced a couple of the ball bearing casters that, well, no longer rolled. But what to do about the upholstery? I called RUMA Upholstery on the northwest side of town as the family that owns it and works there is from Kenya. They were very gracious and quickly offered to reupholster the stools at no charge. I've picked up their work and just need to put the piece-parts back together again and then they'll be ready to go on the next IU shipping container to Kenya. Eventually we will see them again, but on the other side of the world!

Getting ready for next trip to Kenya

We are packing medical supplies, getting ready for our upcoming trip to Kenya. Luckily, Kyle has help from Moshi!

Home with Moshi

Good to be home with Moshi.

And luggage to be delivered tomorrow if not later tonight.

Back in USA

We are in Minneapolis. We made our connection in Paris but apparently our luggage didn't. Oh we'll. as long as we get home this evening.

BARELY made our connection in Paris. This airport is horrible. Will avoid in the future if possible. Wow. The worst. And we've been in a lot of airports. Hopefully smooth trip to Minneapolis and then Indy.

Saturday dinner

We were wondering around looking for a place to have dinner. We were checking out menus and such. We went in a little place and Susan asked if they had a menu in English (as many do.). The proprietor said "no because the menu is fresh" and he pulled up his laptop with a Spanish to English interpreter website and told us what was on the menu. We had to stay. Food was great. Can't beat the friendly service.

Religious procession

So it's 8:30pm Saturday night and we turn down a street and find a religious procession complete with music, candles, incense, and a statue of Mary being carried by two dozen men. Very unexpected but interesting.

Saturday, Malaga

Today we saw the ancient Cathedral (from the outside), powered our way through the Picasso museum (this is his hometown) and had a tapas lunch at an outdoor restaurant. This afternoon we are at out hotel relaxing. We will have an early start tomorrow to make our way home.

Nice day for a wedding in Malaga

We stumbled across a wedding about to start at a beautiful church amongst the narrow pedestrian streets in old Malaga. We watched as guests entered the church grounds. Many women wore large, colorful hats. You would have thought it a royal wedding.

Chocolate and churros

We stopped at a little street cafe for hot chocolate and churros. The chocolate was very thick, like drinking very warm chocolate cake batter. Mmmmm.

Return to Malaga

Early this morning our ship returned to Malaga. We will spend the day and night the city and begin our trip home early Sunday morning. Today we may visit the old cathedral. It is easy to see from the harbor.

Friday, Le Alhambra, Grenada Spain

We visited beautiful Grenada and the Alhambra palace dating to the 1300's.