Thursday's big case

Bruce is the lead surgeon for removing the large tumor from the woman's face shown previously. This case is drawing a crowd. There are observers standing on stools to get a look.

Breakfast at Indiana House

Typical breakfast at Indiana House. The San Diego 4 always have their laptops open.

Wednesday dinner party

For dinner Wednesday, we were honored to be invited to the home of Dr. Henry Ngoitsi and family. He and Fridah have four daughters. The oldest two, twins June and Jill, are away at school. Ashley and Hope were there. We had a wonderful dinner and birthday cake, celebrating Fridah's (Wednesday) and Hope's (Monday) birthdays. Hope turned 7.

Biomedical engineers

Wednesday I met up with some of my engineering friends at the hospital, including Mark (above) and Francis (below).

Sights

Photos can't capture the energy, chaos, sounds, and smells, of walking in Eldoret.

One stop shopping

My favorite store is Khetia's. They have EVERYTHING. First floor is like a grocery plus a CVS/Walgreens (w/o the pharmacy). Second floor is appliances, kitchen pots , pans, cookware, plates, glasses, etc. Second floor is also hardware, including solar panels, generators, wheelbarrowss, and more. Third floor has furniture, motorcycles and bicycles. To go between floors, you walk on a long ramp. The ramp going from second to third was a shoe store. If they don't have it, you don't need it.

New patient added to surgery schedule

While the team was operating today, the ENT clinic nurse staff brought this woman (and a couple others) to the operating theatre to be evaluated. This patient is being added to the surgery schedule this week.

Metal detector

This is new. There is now a metal detector at the main entrance of the hospital. But it isn't manned and people can choose to walk through it or around it. They randomly choose one or the other for ease of getting in or out. It beeps loudly, continuously, detecting any metal. While writing this, I'm watching, and I've probably seen a hundred people go through it and it has beeped for all but two people. Perhaps there is a plan for actually using it in the future, or for certain times or situations. I'll have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

First case underway

Ready to start

Tuesday morning. The team is set up, ready to start surgeries.

Group photo from Irish pub

Irish pub

Our Kenyan host doctors treated us to dinner Monday night at a new Irish pub in a new mall. This mall was well under construction last year. Today it would impress almost anyone from anywhere. Here are some photos from the pub. As seems to be common here, while the menu does include Irish dishes, it also offered Indian dishes, pizzas, and also Chinese.

Fresh fruit

Here's a cart with pineapple and watermelon for sale along the street. The picture/lighting isn't great because it's parked under a shade tree out of the sun.

Toothpaste

One errand today was to buy toothpaste for one of our group. I bought mint flavor but was tempted to buy this one so they could tell me what it's like. Note the flavors making up the overall "herbal"... Chamomile, sage, myrrh, and eucalyptus.

Monday clinic...

Monday's clinic is moving along as planned. Here, a patient is in the chair while the doctors discuss the case.

The plan

Here's the basic plan for today and the coming days...

The local ENT's identify patients that might benefit from our group throughout the year, and ask them to return today to be evaluated further.

So in clinic today, everyone but me will be seeing patients and deciding who might benefit from surgery by this team, who should be operated on by the local surgeons at some other time, who needs what tests or scans, etc. By the end of the day, they (hopefully) will have reviewed ~ 70 potential patients and scheduled surgeries for about 30-40 over the next week+.

I hope to get local cell phone service working for everyone today and get the supplies moved to the hospital.

1/2 ton of stuff

Sunday evening. In the photo, Susan and Bruce are doing some sorting of the 1/2 ton of supplies we all brought. Diana and Kathi are doing the same but outside the photo. They are deciding what needs to go to the ENT clinic Monday morning and what needs to go to the hospital operating "theatre", as it's known in a former British colony.

All of this luggage was sent by road from Nairobi to Eldoret, a 5-6 hour drive. We can't put it on the plane as it's weigh too much. Get it? "Weigh" too much? Sorry.

This sorting is happening in "the library" At IU House, in House #1. There are four main houses at IU House. Each has common space downstairs and 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms upstairs for visitors like us. The common areas for the houses are as follows:

#1- Library. Quiet room with couches, used for many purposes including Swahili lessons in the morning and skyping back home to friends/family in the evening. Also a washing machine in this house.

#2- kitchen, dining hall, and water boiling area for sterilized water.

#3- Administrative offices

#4- computer room (but there is Wi-Fi throughout) and another washing machine.

I will work with the hospital driver to move all this stuff to the hospital on Monday.

The gang's all here

From left to right, Diana, Aria, Sarek, Bharat, Robert, Susan, Bruce, and Kathi.

Tusker time!

Indiana House

Ahhh... Back home again, in Indiana House...

With our mosquito net.

Last flight

After an awesome 6 hours of sleep and a hot shower, we are back at the airport for our short flight to Eldoret.

The San Diego 4 have landed in Nairobi from Ethiopia and will catch up with us this evening.

Bed time!

We checked in at our Nairobi hotel just after 5am. Breakfast was "open", so we are now going to try to get some sleep for a few hours. Being horizontal will be awesome!

Lost luggage

Well, frankly we were surprised any of our luggage made it to Nairobi after changing from KLM to Turkish Air in Amsterdam. 5 of our 6 checked bags made it. I had to file a missing luggage report with this gentleman.

Doctor at work

Susan is helping a passenger who fainted. It seems fairly common that on these long overnight international flights that someone will have a medical issue, usually not too serious. Susan and other doctors and nurses will volunteer. This passenger dropped face down in the aisle near us, so Susan took over care with the flight attendants helping (not pictured). Dehydration and subsequent low blood pressure was the likely problem.

Istanbul

We arrived in Istanbul. On board next flight to Nairobi. Feeling tired and defeated...

Waiting for takeoff from Amsterdam

She just said she was going to try to stay awake for this flight...

The joys of air travel

So it seems a pilot called in sick today. And apparently there are rules that say if you only have 2 pilots, you can't fly more than 8-1/2 hours. With one pilot sick, our plane only had 2 pilots. So that's why they only flew to Dublin. KLM dispatched fresh pilots to fly from Amsterdam to Dublin to turn around and fly our plane to Amsterdam, a 1 hour flight. Regulations ought to have clauses to avoid stupidity. But then it would only be a suggestion and not a regulation.

Our flight to Nairobi was scheduled to leave Amsterdam at noon. We landed at 11:30. By the time we taxied to the terminal and actually got off the plane, it was 11:45. We ran, ran, and ran from terminal D to terminal F. Not a short run. Had to run thru the shopping mall in the middle. We were thrilled to discover that the flight was just finishing boarding. There were probably 6 or 7 of us trying to get on the flight. KLM would NOT let us board. They had unilaterally rebooked all of us to fly 24 hours later, same flight tomorrow. We were so mad. They were still boarding but wouldn't let us on! We had boarding passes. But we were no longer on the official roster and they wouldn't add us. Blah blah blah about not enough time for our luggage to transfer. We said we didn't care of the luggage came a day later. But to no avail. There are luggage regulations to follow. Regulations, again.

We knew there were other options besides waiting 24 hours, which some people were willing to do. Kenya Airways has a direct flight to Nairobi later in the day but it is oversold with a long standby list. Some had KLM to book them to Nairobi via Dubai, but those seats were gone by the time we asked. But we did get KLM to put us on Turkish Air to Istanbul and then to Nairobi at 4am. So hopefully we'll get there only 8 hours later than planned.

We are not happy with KLM today, to say the least!

Bonus stop in Ireland

Before boarding our flight from San Francisco to Amsterdam, they announced we will make a stop in Dublin, Ireland, to change crew. We are expected to miss our connection in Amsterdam but we will run to the next flight and try our best if there's any chance it hasn't left yet.

350 pounds of luggage

At airport parking, ready for the shuttle. I'll have to be generous with the driver's tip!

Hardest part of the trip is the beginning

... Dropping off the dogs at "Stay And Play" pet care.

The Campbells must be looking forward to Kenya weather

Bruce and Kathi Campbell must be looking forward to the weather in Kenya. On Wednesday this week, their high temperature is -12F. For my Kenyan readers, that's -24C. That's the warmest part of the day on Wednesday.

Getting ready for 2019 Kenya trip

Sourcing and packing hundreds of pounds of medical supplies starts long before the actual trip.