Finally, it’s Friday! Which means another long day of rounds and clinic, but I was invited to a missionary’s home for dinner and I was really excited! Rounds went well. My patient from a few days ago who had the stomach surgery from an ulcer was doing better than ever; he even took a picture with me. Other patients seemed to be doing better as well.
One girl had severe shortness of breath and was coughing up lots of blood-tinged mucous…which here makes us think TB; she also had lots of leg swelling, so we ultrasounded her heart and found that her ejection fraction is <20%, AKA, she is in heart failure at the age of 18. I won’t bore you with the specifics of her ultrasound, but it is likely that she had an untreated strep infection, which later caused rheumatic fever and her heart failure; we are still waiting on the final TB results, but it looks like heart failure is most likely at this time. We are trying to get the fluid off her lungs so she can breathe and we are giving her antibiotics to ward off infection. I am praying that she continues to improve with out treatment.
Clinic was busy again; I saw a variety of things from post-op pain, to wound dressings, to headache, to abdominal pain, to UTI, to pregnancy dating and followup (I saw at least 8 pregnant ladies)! I love babies, but I definitely have a lot to learn on the OB ultrasound to perfect my technique for dating the pregnancies. All the babies were healthy, which is always a blessing. We are praying that the rest of their pregnancies go well and that they have healthy babies.
Afterwards, I went to Dr. Cahill’s home with some other volunteers; he is my supervisor here at BMC. His family is absolutely FANTASTIC! Laurie, his wife, made a delicious meal complete with pecan pie and ice cream. He has two little girls, age 4 and 2, who were cute as can be. God sure knows what he is doing putting all these cute kids in my path…they definitely brighten my day! It was definitely good to interact with him outside the hospital and to probe them with questions about life as a missionary…both the things that they love as well as some of the challenges. I appreciated their openness and honesty and will hold their words close to my heart (and share them with Tyler) as we pray about the future…and what God would have us to do in the future.