We got into Yaounde on Thursday with no trouble. I felt a bit sick once we got here and for the rest of the evening. I threw up but felt fine the next day and have since then. We’re staying with a missionary family, the Colemans, the same place where we spent one night on our way from Banyo to Kribi. They don’t live right in downtown but it’s only about 15-30 minutes away by car, depending on traffic. We’re fairly close to the airport and I can usually here a few planes taking off each day from my bedroom window.
Yaounde is the capital and second largest city in Cameroon. You can find a lot of things here you wouldn’t normally find elsewhere in Cameroon. I went to a couple grocery stores with Arnie Coleman, the father. In Yaounde, you can get Crunch bars, Kit Kats, Snickers, Lindt chocolate, all sorts of seasonings I haven’t found elsewhere, soy sauce, Dove shampoo, Duracell batteries, and a lot more. You can buy full size refrigerators and other large electronic appliances. I’ve seen a few car dealerships including Peugeot, Renault and Toyota. I haven’t found a Mercedes dealership yet although I know it has to be somewhere around here. There are definitely a lot more Mercedes in Yaounde than anywhere else.
There’s even a Hilton Hotel. We went there on Sunday for church. The International Christian Church of Yaoude, where Arnie is an elder, rents a meeting room at the Hilton on Sundays to have church. It’s a small congregation, mostly consisting of missionaries station in Yaounde.
I ate at a MakDonald’s the other day. It’s a knockoff on McDonald’s but had pretty good food. They didn’t have the variety of burgers they do at McD’s in America but you can still get a burger, fish, chicken, soya steak meat, fries, salad and ice cream. There’s no cheese though.
Tomorrow I will try to find some parts to take back to Banyo, as well as a watch battery.
And I’ve added a few more photos to my photo album. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038953&id=1337370415&l=bba13eaecb
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Leaving Kribi tomorrow.
The time here at Kribi has been really nice. Going to the beach has been fun and hanging out with some kids has been cool. For a few days there were a whole bunch of jellyfish in the water that would sting almost everyone that got in at some point or another. I’ve been stung about a three times so far along with everyone else. It’s a really sharp sting that feels kind of like an ant bite that hurts more, is a little more spread out and a lot deeper into your skin. Then depending on how bad you get it, your skin may swell and show little red marks. The jellyfish seemed to have disappeared yesterday though. No stings thankfully. Hopefully it will stay like that for all of today. We leave tomorrow, Thursday to go back to Yaounde.
The power also came back on late last night. It went out on Monday night in the middle of watching a TV show. We were all a little scared for a day since one of the women here named Jennifer said she was here in Kribi a little while ago and the power went out for 3 out of the 5 days she was here. Hopefully it’ll stay on...
The power also came back on late last night. It went out on Monday night in the middle of watching a TV show. We were all a little scared for a day since one of the women here named Jennifer said she was here in Kribi a little while ago and the power went out for 3 out of the 5 days she was here. Hopefully it’ll stay on...
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Kribi so far.
Well, we’re in Kribi.
We left Banyo to go to Kribi at 7 in the morning on Wednesday. We got into Yaounde, the capital, by 8 in the evening and spent the night at the home of some missionaries, the Colemans. We then left at 7 on Thursday to make the four hour trip from Yaounde to Kribi. Our hotel, Costa Blanca is a few hundred feet from the beach. It has several rooms and hosted all of the missionary families until today. The Colemans came today around two and all of the youth, myself included, are now at the Schneiderhouse Hotel just a couple hundred feet from Costa Blanca. All of the adults and small kids will stay at Costa Blanca. I shared a room and bathroom with Timothy Lokker while at Costa Blanca and I think I’ll share an even bigger room with a few more boys although I’m not sure. I haven’t actually seen the room yet.
For the most part, since we arrived, I’ve been watching the kids. Most of the parents and adult missionaries have been having meetings most of the day each day. We spend a lot of time in the water swimming around playing games. We’ve also watched some movies and played some card games.
The beach is very nice. The sand on the beach itself is white, but underneath the water it’s black for the most part. The top sand is very very fine and it gets coarser the further down you go. There aren’t very many seashells or pebbles in the water like there are in the Jersey shore. And the water is pretty warm, although not as warm as South Padre Island, TX. The water only very gradually gets deeper as you walk out. I can walk out for probably about 150 feet before I can’t touch the bottom with my feet anymore. It’s like a large wading pool. So far I haven’t come across a point where it very quickly drops off like in Jersey. And there aren’t sand dunes underneath the water where it gets deep and then shallow again like in Texas. It’s just a very slow descent.
I haven’t seen a ton of animals around; mostly just a few stray dogs on the beach. There are some minnows or other small fish swimming around in a lagoon close by. I’ve seen a couple crabs but that’s pretty much it. I saw a dead shark about three feet in length in a bucket from a local girl who had taken a boat out to go fishing. So there are sharks in this water but they don’t come close to the beach, at least that’s what I was told. They wouldn’t cause a problem anyway. As I said, they’re only a few feet in length. Humans are not their prey.
To eat, we’ve mostly had fish, shrimp, chicken, bread, mangoes, pineapple and rice. I’m not much of a seafood fan but I’ve been managing. The first lunch we had here consisted of a lot of shrimp. They still had their legs, eyes and mouths attached so I had to learn how to pull it apart. It took me a few minutes just to get one apart until a missionary named Dan showed me how it’s done. First you rip the head off which really is more like the upper half of the entire body. Then, you dig you thumb under where their legs and shells are and you peel the shells off. Then, you grab the very tip of the tail, pull it back, and wiggle the whole body as you yank the meat out of the tail section. And then, you can eat. It’s very messy and in my opinion isn’t worth the hassle, although the shrimp did taste good.
We’ll be in Kribi for the next week before heading back to Yaounde. I’ll probably spend a few days there before travelling to the east and staying with another missionary family for a week or two.
Here are some photos so far: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038953&id=1337370415&l=bba13eaecb
We left Banyo to go to Kribi at 7 in the morning on Wednesday. We got into Yaounde, the capital, by 8 in the evening and spent the night at the home of some missionaries, the Colemans. We then left at 7 on Thursday to make the four hour trip from Yaounde to Kribi. Our hotel, Costa Blanca is a few hundred feet from the beach. It has several rooms and hosted all of the missionary families until today. The Colemans came today around two and all of the youth, myself included, are now at the Schneiderhouse Hotel just a couple hundred feet from Costa Blanca. All of the adults and small kids will stay at Costa Blanca. I shared a room and bathroom with Timothy Lokker while at Costa Blanca and I think I’ll share an even bigger room with a few more boys although I’m not sure. I haven’t actually seen the room yet.
For the most part, since we arrived, I’ve been watching the kids. Most of the parents and adult missionaries have been having meetings most of the day each day. We spend a lot of time in the water swimming around playing games. We’ve also watched some movies and played some card games.
The beach is very nice. The sand on the beach itself is white, but underneath the water it’s black for the most part. The top sand is very very fine and it gets coarser the further down you go. There aren’t very many seashells or pebbles in the water like there are in the Jersey shore. And the water is pretty warm, although not as warm as South Padre Island, TX. The water only very gradually gets deeper as you walk out. I can walk out for probably about 150 feet before I can’t touch the bottom with my feet anymore. It’s like a large wading pool. So far I haven’t come across a point where it very quickly drops off like in Jersey. And there aren’t sand dunes underneath the water where it gets deep and then shallow again like in Texas. It’s just a very slow descent.
I haven’t seen a ton of animals around; mostly just a few stray dogs on the beach. There are some minnows or other small fish swimming around in a lagoon close by. I’ve seen a couple crabs but that’s pretty much it. I saw a dead shark about three feet in length in a bucket from a local girl who had taken a boat out to go fishing. So there are sharks in this water but they don’t come close to the beach, at least that’s what I was told. They wouldn’t cause a problem anyway. As I said, they’re only a few feet in length. Humans are not their prey.
To eat, we’ve mostly had fish, shrimp, chicken, bread, mangoes, pineapple and rice. I’m not much of a seafood fan but I’ve been managing. The first lunch we had here consisted of a lot of shrimp. They still had their legs, eyes and mouths attached so I had to learn how to pull it apart. It took me a few minutes just to get one apart until a missionary named Dan showed me how it’s done. First you rip the head off which really is more like the upper half of the entire body. Then, you dig you thumb under where their legs and shells are and you peel the shells off. Then, you grab the very tip of the tail, pull it back, and wiggle the whole body as you yank the meat out of the tail section. And then, you can eat. It’s very messy and in my opinion isn’t worth the hassle, although the shrimp did taste good.
We’ll be in Kribi for the next week before heading back to Yaounde. I’ll probably spend a few days there before travelling to the east and staying with another missionary family for a week or two.
Here are some photos so far: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038953&id=1337370415&l=bba13eaecb
Friday, March 12, 2010
Malarba
On Sunday, we came back to Banyo with two guests. Wynona and Rachel are a mom and daughter from Canada seeking to do long term missionary work in Cameroon. They got into Bamenda on Friday, went souvenir shopping with me on Commercial Avenue in Bamenda on Saturday, and have been in Banyo with us for this past week.
When we got back, we found out that the doctor’s home had been broken into while they were at church in the morning. The thieves took two brand new laptops still in the box, one new laptop that the doctor had been using and $4,000 that they had in emergency money. Nothing like this has ever happened before in Wouram and it really is a shame. The doctor, Jim, and his wife, Ina, said that their dog, Cody, had been barking all night the previous night which leads everyone to believe the thieves hid in the night and waited until the two left for church. They could hear Cody barking from church, only about a few hundred yards from their home, but didn’t think much of it.
The thieves did not take the other two laptops in the house, which were older and slower which also leads everyone to believe it could have possibly been an inside job, someone in the hospital, or someone who overheard someone talking about the doctor bringing new computers back from the States. Either way, it’s very unnerving and unfortunate. Jim and Ina were still very happy to have us over for dinner the night we got back from Bamenda, like we had planned, which was very kind of them. They seem to be in good spirits despite everything and hopefully nothing like this will happen again.
On Wednesday morning, Bob, Sulemanu, Dayyibu, Wynona, Rachel and I left to go to the small town of Malarba to meet the people there, bring tables and benches, and to hand out small care packages. On Tuesday, Dayyibu, Wynona, Rachel and I went into town to gather stuff to make the care packages. They consisted of soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, scrub brushes, Vaseline and matches. Wynona and Rachel also brought with them some candy from Canada, such as candy necklaces and Skittles. The seven hour trip to Malarba was a pretty bumpy and uncomfortable one but not too bad.
We stopped in a little town along the way called Tibati and I was able to try two new chocolate bars and a drink I hadn’t seen yet. One chocolate bar was called Rigardo (I can’t remember if that was it exactly) and the other was called Pluto. Rigardo was chocolate with caramel, nougat and peanuts inside. At first I thought it might be like a Snickers but it was a bit different. The Pluto was similar to Kinder bars from Europe but with less truffle filling. It has a hazelnut truffle filling, covered in wafers, covered in chocolate. The drink, Vimto, was a grape-raspberry soda. I’m not usually a fan of grape soda but it was really good. I think the raspberry helped. I haven’t seen it in Banyo but I was told you can get it here. I’ll have to look for it now.
Anyway, enough with food – onto the more important details. When we got to Malarba, we were first mobbed by swarms of kids and several adults. There are about 32 families in Malarba, each with like 8-15 kids. Lots of kids! After greeting many of the adults, Wynona, Rachel and Sulemanu pretty quickly started handing candy out to the children. We had a drink called gaari which is basically ground up corn kernels, with milk and a little bit of sugar. It was pretty good and pretty thick.
We then more or less played with the children, holding them, shaking hands, etc. for little bit. Many of the kids seemed to be sick with a cough and runny noses. They were all pretty dirty and definitely didn’t wash hands. I remember shaking one child’s hands and I could just feel a layer of residual dirt being transferred from his hand to mine. I definitely washed my hands after that.
We then had dinner which consisted of rice with a sauce and a hickory/chicory tea with sweet, condensed milk and sugar. It was pretty good and pretty sweet. After dinner we went to the prayer room for praying and singing. Malarba is a mostly Christian town that consists of refugee Fulbe from the Central African Republic. They’ve lived here in Cameroon for about the past ten years or so, ever since they left the C.A.R. Bob and Sulemanu have been to Malarba many times before discipling and being there for the people.
After the prayer room, I got ready for bed. Bob and I slept in a man’s room who gave it up for the night we were there. I was very thankful to him for that. I slept on the bed and Bob slept on a foam mattress on the ground. I didn’t sleep very well, mostly because of a moth that would sometimes fly on top of me but it’s nothing compared to Wynona and Rachel’s experience, who were in the room right next to Bob and I. Two cockroaches crawled onto Wynona’s head in the night. Mice (or possibly lizards) were scurrying around in the night. Bob said he heard the mice but I guess I was asleep at that point. We woke up pretty early, had some breakfast which consisted of rice and fish. Bob led a devotion, then we went around to the different people’s homes and passed out the care packages. I carried the box full of soap while Dayyibu carried all the bags filled with the other products, and Wynona and Rachel passed them out.
Overall, the people there were very happy to have us and very welcoming. It’s amazing to see how little some people have but how blissfully happy they can be. The children seemed very intrigued by us. In the hours before we left on Thursday, while Wynona and Rachel were getting their hair braided by the Fulbe women, a few kids clamored around me holding my hands, stroking my white arms. They were also fascinated with the cameras and loved it when we would take a picture of them, and show them afterwards what it looked like. Dayyibu stayed in Malarba for an extra day to nail benches and tables together that we had transported as pieces of pre-cut wood.
Today, Sulemanu invited Wynona, Rachel and I to his house so his wife could teach us how to make fufu and jamajama. It’s a very common dish around here. Fufu is made by taking corn flour and mixing it with boiling water. You allow it to bowl for awhile until the water mostly evaporates. You’re left with a large white clump of moist, sticky food. The jamajama is made by first frying a few onions and tomatoes with oil in a pan. You then take chopped green plants, mash them, boil them with the tomatoes and onions, and continue mash it all together. You then eat it all with your hands by scooping a little bit of fufu up and then scooping some jamajama with it and eating it. It’s filling and fairly good but definitely lacking in substance.
Wynona and Rachel will leave Banyo tonight to visit another area of Cameroon for a couple days before heading back to Canada on Tuesday. The Lokkers and I will be leaving on either Monday or Tuesday to go to Kribi on the Atlantic Ocean for the World Team missions conference for two weeks.
When we got back, we found out that the doctor’s home had been broken into while they were at church in the morning. The thieves took two brand new laptops still in the box, one new laptop that the doctor had been using and $4,000 that they had in emergency money. Nothing like this has ever happened before in Wouram and it really is a shame. The doctor, Jim, and his wife, Ina, said that their dog, Cody, had been barking all night the previous night which leads everyone to believe the thieves hid in the night and waited until the two left for church. They could hear Cody barking from church, only about a few hundred yards from their home, but didn’t think much of it.
The thieves did not take the other two laptops in the house, which were older and slower which also leads everyone to believe it could have possibly been an inside job, someone in the hospital, or someone who overheard someone talking about the doctor bringing new computers back from the States. Either way, it’s very unnerving and unfortunate. Jim and Ina were still very happy to have us over for dinner the night we got back from Bamenda, like we had planned, which was very kind of them. They seem to be in good spirits despite everything and hopefully nothing like this will happen again.
On Wednesday morning, Bob, Sulemanu, Dayyibu, Wynona, Rachel and I left to go to the small town of Malarba to meet the people there, bring tables and benches, and to hand out small care packages. On Tuesday, Dayyibu, Wynona, Rachel and I went into town to gather stuff to make the care packages. They consisted of soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, scrub brushes, Vaseline and matches. Wynona and Rachel also brought with them some candy from Canada, such as candy necklaces and Skittles. The seven hour trip to Malarba was a pretty bumpy and uncomfortable one but not too bad.
We stopped in a little town along the way called Tibati and I was able to try two new chocolate bars and a drink I hadn’t seen yet. One chocolate bar was called Rigardo (I can’t remember if that was it exactly) and the other was called Pluto. Rigardo was chocolate with caramel, nougat and peanuts inside. At first I thought it might be like a Snickers but it was a bit different. The Pluto was similar to Kinder bars from Europe but with less truffle filling. It has a hazelnut truffle filling, covered in wafers, covered in chocolate. The drink, Vimto, was a grape-raspberry soda. I’m not usually a fan of grape soda but it was really good. I think the raspberry helped. I haven’t seen it in Banyo but I was told you can get it here. I’ll have to look for it now.
Anyway, enough with food – onto the more important details. When we got to Malarba, we were first mobbed by swarms of kids and several adults. There are about 32 families in Malarba, each with like 8-15 kids. Lots of kids! After greeting many of the adults, Wynona, Rachel and Sulemanu pretty quickly started handing candy out to the children. We had a drink called gaari which is basically ground up corn kernels, with milk and a little bit of sugar. It was pretty good and pretty thick.
We then more or less played with the children, holding them, shaking hands, etc. for little bit. Many of the kids seemed to be sick with a cough and runny noses. They were all pretty dirty and definitely didn’t wash hands. I remember shaking one child’s hands and I could just feel a layer of residual dirt being transferred from his hand to mine. I definitely washed my hands after that.
We then had dinner which consisted of rice with a sauce and a hickory/chicory tea with sweet, condensed milk and sugar. It was pretty good and pretty sweet. After dinner we went to the prayer room for praying and singing. Malarba is a mostly Christian town that consists of refugee Fulbe from the Central African Republic. They’ve lived here in Cameroon for about the past ten years or so, ever since they left the C.A.R. Bob and Sulemanu have been to Malarba many times before discipling and being there for the people.
After the prayer room, I got ready for bed. Bob and I slept in a man’s room who gave it up for the night we were there. I was very thankful to him for that. I slept on the bed and Bob slept on a foam mattress on the ground. I didn’t sleep very well, mostly because of a moth that would sometimes fly on top of me but it’s nothing compared to Wynona and Rachel’s experience, who were in the room right next to Bob and I. Two cockroaches crawled onto Wynona’s head in the night. Mice (or possibly lizards) were scurrying around in the night. Bob said he heard the mice but I guess I was asleep at that point. We woke up pretty early, had some breakfast which consisted of rice and fish. Bob led a devotion, then we went around to the different people’s homes and passed out the care packages. I carried the box full of soap while Dayyibu carried all the bags filled with the other products, and Wynona and Rachel passed them out.
Overall, the people there were very happy to have us and very welcoming. It’s amazing to see how little some people have but how blissfully happy they can be. The children seemed very intrigued by us. In the hours before we left on Thursday, while Wynona and Rachel were getting their hair braided by the Fulbe women, a few kids clamored around me holding my hands, stroking my white arms. They were also fascinated with the cameras and loved it when we would take a picture of them, and show them afterwards what it looked like. Dayyibu stayed in Malarba for an extra day to nail benches and tables together that we had transported as pieces of pre-cut wood.
Today, Sulemanu invited Wynona, Rachel and I to his house so his wife could teach us how to make fufu and jamajama. It’s a very common dish around here. Fufu is made by taking corn flour and mixing it with boiling water. You allow it to bowl for awhile until the water mostly evaporates. You’re left with a large white clump of moist, sticky food. The jamajama is made by first frying a few onions and tomatoes with oil in a pan. You then take chopped green plants, mash them, boil them with the tomatoes and onions, and continue mash it all together. You then eat it all with your hands by scooping a little bit of fufu up and then scooping some jamajama with it and eating it. It’s filling and fairly good but definitely lacking in substance.
Wynona and Rachel will leave Banyo tonight to visit another area of Cameroon for a couple days before heading back to Canada on Tuesday. The Lokkers and I will be leaving on either Monday or Tuesday to go to Kribi on the Atlantic Ocean for the World Team missions conference for two weeks.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Mbingo
This entry is extremely long but has lots of details for those who really want to know what Mbingo was like.
On Tuesday, around 2pm, Robbie and I left for Mbingo. We were able to easily find a Toyota Corolla taxi cab that would take us all the way there. Originally we thought we’d have to take a taxi out of Bamenda to a village halfway between Bamenda and Mbingo. Then, from there, we would probably have to find a new taxi to take us the rest of the way. Luckily it was made easy for us, although it wasn’t the most comfortable ride. We had seven adults, including the driver, plus a baby, crammed in a little four door, five passenger Corolla from the early 90s.
I was in the back, with Robbie to my left, and a man, his wife, and baby to my right. In the front was the driver on the left, then two people sharing the front seat, the one on the right shoved against the door, and the one in the middle, half on the seat, half on the center console, somewhat in the way of the shifter. I see multiple people crammed in these little cabs all the time but have never been in one this packed before. It was an experience.
We got to Mbingo around 4 and took a quick walk around the hospital. Robbie stopped in and said hello to nurses and patients he hadn’t seen in a few days. I could see his eyes light up when we got there. It was the same look I probably get when talking about cars and learning about engines. I could tell that working in the medical field was something he really wants to do, just like I really want my own car company. I believe at one point he said being a surgeon would be ideal. He has one more quarter of undergrad school left this year, and then just one more quarter left next year. He’s hoping to take the MCATZ over the summer and he’ll be done with his Bachelor’s degree in December. He may take some time off from continuing school and may not jump right into medical school, but ultimately hopes to be officially trained in the medical field. He has really enjoyed the work he’s been doing in Mbingo.
The hospital is very nice, and much larger than the one in Banyo, even though both are basically funded and owned by the same Baptist organization. It definitely handles more patients, has bigger wards, more operating rooms, more doctors, a bigger library, etc. Robbie said the hospital in Mbingo is a very good one in Cameroon, one of the best, if not, the best. People from all over Cameroon come to it. One of the women I saw operated on today was from hours and hours away. They have multiple surgeons whereas most hospitals in Cameroon have only one legitimately trained surgeon. Robbie mentioned the cleanliness and the quality of machines aren’t up to American standards although I’m sure for a third world country, this hospital is superb.
After leaving the hospital, we went to the Sparks’ home. It’s Cory and Suzanne’s home where the kids from FES went this past weekend (see previous blog). It’s a very nice home and is practically a palace compared to how most Cameroonians live. Although by American standards, it’s fairly normal. It’s in a very nice spot in Mbingo overlooking much of the town. Stephen Sparks, Cory’s dad, is the vascular surgeon at the hospital and was the only person home when we got there. Their two older daughters are away at school right now. I watched some X-files with Robbie, traded some music with him, and ate some dinner. We were both pretty tired and went to bed fairly early, (around 10). It was a good thing because we needed to be up early the next morning.
I woke up at 6:30 and we were out of the house by 6:50. We got to the hospital just before 7. Robbie and I changed into some sterilized scrubs, and put on “indoor shoes”. They have a rack with slip on shoes for use inside the “theater,” a British term for an operating room. When I first saw the word theater at the hospital, I thought to myself, “wow, they even have a theater for patients to watch movies while they wait for their surgery to begin! Sweet!” Not so much.
Robbie introduced me to many of the nurses and doctors in the theater. In this one building, they have three operating rooms, a lounge, and a room to clean clothing and sterilize equipment. I scrubbed up, or rather, did my best to after Rob basically showed me how. He said it wasn’t too critical that I’m completely scrubbed up since I’ll just be mostly watching and observing and won’t actually be doing surgery stuff, obviously. Nonetheless, I wanted to be clean. You have to scrub your hands and arms with soap, and then when you rinse, you start from the tips of your fingers, with them pointing upwards, to allow the germs in the water to drip off your arms. You then always keep your hands elevated above the elbows. We then put on our surgical masks and watched the doctors get to work.
The first surgery was classified as a “pelvic exploration.” The woman came in complaining of pain in her abdomen. Through an X-ray, the doctors were able to tell something was in that area that shouldn’t have been. However, since they don’t have things like a CAT scan, they weren’t able to tell exactly what it was but they figured it was probably a cyst. Robbie mentioned the cyst is most likely the result of an STD. The whole procedure took about 6-7 staff to perform.
It started with two nurses assisting the anesthesiologist in administering the spinal tap. She had to stick a fairly long needle in the spine in order to numb the whole area below the insertion. They then laid the girl down on her back, and gave her some meds to also help her remain comfortable during the procedure. I believe they gave her some ketamine, which is “Special K” in American slang. Ketamine also makes you pretty loopy and you occasionally repeat the same things over and over again during your trip. One day, Robbie was assisting in a surgery where a little boy was on some ketamine. The boy saw Robbie, pointed to him, and repeated over and over again, “White Devil! White Devil! White Devil!” Robbie laughs when he tells the story although I’m sure at the moment it was more a distraction than an amusement.
Then, after the anesthesiologist was done, Robbie used an electric razor to shave any little bits of hair off the woman’s stomach. He used a piece of tape to remove any loose hairs that had just been cut. Then he used iodine to disinfect the area. Then, another nurse carefully placed multiple sterilized cloths around where the incision would be made and then one final large cloth sheet with a hole in the center for the surgery. Then, the anesthesiologist and two nurses plus Robbie stayed on while three doctors came in to do the surgery.
Before the surgeons got to work, the nurses unwrapped a bundle of sterilized smocks and clothes for the surgeons. The surgeons, using their just scrubbed hands, put the smocks on. Before sticking their hands all the way through the sleeves, they used the sleeves to grab the glove packet and opened it. They then very carefully put two sets of latex (or nitrile) gloves on each hand and over the sleeves of the smock. Cleanliness is of course extremely important. Before the whole sterilized smock and glove thing, they put on eye goggles to avoid any blood/fluid splatter.
One doctor did most of the incisions and work while the other two assisted that first doctor by holding utensils in place, provided tools, and soaked up blood using both sterilized cloths and a suction machine. The first incision is done with a scalpel which cuts through the layers of skin. Then the fat and any tissue in the way are cut using an electric cauter. According to Wikipedia, what the doctors used isn’t classified as an electrocauter but rather just electrosurgery.
A cauter is designed to use heat to burn through and slice the tissue you are trying to cut. In the process of burning it, you coagulate the blood in the blood vessels in order to prevent bleeding. It’s kind of like singeing or welding blood vessels shut. Rob described it to me like in the last Star Wars movie. Luke and Darth Vader were battling to the death using their light sabers. Darth Vader managed to slice Luke’s hand off, but Luke didn’t really bleed much. That’s because his blood vessels were singed shut. So by using the electric cauter, you’re basically using a mini-light saber.
This electric cauter the doctors used doesn’t generate heat at the tip, like a soldering iron would which is why it’s not classified as “electrocautering”. What it does is create an electric circuit within the patient’s body that allows the tip of the cauter to slice through the tissue, and coagulate the blood. For anyone that needs a quick lesson in electricity: in order to complete an electrical circuit, you must have a wire coming from the positive side of the power source (a battery, wall socket, whatever the power source is), and you need a wire coming from the negative side of the power source. The negative side is also called ground. In order to use the cauter machine, you have to attach a grounding strap to the patient’s leg. The tip of the cauter gun itself, which looks like a pen, is the positive side. There is a button on the pen you press to complete the circuit and allow electricity to flow.
Electricity then goes from the cauter machine to the tip of the cauter pen, through the person’s body, to the grounding strap on their leg, and then back into the cauter machine. I wasn’t able to find out exactly how much current or voltage was going into the person’s body but the machine’s output was adjustable between 1-500 watts I believe. They had it set to about 20 watts if I remember correctly. Judging by the sparks created between the cauter pen tip and the person’s body tissue, it looked like the voltage was at least 30 volts. It smelled kind of bad but not the worst. It was a combination of the smell of burning plastic and a bad barbecue in my opinion.
They used the cautery machine to cut through much of the tissue in the way and I believe they used a scalpel to actually remove the cyst. The cyst was about the size of a few small garlic cloves. It was filled with a watery liquid, but not pus. The doctors then put everything back in place that they had to move outwards and out of the way, like the intestines and other organs. Then they stitched the opening they made, which looked to be about six inches long. There are two layers of stitching to be done. The first layer is about a centimeter or so below the surface of the skin. The surgeons perform this part using a small, curved hook needle with the stitching thread attached. They used small needle-nose pliers (or whatever the correct medical term for those are, I call them small needle nose pliers) to loop the needle in and out going back and forth from one side of the cut to the other.
Then, the surgeons leave and the nurses do the second layer of stitching in the same manor the surgeons did it. This second layer is done on the skin surface. Both sets of stitching are automatically dissolving stitches. After the stitching was over, Rob and a nurse put gauze and tape over the opening to allow it to heal. We then picked the woman up by the cloth sheet she was laying on, and moved her onto a new hospital bed to roll her out of the room and to the recovery area. A few minutes was given for the doctors to take a break before the next patient came in.
The next patient was an older gentlemen in his 70s with a hernia in his abdomen that needed to be removed. It was more or less the same as the previous procedure. Sterilized equipment, spinal tap, incisions with a scalpel, cautery, removing the hernia, two layers of stitching, move the man onto a different hospital bed and then out to the recovery area. The third patient was a woman who had an abscess in her abdomen (also most likely the result of an STD) that needed to be drained of pus and for some infected tissue to be removed. This was the surgery I got the chance to take pictures of and posted on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037698&id=1337370415&l=a82aeade57
This was, at this point, the foulest smelling surgery because of the pus. I had to breathe through my mouth several times during the procedure. In all three of these surgeries, the only helping I really did was to move the patient from the surgery bed to the rolling hospital bed by picking up the feet end of the cloth the patient was laid out on.
In between the second and third surgery, and for a small portion of the third surgery, I stepped out of the operating room we were in, and went to the eye surgery room. A man’s eye had ruptured and needed to be sewn back together. I imagine that the whole procedure was a little bit more complicated than just a rupture and there was probably some sort of other problem with the man’s eye but I didn’t catch what it was. There were three people in the room when I arrived. The doctor was performing the stitching through a magnifying machine for looking at the eye up close. A nurse was assisting with giving tools, soaking up blood, and rinsing the eye with saline solution. The third person, who was probably a nurse/student, was observing through the same machine the doctor was using to magnify the eye. The machine had two spots to view what was going on. Perfect for the person actually doing work and someone who needs to learn and observe.
The nurse observing got up to allow me to watch for a little while. It was intense! You’d think seeing a small curved stitching needle no longer than a centimeter or so going in and out of an eye would give me the creeps but it was very fascinating. In it goes with the thread trailing behind. Out it comes. The doctor cuts the stitch, ties the two ends together, cuts the excess, and creates a new stitch just a millimeter or less away from the previous stitch. In the needle goes into the eye, out it comes across the clearly visible ruptured slit in the eye. It gets tied, cut and a new stitch is formed. It was really cool.
I guess that’s more or less what the surgery done on my eyes when I was a baby looked like. I was born cross eyed and had a surgery when I was 9 months old (correct me on this if I’m wrong, mom) to correct it. A few days (?) after the surgery, I started to cry and scream bloody murder. My mom called the doctor and he said one of the stitches in my eye probably came loose and that she should bring me in to the hospital to fix it. Ouch! I’m glad I don’t remember it.
The fourth and last surgery of the day that I witnessed was the hardest, most grueling. A burn victim needed his wounds to be redressed. The man, who is 25, was apparently siphoning gasoline from one container to another, or something like that. It accidentally spilled all over him and somehow got ignited. Almost every square inch on this man’s body had third degree burns. His face was untouched, the bottoms on his feet were okay in some parts, and a few patches of skin on his chest and stomach were okay. Other than that, he had just exposed flesh, bits of blood, and yellow pus everywhere. I breathed in through my nose just a couple times before I made the decision that if I breathe through my nose anymore, I would throw up. I breathed through my mouth the rest of the procedure.
The man cried out very loudly several times and his whole body shook from time to time. You could tell he was in a lot of pain from even though he was very doped up. The anesthesiologist gave him several injections of ketamine to reduce his pain and sedate him. It had been a week since he was burned and Rob said his wounds were much better than when he last saw him. The gauze and bandages covering his body need to be replaced every day.
I put some gloves on and actually helped in this procedure by holding his legs up and removing the old bandages. It was very eerie to feel and hear the gauze sticking to his flesh as it was being peeled away. I felt so bad for the poor man. What a devastating experience. I didn’t help with putting new gauze on, mostly because I wouldn’t know what I was doing. They used gauzes with Vaseline and hypochlorite on them to prevent sticking and infection. Seeing that man was quite disturbing and I hope I never have to suffer from third degree burns ever. They don’t expect the man to live for very much longer and are surprised he has so far recovered as well as he has.
After that surgery, it was almost three o’clock in the afternoon. I needed to get back to Bamenda before the taxis stopped running from Mbingo to Bamenda for the day. I thanked everyone for letting me witness the surgeries and told them how grateful I was for the opportunity. Robbie and I then left, went back to the Sparks’ home, and got something to eat. We then walked back towards the hospital and I got in a taxi, this time with 8 people plus a baby. I was cramped with four people in the front between the two actual seats available in the Corolla. It was like that until we got into Bamenda and my legs were numb for most of the ride but all in all I was fine.
I’m very grateful I was able to meet Robbie and go to Mbingo. It was an amazing experience I probably won’t be able to have again for a very long time, if ever.
Today was a day much like any other. I had algebra class (which Sherri did by herself yesterday while I was in Mbingo) and swimming in the morning and some free time in the afternoon. I played hockey with the kids after school was over for them and graded their math homework after dinner. Tomorrow is the last day of classes and a celebration in the evening for the whole two week program. The Lokkers and I will travel back to Banyo on Sunday.
On Tuesday, around 2pm, Robbie and I left for Mbingo. We were able to easily find a Toyota Corolla taxi cab that would take us all the way there. Originally we thought we’d have to take a taxi out of Bamenda to a village halfway between Bamenda and Mbingo. Then, from there, we would probably have to find a new taxi to take us the rest of the way. Luckily it was made easy for us, although it wasn’t the most comfortable ride. We had seven adults, including the driver, plus a baby, crammed in a little four door, five passenger Corolla from the early 90s.
I was in the back, with Robbie to my left, and a man, his wife, and baby to my right. In the front was the driver on the left, then two people sharing the front seat, the one on the right shoved against the door, and the one in the middle, half on the seat, half on the center console, somewhat in the way of the shifter. I see multiple people crammed in these little cabs all the time but have never been in one this packed before. It was an experience.
We got to Mbingo around 4 and took a quick walk around the hospital. Robbie stopped in and said hello to nurses and patients he hadn’t seen in a few days. I could see his eyes light up when we got there. It was the same look I probably get when talking about cars and learning about engines. I could tell that working in the medical field was something he really wants to do, just like I really want my own car company. I believe at one point he said being a surgeon would be ideal. He has one more quarter of undergrad school left this year, and then just one more quarter left next year. He’s hoping to take the MCATZ over the summer and he’ll be done with his Bachelor’s degree in December. He may take some time off from continuing school and may not jump right into medical school, but ultimately hopes to be officially trained in the medical field. He has really enjoyed the work he’s been doing in Mbingo.
The hospital is very nice, and much larger than the one in Banyo, even though both are basically funded and owned by the same Baptist organization. It definitely handles more patients, has bigger wards, more operating rooms, more doctors, a bigger library, etc. Robbie said the hospital in Mbingo is a very good one in Cameroon, one of the best, if not, the best. People from all over Cameroon come to it. One of the women I saw operated on today was from hours and hours away. They have multiple surgeons whereas most hospitals in Cameroon have only one legitimately trained surgeon. Robbie mentioned the cleanliness and the quality of machines aren’t up to American standards although I’m sure for a third world country, this hospital is superb.
After leaving the hospital, we went to the Sparks’ home. It’s Cory and Suzanne’s home where the kids from FES went this past weekend (see previous blog). It’s a very nice home and is practically a palace compared to how most Cameroonians live. Although by American standards, it’s fairly normal. It’s in a very nice spot in Mbingo overlooking much of the town. Stephen Sparks, Cory’s dad, is the vascular surgeon at the hospital and was the only person home when we got there. Their two older daughters are away at school right now. I watched some X-files with Robbie, traded some music with him, and ate some dinner. We were both pretty tired and went to bed fairly early, (around 10). It was a good thing because we needed to be up early the next morning.
I woke up at 6:30 and we were out of the house by 6:50. We got to the hospital just before 7. Robbie and I changed into some sterilized scrubs, and put on “indoor shoes”. They have a rack with slip on shoes for use inside the “theater,” a British term for an operating room. When I first saw the word theater at the hospital, I thought to myself, “wow, they even have a theater for patients to watch movies while they wait for their surgery to begin! Sweet!” Not so much.
Robbie introduced me to many of the nurses and doctors in the theater. In this one building, they have three operating rooms, a lounge, and a room to clean clothing and sterilize equipment. I scrubbed up, or rather, did my best to after Rob basically showed me how. He said it wasn’t too critical that I’m completely scrubbed up since I’ll just be mostly watching and observing and won’t actually be doing surgery stuff, obviously. Nonetheless, I wanted to be clean. You have to scrub your hands and arms with soap, and then when you rinse, you start from the tips of your fingers, with them pointing upwards, to allow the germs in the water to drip off your arms. You then always keep your hands elevated above the elbows. We then put on our surgical masks and watched the doctors get to work.
The first surgery was classified as a “pelvic exploration.” The woman came in complaining of pain in her abdomen. Through an X-ray, the doctors were able to tell something was in that area that shouldn’t have been. However, since they don’t have things like a CAT scan, they weren’t able to tell exactly what it was but they figured it was probably a cyst. Robbie mentioned the cyst is most likely the result of an STD. The whole procedure took about 6-7 staff to perform.
It started with two nurses assisting the anesthesiologist in administering the spinal tap. She had to stick a fairly long needle in the spine in order to numb the whole area below the insertion. They then laid the girl down on her back, and gave her some meds to also help her remain comfortable during the procedure. I believe they gave her some ketamine, which is “Special K” in American slang. Ketamine also makes you pretty loopy and you occasionally repeat the same things over and over again during your trip. One day, Robbie was assisting in a surgery where a little boy was on some ketamine. The boy saw Robbie, pointed to him, and repeated over and over again, “White Devil! White Devil! White Devil!” Robbie laughs when he tells the story although I’m sure at the moment it was more a distraction than an amusement.
Then, after the anesthesiologist was done, Robbie used an electric razor to shave any little bits of hair off the woman’s stomach. He used a piece of tape to remove any loose hairs that had just been cut. Then he used iodine to disinfect the area. Then, another nurse carefully placed multiple sterilized cloths around where the incision would be made and then one final large cloth sheet with a hole in the center for the surgery. Then, the anesthesiologist and two nurses plus Robbie stayed on while three doctors came in to do the surgery.
Before the surgeons got to work, the nurses unwrapped a bundle of sterilized smocks and clothes for the surgeons. The surgeons, using their just scrubbed hands, put the smocks on. Before sticking their hands all the way through the sleeves, they used the sleeves to grab the glove packet and opened it. They then very carefully put two sets of latex (or nitrile) gloves on each hand and over the sleeves of the smock. Cleanliness is of course extremely important. Before the whole sterilized smock and glove thing, they put on eye goggles to avoid any blood/fluid splatter.
One doctor did most of the incisions and work while the other two assisted that first doctor by holding utensils in place, provided tools, and soaked up blood using both sterilized cloths and a suction machine. The first incision is done with a scalpel which cuts through the layers of skin. Then the fat and any tissue in the way are cut using an electric cauter. According to Wikipedia, what the doctors used isn’t classified as an electrocauter but rather just electrosurgery.
A cauter is designed to use heat to burn through and slice the tissue you are trying to cut. In the process of burning it, you coagulate the blood in the blood vessels in order to prevent bleeding. It’s kind of like singeing or welding blood vessels shut. Rob described it to me like in the last Star Wars movie. Luke and Darth Vader were battling to the death using their light sabers. Darth Vader managed to slice Luke’s hand off, but Luke didn’t really bleed much. That’s because his blood vessels were singed shut. So by using the electric cauter, you’re basically using a mini-light saber.
This electric cauter the doctors used doesn’t generate heat at the tip, like a soldering iron would which is why it’s not classified as “electrocautering”. What it does is create an electric circuit within the patient’s body that allows the tip of the cauter to slice through the tissue, and coagulate the blood. For anyone that needs a quick lesson in electricity: in order to complete an electrical circuit, you must have a wire coming from the positive side of the power source (a battery, wall socket, whatever the power source is), and you need a wire coming from the negative side of the power source. The negative side is also called ground. In order to use the cauter machine, you have to attach a grounding strap to the patient’s leg. The tip of the cauter gun itself, which looks like a pen, is the positive side. There is a button on the pen you press to complete the circuit and allow electricity to flow.
Electricity then goes from the cauter machine to the tip of the cauter pen, through the person’s body, to the grounding strap on their leg, and then back into the cauter machine. I wasn’t able to find out exactly how much current or voltage was going into the person’s body but the machine’s output was adjustable between 1-500 watts I believe. They had it set to about 20 watts if I remember correctly. Judging by the sparks created between the cauter pen tip and the person’s body tissue, it looked like the voltage was at least 30 volts. It smelled kind of bad but not the worst. It was a combination of the smell of burning plastic and a bad barbecue in my opinion.
They used the cautery machine to cut through much of the tissue in the way and I believe they used a scalpel to actually remove the cyst. The cyst was about the size of a few small garlic cloves. It was filled with a watery liquid, but not pus. The doctors then put everything back in place that they had to move outwards and out of the way, like the intestines and other organs. Then they stitched the opening they made, which looked to be about six inches long. There are two layers of stitching to be done. The first layer is about a centimeter or so below the surface of the skin. The surgeons perform this part using a small, curved hook needle with the stitching thread attached. They used small needle-nose pliers (or whatever the correct medical term for those are, I call them small needle nose pliers) to loop the needle in and out going back and forth from one side of the cut to the other.
Then, the surgeons leave and the nurses do the second layer of stitching in the same manor the surgeons did it. This second layer is done on the skin surface. Both sets of stitching are automatically dissolving stitches. After the stitching was over, Rob and a nurse put gauze and tape over the opening to allow it to heal. We then picked the woman up by the cloth sheet she was laying on, and moved her onto a new hospital bed to roll her out of the room and to the recovery area. A few minutes was given for the doctors to take a break before the next patient came in.
The next patient was an older gentlemen in his 70s with a hernia in his abdomen that needed to be removed. It was more or less the same as the previous procedure. Sterilized equipment, spinal tap, incisions with a scalpel, cautery, removing the hernia, two layers of stitching, move the man onto a different hospital bed and then out to the recovery area. The third patient was a woman who had an abscess in her abdomen (also most likely the result of an STD) that needed to be drained of pus and for some infected tissue to be removed. This was the surgery I got the chance to take pictures of and posted on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037698&id=1337370415&l=a82aeade57
This was, at this point, the foulest smelling surgery because of the pus. I had to breathe through my mouth several times during the procedure. In all three of these surgeries, the only helping I really did was to move the patient from the surgery bed to the rolling hospital bed by picking up the feet end of the cloth the patient was laid out on.
In between the second and third surgery, and for a small portion of the third surgery, I stepped out of the operating room we were in, and went to the eye surgery room. A man’s eye had ruptured and needed to be sewn back together. I imagine that the whole procedure was a little bit more complicated than just a rupture and there was probably some sort of other problem with the man’s eye but I didn’t catch what it was. There were three people in the room when I arrived. The doctor was performing the stitching through a magnifying machine for looking at the eye up close. A nurse was assisting with giving tools, soaking up blood, and rinsing the eye with saline solution. The third person, who was probably a nurse/student, was observing through the same machine the doctor was using to magnify the eye. The machine had two spots to view what was going on. Perfect for the person actually doing work and someone who needs to learn and observe.
The nurse observing got up to allow me to watch for a little while. It was intense! You’d think seeing a small curved stitching needle no longer than a centimeter or so going in and out of an eye would give me the creeps but it was very fascinating. In it goes with the thread trailing behind. Out it comes. The doctor cuts the stitch, ties the two ends together, cuts the excess, and creates a new stitch just a millimeter or less away from the previous stitch. In the needle goes into the eye, out it comes across the clearly visible ruptured slit in the eye. It gets tied, cut and a new stitch is formed. It was really cool.
I guess that’s more or less what the surgery done on my eyes when I was a baby looked like. I was born cross eyed and had a surgery when I was 9 months old (correct me on this if I’m wrong, mom) to correct it. A few days (?) after the surgery, I started to cry and scream bloody murder. My mom called the doctor and he said one of the stitches in my eye probably came loose and that she should bring me in to the hospital to fix it. Ouch! I’m glad I don’t remember it.
The fourth and last surgery of the day that I witnessed was the hardest, most grueling. A burn victim needed his wounds to be redressed. The man, who is 25, was apparently siphoning gasoline from one container to another, or something like that. It accidentally spilled all over him and somehow got ignited. Almost every square inch on this man’s body had third degree burns. His face was untouched, the bottoms on his feet were okay in some parts, and a few patches of skin on his chest and stomach were okay. Other than that, he had just exposed flesh, bits of blood, and yellow pus everywhere. I breathed in through my nose just a couple times before I made the decision that if I breathe through my nose anymore, I would throw up. I breathed through my mouth the rest of the procedure.
The man cried out very loudly several times and his whole body shook from time to time. You could tell he was in a lot of pain from even though he was very doped up. The anesthesiologist gave him several injections of ketamine to reduce his pain and sedate him. It had been a week since he was burned and Rob said his wounds were much better than when he last saw him. The gauze and bandages covering his body need to be replaced every day.
I put some gloves on and actually helped in this procedure by holding his legs up and removing the old bandages. It was very eerie to feel and hear the gauze sticking to his flesh as it was being peeled away. I felt so bad for the poor man. What a devastating experience. I didn’t help with putting new gauze on, mostly because I wouldn’t know what I was doing. They used gauzes with Vaseline and hypochlorite on them to prevent sticking and infection. Seeing that man was quite disturbing and I hope I never have to suffer from third degree burns ever. They don’t expect the man to live for very much longer and are surprised he has so far recovered as well as he has.
After that surgery, it was almost three o’clock in the afternoon. I needed to get back to Bamenda before the taxis stopped running from Mbingo to Bamenda for the day. I thanked everyone for letting me witness the surgeries and told them how grateful I was for the opportunity. Robbie and I then left, went back to the Sparks’ home, and got something to eat. We then walked back towards the hospital and I got in a taxi, this time with 8 people plus a baby. I was cramped with four people in the front between the two actual seats available in the Corolla. It was like that until we got into Bamenda and my legs were numb for most of the ride but all in all I was fine.
I’m very grateful I was able to meet Robbie and go to Mbingo. It was an amazing experience I probably won’t be able to have again for a very long time, if ever.
Today was a day much like any other. I had algebra class (which Sherri did by herself yesterday while I was in Mbingo) and swimming in the morning and some free time in the afternoon. I played hockey with the kids after school was over for them and graded their math homework after dinner. Tomorrow is the last day of classes and a celebration in the evening for the whole two week program. The Lokkers and I will travel back to Banyo on Sunday.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Going to Mbingo
This past weekend, most of the children went to Mbingo with Cory’s family. Cory is a boy in both my algebra and swimming class. Mbingo is about 45 minutes away and Cory’s mom, Suzanne, drove them there. The weekend was pretty quiet with them gone. When they came back on Sunday afternoon, they brought a guest, my housemate, named Robbie.
Robbie is 21 years old, like me. He and I have been getting along very well, just chatting about all sorts of different experiences we’ve had here. He’s been in Cameroon for about the past two months, and has about another 2 weeks here before he leaves to go back to California. He’s a Spanish citizen but has been living in California for the past few years with his aunt and uncle, attending the University of California - Davis. While in Cameroon, he’s been working at the Mbingo hospital, assisting in surgeries and other medical procedures. He hopes to attend medical school when he gets back to the States. I’m really glad to have him around since he’s been the only Western guy in my age group that I’ve met so far. It’s been refreshing and it’s been interesting to see what life has been like for him so far.
This afternoon, he and I will travel to Mbingo. We’ll take a taxi there. I’ll stay the night with him at Suzanne and Cory’s home, go to work (at the hospital) with him on Wednesday, and then I’ll return Wednesday evening to Bamenda. I’m eager to see what life has been like for him working in the hospital. He’s seen some pretty traumatic things such as legs being amputated and a few people die. Hopefully nothing too horrifying will happen in the few hours I’ll be with him at the hospital.
Robbie is 21 years old, like me. He and I have been getting along very well, just chatting about all sorts of different experiences we’ve had here. He’s been in Cameroon for about the past two months, and has about another 2 weeks here before he leaves to go back to California. He’s a Spanish citizen but has been living in California for the past few years with his aunt and uncle, attending the University of California - Davis. While in Cameroon, he’s been working at the Mbingo hospital, assisting in surgeries and other medical procedures. He hopes to attend medical school when he gets back to the States. I’m really glad to have him around since he’s been the only Western guy in my age group that I’ve met so far. It’s been refreshing and it’s been interesting to see what life has been like for him so far.
This afternoon, he and I will travel to Mbingo. We’ll take a taxi there. I’ll stay the night with him at Suzanne and Cory’s home, go to work (at the hospital) with him on Wednesday, and then I’ll return Wednesday evening to Bamenda. I’m eager to see what life has been like for him working in the hospital. He’s seen some pretty traumatic things such as legs being amputated and a few people die. Hopefully nothing too horrifying will happen in the few hours I’ll be with him at the hospital.
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