last day at mulago hospital

today was our last day at Mulago hospital because tomorrow is Matyrs Day. This is a national holiday celebrated in Uganda and is a day where all state/national employees get the day off (yes, even the doctors at the hospital). It started as a day of rememberance of several catholics that were killed many years ago, but has now turned into a big celebration and involves lots of church services at the catholic churches around town.

a few thoughts from my head about the past few days:

• I saw a cervical traction device on 2 patients. These patients had broken several bones in their neck, so as a treatment until they could receive surgery, they had metal screws drilled into their head which were attached to a 5kg weight which hung over the end of the bed. The weight provided a distraction force to their spine in an attempt to realign the bones. The device essentially looked like a giant meat hook with a piece of twine and a heavy weight attached to it. It was very weird to see a device like this with open wounds being in an open-air ward next to dozens of other patients in beds just a foot or two away.
• Today I went to the OB/GYN ward with another UW student and another physio. The best part of the experience was getting to see the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit). I was surprised to see several of the baby "incubators" that we see in America, as I rarely see technology used in other parts of the hospital. However there were dozens of babies in the NICU, most were either preterm or had suffered from asphyxia (lack of oxygen) at birth. The best part was that there were several sets of twins! Twins shared an incubator because there were not enough to go around. To get into the NICU, we had to take off our shoes and remove our lab coats because the oxygen tubes and other devices are easily knocked out by loose clothing (a scary thought to me. I couldn't believe O2 tubes were just draped across the ground so hastily).
• One of the harder things to see was a woman who recently passed away due to complications from her pregnancy. For some reason they had simply draped the woman in a sheet and placed her in the hallway while they awaited her family's arrival. It was just strange to me that it was dealt with so openly and that people could just pass by the woman in the hallway.
• The highlight of my week was having a patient I had seen in the outpatient gym a few times come up to me and greet me and say goodbye to me. He said that he had to make sure he said hello again to me before I left because I had "such a tender heart" and was one of the most "human" people he has ever met. He said if I ever come back to Uganda (which EVERYONE here says the curse of uganda is that once you come, you always come back!) I need to contact him because he works with an agency that helps the elderly as well as orphaned children, and he says he would love to have me come and visit with them just to talk with them. It was quite the compliment and was nice to hear something so genuine from a patient :) I got his email address so hopefully we shall stay in contact!

Well it is getting late here and we are going to try and head to a local craft market tomorrow, so I should hit the hay. I have been sleeping very well here, in part due to the fact that my allergies have been pretty bad and have left me pretty wiped by the end of the day!