Mike's life at Kijabe

I figure that it is about time that I update you on what I've been doing for the past 2 weeks, and I actually have a chance to sit down and write tonight, so here it goes. I have been spending a lot of time in the hospital so far. Just some background; Kijabe Hospital is a 250 bed full service hospital with medicine, surgery, orthopedics, pediatrics, ob/gyn services. It is also an academic teaching hospital where 8 Kenyan national interns are trained each year. I have been rotating on one of the internal medicine services for the past two weeks, and will spend one more week there before I spend the final 2 weeks with the anesthetists in the ORs.
My first day at the hospital was last Tuesday. I then took call on Wednesday night, and was also on call all of the past weekend. Today was actually the first day that I was not in the hospital as we drove out to a rural clinic about 2 hours away. It was a great change of scenery. A "typical" day lasts from 7am until 5pm and is spent between morning conference, rounding on patients in the wards, a lunch conference, and taking care of patients in casualty (the British term for the ER). My first night on call last Wednesday was not too bad. As a student I am the first call for anything they need in the wards or that comes into casualty. I was at the hospital until 12am and then was not called back until 630am. The weekend however was very busy. I was able to sleep from about 4am until we got up for church at 730 on Saturday night/Sunday morning, and was in the hospital from 2pm until 2am on Sunday. Fortunately I did get to go to church though!
There is a huge variety in the types of patients and in the problems and disease that we see. From a learning aspect it is phenomenal. From road accidents to poisonings to end-stage AIDS and many many others. The downside to this is that many of these patients are very sick and there is little that we can do for them. I think that I have had at least one patient die who's care I have been directly involved with almost everyday for the past week. That's more than I saw during the rest of medical school. It has certainly taken its emotional and spiritual toll and I was so thankful for the refreshing of God's spirit from the church service on Sunday. I needed it.
From here out my schedule is not as rough as I don't have anymore weekend calls and only have 1 call per week for each of the next 3 weeks. I am quite thankful for that. We covet your prayers and thank you for them, please keep them coming! God bless!

Pictures!!!

I will admit, it was my fault that we haven't been able to post pictures yet, I forgot the right cord to connect the camera to the computer. Luckily, our wonderful neighbors had the right cord and let us borrow it. So here's a few pictures! -Mike

Us!

Kijabe Hospital

The Great Rift Valley

One week down, four to go!

I thought I would update everyone again! No, we don't have pictures yet. But yes, we will work on that. The week has been really busy for Mike. He is at the hospital every day and he was on call this entire weekend. He did get about three hours of sleep last night though. He also got to go to church and eat lunch. After that, he was off to the hospital again. I have not been that busy this week. I took just about the entire week to start feeling normal. I wasn't sleeping thanks to jet lag and the evil Malaria drug Mefloquine, but since I stopped taking that, and started getting over my cold, I am feeling much better. I am going to go to the hospital and talk to them about starting to work there. Though, not as hard or as long hours as Mike is working! I am also going to a tea tomorrow with some of the missionary wives. I don't think I've ever been to a tea before so it should be fun. The weather here has been great. Not too warm, not too cold. And no rain yet. It gets really windy though. I had the windows open and I thought the curtains would blow away! I have been on the lookout for the monkeys that are said to hang out in the trees by our apartment in the evenings. I saw one, but didn't have the camera, and haven't seen any others. I am determined though. It was a good first week here. A little rough at times getting adjusted to everything, but good. Mike wants to write a post so hopefully he will have a little time tomorrow and he can share what has been going on in the hospital. Please pray for us and for the patients and doctors at the hospital. It seems like this has been a very busy week for the hospital.

Greetings From Kijabe!

Yes, we are both still alive! I know some of you thought we fell off the face, of the earth, but we are in fact still here. The small things that become common place and we take for granted, such as American outlets, internet hook up, constant phone and electric service, are not as common here it seems. It took IT a bit to give us a hook up and password to get into the internet, and spotty phone service made things difficult. Also, I have an extension cord running from the transformer next to the refrigerator (the only thing that runs on 120 volt power) across the living room to the phone line. I hope I don't trip over the cord! Everything over here runs on the European power system. It's the weird looking outlet that looks too big to actually plug anything into. Fortunately, many of the short term housing apartments are equipped with 120 volt outlets since many Americans come to stay. Unfortunately, we are not in one of these apartments! We have one outlet which is next to the refrigerator that we can use and when we used it we have to unplug the fridge. Until our great neighbor came by and lent us a power strip! Now I can use the computer and keep my food cold!
I will give a brief outline of our time in Kijabe so far.
First, we were picked up on Monday afternoon by the Kijabe ambulance driver. In the Kijabe ambulance! He took us to the grocery store in Nairobi and then we made to hour drive to Kijabe. On the way we stopped at the lookout over the Rift Valley. We were at 8,000 feet high. We could see for miles. It was so beautiful! It was like in the Lion King movie when it pans across the valley at the beginning or the end and it seems to go on forever and ever. We took some pictures but I doubt it will do it justice. We got to Kijabe at about 5:30 in the evening and got settled into our apartment. It has a kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom. Everything we need. We were invited to the next door neighbors apartment for dinner. They have been here about two years. On Tuesday, Mike started his rotations at the hospital bright and early at 7 AM. I slept until about 11:00 since I had taken and Ambien the night before. God bless sleeping pills! I had not had a nights sleep since we arrived. Once I got up our hostess, and next door neighbor Carolyn showed me around. She took me to the Duka (the small grocery/convenience store) and we went to see the vegetable ladies. Dinner was an interesting experience. We did not have anyone's house to go to so we cooked. Except I am not the best cook and we don't have a whole lot of options since our shopping was rushed and we didn't really know what to expect when we got here. So, we came up with fried potatoes and onions( really good), and a chicken and rice soup stew thing (not so good, although mike seemed to enjoy it). Oh well, I'll get better! Last night was not so fun when we went to bed, as I did not take and Ambien and did not get to sleep until 5 AM.
Today, I cleaned, walked around the hospital and chatted with our neighbor. Mike worked most of the day and is now on call tonight. We went to dinner at the Byrds tonight. A missionary family from Australia! It was really good. I need to practice my cooking!
I will probably start working at the hospital next week once I have been able to adjust and get some sleep as well as get over my cold/allergies. I would love to be able to breath again! We are getting settled and are hoping to get a safari scheduled for a weekend when Mike is not on call. I will keep you posted. Hopefully I will be able to do this daily now that we have Internet, but no promises. Also, I'll work on being able to post pictures, but it doesn't look good. So, in the mean time, use your imaginations! We love and miss you all. And happy late birthday to miss Laney, and happy late anniversary to Mom and Dad.

We made it!

We got in to Nairobi last night after about a day of flying. The flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi had very few people so we each got our own row to stretch out in which made the 8 hours a bit more tolerable. We are staying in a guesthouse run by AIM which is very nice. We slept most of the morning as neither of us were able to sleep much on the planes. The time here is 7 hours ahead of eastern time and it gets dark at 7 o'clock. We have all weekend to get our sleep and relax before we head out to Kijabe on Monday. So far we are both feeling well and the food is good! Praise the Lord! We will try to update this but with the rainy season apparently the power goes out frequently. Please continue to pray for us.

AND WE'RE OFF!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow is the big day! We are leaving for Africa tomorrow evening! We are almost packed and ready to go. Thanks to everyone who is praying for us. Hopefully we will both stay healthy on the way there. Which would be great since I haven't felt very well for the last few days. We promise we will try our best to at least write a post once in awhile but pictures may be difficult as the internet there may not make that possible. So, hopefully we have remembered everything, (yes the toothbrushes are packed, and the bibles) and the bags will hopefully be under the weight limit. We will try to let you know when we get there!!!!!!!

MATCH DAY!

The verdict is in! We will be spending the next fours years in Rochester, Minnesota! Mike matched at Mayo Clinic for all four years of residency. We are very excited since this was our first choice! We will be moving right after graduation in May so anyone with a strong back is welcome to come down and help!

Match Week!

We found out today that Mike did match somewhere. We just don't know where yet. We are very happy that he does not have to scramble to find a spot! Someone must have liked him enough to want to put up with him for four years! We find out this Thursday where he matched so we are getting anxious to know.
I am now unemployed. I have left my position at work in order to get ready to go to Africa. If we do match at Emory I may have some begging to do! Although I don't have to go to work, I am keeping very busy with getting the house ready to rent. Tomorrow I paint! I am also getting ready for Mom and Dad to fly down in the next few days. They get to try out Easter Soup! (You don't want to know what's in it.)
We will be sure to let everyone know on Thursday when the verdict is in. Keep praying!

Update for Jill.

Since we were informed that we should update our blog by a not so subtle sister, we will comply. Mike turned in his rank list for the Match this week and we will find out where we will be for residency in less than three weeks! We are very excited and maybe a little nervous! We also leave for Africa in less than a month. We will be very busy packing for our trip and also packing up the house for our big move. We received over 9,000 dollars in donations for Africa which is an answer to our prayers. Thanks again to everyone who is supporting us financially and prayerfully. We appreciate this and could not be doing this without you.

Half Time!

We have almost 8 weeks until we leave for Kenya and we have raised half of our funding! Praise the Lord! We want to thank everyone that has agreed to support us both financially and with prayer support. It is so encouraging to know you will all be praying for us.