deported

Just this morning I realized that the stamp in my passport expired last week Thursday. So I immediately set out for the immigration office in town. Bad news hit me there, and they gave me initially 48 hours to leave the country, but I begged them for one more day, so I have until noon on Saturday to leave Zambia. Good news, I can come back the next day =)
So, I’m going on a mini holiday in Botswana this weekend.

I don’t know whether to cry or laugh. Things can be so ridiculous here.
One more thing to tell the grandchildren though

above: one last night together with the finnish girls (their blog link can be found on the right) and with our very close Zambian friend at the local bar and hang out place for the medical people, which is called Ridgeway and is situated on the university medical school campus, right opposite the UTH complex. The Finnish girls are leaving for Finland on saturday, so I will be missing their departure. I will surely miss the crazy times we had together. Hyvää matkaa, ja muista jättää raukkaus kunnes itte häviätte huimaavan tähtitaivaan alla! =)

from ICU to OR

Foreword: In order to commemorate the truly Zambian ability to speak in a language made up of abbreviations, this post will be littered to utter ridiculousness with abbreviations.

After spending two weeks at the UTH ICU, I decided to cancel the rest of my ICU CP (clinical practice) in order to concentrate on my final project DC (data collection), the ethical approval of which is still pending at the UNZA REC (university of Zambia Research Ethics Committee). 

To be honest, I was not really happy at the ICU, because first of all, it was crowded with nursing students, and there was a constant competition and elbowing around, which I detest. Secondly, the MICU, as it is called (Main ICU) is not even a proper ICU. At best it should be termed an acute med/surg unit, and it does not even pass as an obs (meaning obstetrics or observation, but in this case observation) unit because obs are only carried out  at an hourly basis. What really irritated me though was that the staff there expected me to understand  their Quack speak, and looked at me in amazement when I was unable to decipher that the patient in bed four needed to be reviewed because he was brought in with an HI (head injury), and was involved in an RTA (road traffic accident), and that X-pen (christa-pen..whatever that is) needed to be administered, because some other abbreviation led to his abbreviation, but because he was already in a state of abbreviation, we had to watch out that he would not lapse into another bluddy abbreviation….

So I decided to go back to the main operating theatre and work there just for fun, or part time, so that I won’t have to be running around like an HC (headless chicken) looking for people who in the end do nothing but WMT (waste my time) whilst I’m stressing about time.

Anyway, back in the OR (operating room), I’m as happy as an unabbreviated chappy =)

HT (health tip): If you want to let Zambians think you are smart, try using as many crazy lay terms (and don’t forget to abbreviate them!) as possible.

Kickin ass

Below: the Main ICU, ahead is the special unit for open heart surgery patients, and in front a ventilator and next to that the defibrillator.

Last Friday in the ICU I had to kick some Zambian ass. And not just any backside, but the very backside of a physician. Why?
Because he screwed up a diagnosis.

Okay there was no actual ass kicking, but it happened indirectly, and the ass was kicked in my imagination when I found out that I was right.

So enough with the pedantry and on with what happened.

So we had this female patient who had an incomplete abortion and her uterus was manually aspirated by vacuum. In the ICU her condition deteriorated, and she was confused, and had lesions around her mouth, and on her thighs, which suspiciously looked like herpes. What made me notice the patient was that she was pulling her face, which is a danger sign of a pathological process in the brain (see tardive dyskinesia or dystonia).

I told the nurses that they should check the patient’s neurological status, and contact the neurologist, which of course never happened. I then decided to check her neuro status myself. Both her babinski’s (plantar reflexes) were positive, her right side deep tendon reflexes were hyper reactive, whilst the tone of her right limbs was decreased (paraparesis) and there was stiffness in her neck. This pointed straight at meningitis, most probably caused by herpes.

When the physician came to review her, I tried explaining to him my findings, and I recommended that he check the patients reflexes and consider meningitis or any neurological condition, but he just shrugged and would not listen.

Anyway, to my gratification came the attending gynecologist to whom I revealed my woes about that patient. He immediately examined the patient, redid everything I did, and confirmed my findings, and made an immediate consult for the neurologist and passitus (request) for a lumbar puncture.

I found the patient this monday morning feeling much better after having received some acyclovir loading  (treatment for herpes infections).

Things like these make me proud of becoming a nurse.

Health Tip: When kickin that ass, kick it in Style!

Umkashana uwakosa

I was so frustrated today with one of my finnish colleagues and with the director of the nursing school that my poor door took a really bad beating. when I tried closing it (you kind have to pull it quite hard if you want to lock it), the door handle broke off (the metal handle broke in half!)

sometimes…I scare even myself.
so no wonder they say to me in bemba: Nineno Umkashana uwakosa! (this girl is strong!)

above: me showcasing my little bemba-english dictionary. I keep my colleagues greatly entertained with my bemba anecdotes.

Updates: the handle on my door was repaired, and my papers are now finally in. The previous two days have been hell though. On tuesday evening I was so frustrated that I cried, and the next day I ran a fever and had to skip the day at the icu and spend it in bed. I thank my very finnish friends who cause me much pain and headaches for being so supportive and for putting up with my crap. seriously, te ootte aivan täynnää p…mutta kuitenkin ihania

Mosi-Oa-Tunya

Got soaked sopping wet by the mighty ’smoke that thunders’ (otherwise known as the Victoria Falls). We tried looking for the boiling pot (a hot spring) in one of the gorges, but we got lost on the way and decided to turn back. When we got out we were covered in mud and my sandal straps were broken (they were not very good sandals).

There after we were picked up by some guy to take us to the abseiling and gorge swinging place. The abseil was short but sweet. My other friend who is considerably more blessed with money also did the gorge swing thereafter. In the walk back out of the gorge, one of the finns started screaming ’snake!’ and in a blind panic they ran almost half way out (where do they get the energy?!?). Upon closer inspection I found that we had almost stepped on a baby puff adder. Thank goodness she saw it! Puff Adders are terrible in that they are very poisonous, lazy, and bite easily. Even the small ones have enough poison to kill.

 

So we had quite an adventure today. Going to bed tired but happy =)

Health tip: Bang Jan, dooie Jan!

p.s. when we checked out our money this morning, we noticed that my two friends, who paid in kwacha were overcharged by double! the abseil was supposed to be $25, and they paid K235000, when the $-K exchange rate was supposed to be 5500, so the kwacha price was supposed to be 137500. See, this is exactly what I have against Africa, a lot of people are dishonest with money matters, and will always try to get as much money out of you as possible.

Yesterday one of the trainers commented as to why I was not doing the gorge swing as well, I said I don’t have the money. He answered in astonishment that I who an an umsungu should have lots of money. This is the attitude of most people here, that because I’m white its ok to extort me.

P.P.s. the money issue was brought up and sorted out. apparently the owners of the company had suspected the extortion for a while, and now we had provided them with concrete proof. the guys were caught and the police was brought in….how exciting!

below are some more pics: