Village Clinics

So, ever since I first visited Malawi I have wanted to do village clinics. 85% of the people here live away from the city and in the village which means access to healthcare is a challenge. In Gusu (the village where E3 is working) it is about 12 miles to the closest health clinic. The last time we were out there a small child less than a year old was very sick. The mom was suspecting malaria but 12 miles is along way to walk carrying a sick child. Her other option would have been to hire a bike to give her a ride on the back, holding the child. Thankfully we were able to drive her into the health clinic so that the child could get the proper treatment.

So....the last two Thursdays I have been lucky enough to go out with Ministry of Hope to do mobile clinics with them. They are working in 4 villages where they have set up feeding centers. For those of you who have been here before imagine the place where they feed the kids at Yossa. Each feeding center has a building with a roof and 1/2 height walls and a maize mill.

I really wish I had some good pics to post but I was so busy the whole time we were at the clinics that I didn't manage to get any really good pics. I will try to get some the next time we go out.

The first week we were able to see 200 patients and this last thursday we saw 220 patients. First we weigh everyone, take their temp and other vital signs. Then they get sent to see the clinical officer (this week we had 2). From the clinical officers exam they either get sent over to the lab area for simple tests like malaria screening, urinanalysis etc... or they come to the pharmacy to get their medicine. The last two weeks I have been the pharmacy. We bring lots of medications in huge bins. Then we set them up kind of like tables and dispense the medicine from there. They have me do the pharmacy since I have been working in the country long enough to be familiar with the medicines, plus I can speak enough chichewa to tell them how to take most medications. It takes 2-3 people working in the pharmacy just under 6 hours to fill 220 prescriptions, just in case you were wondering.

We are able to move people thru so quickly because of all the workers that come along each week. We have 1-2 clinical officers, 1 malawian nurse, 1-3 american nurses, 2-3 med students, 1 lab tech and then other people who are here from the US for the summer to help out with the weights, temps, recording things etc....

It is really impressive to see how well the system works on such little resources. I was totally excited to be able to go out and actually use my nursing skills in the community and I am hoping to make it a regular part of my schedule here. It is a nice change of pace from working in the clinics here in the city. The only downside.....the pit toilets. But so far we have survived those! I will really try to get some good pics to post so you can really see how it looks.

Thank you to all of those back home who are supporting us as we are here in Malawi! It is because of you all that I get a chance to something as rewarding as this!

Becky

The patients just keep rolling in.....

So officially here in Malawi it is "winter" which usually means the end of malaria season. But for some reason we are still seeing alot of malaria patients coming in very sick and being admitted for IV Quinine. Some of them have already been on anti - malarials and just don't get better. Others get really sick right from the beginning.

At the start of today we had 0 patients in our inpatient unit as we had discharged them all over the weekend. By the time I knocked off at 6:30 pm we had 9 more patients.

While a nurse and I were trying to start an IV in a 1 year old who had really bad pnuemonia we got called down the hall by another child's parent because the kid was seizing. Thankfully our covering doctor was still there. We gave rectal Valium which seemed to stop the seizure but then the only way to arouse him was by a sternal rub and even then all he did was move his arm. It is hard to say whether the seizure was caused by the high fever or by cerebral malaria since his malaria count came back at 4+ which is the highest it can go. We will pray that he has a full recovery but only time will tell.

Unfortunatley we were not able to get the IV in the other child with pnuemonia so we ended up giving his meds IM and keeping him on nebs and O2 overnight. If he still needs a line in the morning we will have one of the clinical officers put in an internal jugular.

Two of our patients that we admitted have cancer which is a bad thing to have here in Malawi. There is no oncologist here in Lilongwe and the best we can offer someone with cancer is to either go 4 hours away to Blantyre or to fly out to South Africa. Neither one is very feasible when you are in alot of pain with limited financial resources. One of the guys we have been treating since January just with morphine for the pain. Every month or so he comes in for and increase in the dose. We have nothing else that we can offer to treat him so it is very sad. The other guy came into with probable prostate CA. His bladder was so distended that when I cathed him I got out almost 2 liters of urine. I don't know how he was even walking around like that. Once he is stabilized we will refer him out for treatment.

The rest of the patients were malaria patients. Usually treatment is straight forward. IV Quninine x 3 doses 12 hours apart and then discharge home as long as they have no fever.

I thought maybe you would like a glimpse of what it is sometimes like at our ABC clinic. And those were just the ones that got admitted. We saw many more as outpatients in the clinic who were treated and sent home. Days like today are very busy but are also the most rewarding.....

Becky

A Very Busy Week!

Well this past week has officially left us exhausted!

On Monday the academy had their final house competition which was basically a huge field day/track and field meet! Not exactly the best day for "winter" to blow in to Lilongwe. Yes it was actually cold (in the 40's ) with drizzly rain and wind and by 5:30 pm we had to end the event prematurely due to the weather! I have to admit.... I was actually freezing and couldn't wait to get home. I was actually missing my hottub!

On Wednesday I met a really cool nurse that is here with her husband for the summer. She wanted to come to Partners in Hope with me so I had told her I would pick her up after dropping the kids at school. Unfortunatly the guy that gave me directions to her guest house said to turn after the Peoples market instead of before the Peoples market. So after driving around unpaved dirt roads for about 45 minutes I totally happened to find her guest house just by chance. We had a great day at Partners and I was able to help her and her husband find a place to house sit while they are here. For some reason traffic was horrible that night and I managed to get home just in time for the power to go out! Dinner that night....PB and J!

Thursday night was astronomy night for Kimmy's 4th grade class. We made it home just in time to grab some quick dinner and head back to the school. Ryan took his telescope and helped the kids see some of the planets. The kids had a blast because their teacher had a huge bonfire built and they got to make s'mores. It was really dark since it was a new moon so lots of stars were visible. Later that night we went to the concert finale for the college bands and choirs. There were so many people that they were spilling out onto the front lawn. It was great to see and hear but made for a very late night considering that we are up at 5am most mornings.

This was the last week of classes for African Bible College where David teaches a business class, so after the final papers were turned in on Tuesday him and Sam (he co-teaches with David) were left with a huge pile of papers to grade before graduation. Their class was supposed to be limited to 30 students but being the only business class offered there was high demand and they ended up with 62 students in their class.

Friday after a meeting for the clinic at ABC I spent the majority of the day helping 3 other ladies from the campus and a handful of college kids decorate the hotel for the senior banquet. We had to blow up 120 + balloons to hang in bouquets from the ceiling (helium not available), banners to hang, tables to decorate etc.... Then it was back to ABC to pick up the kids from school. I am not usually that forgetful but I actually got half way home before I realized that I had left Linda ( the girl we transport to and from school) at the college so I had to turn around and go back to get her. Then Ryan had a friend spending the night so we had to go to to his house to get his stuff which officially got me home with about 1/2 and hour to get all dressed up for the banquet! For everyone who knows us you know that dressing up isn't exactly in our comfort zone but dressed up we were!

Saturday we had to be at the golf course by 8am to set up rental tents which took us until 1pm because we managed to get a nail in one of our tires and had to get it fixed! Then we ran home, showered and headed back out to college graduation at African Bible College. David could have walked as a professor but decided he didn't want to. It took 3 1/2 hours to graduate 42 students. There were lots of speeches by people like the US ambassador, and religious advisor to the president. After graduation we had to go take down one of our tents and then reset it up at a new location! I managed to get out of that since Ryan was home waiting for dinner!

Today David, Sam and Jay headed to South Africa for some business stuff. They are actually driving so we are praying for their safety! They will be in Johannesberg until Friday....when the World Cup starts. After having lunch with some friends from church and tearing down all the tents from yesterday I am heading to bed early so that we can start all over again in the morning!

I thought life would move at a slower pace here but we have managed to keep ourselves very busy. Thankfully the kids are out of school in 1 1/2 weeks and we will be moving closer to town very soon!

We are still waiting to file our fostering paperwork. Hopefully next Monday will be the day that we can get that done. Also still no word on when Gift's police case will close. I am possibly going to go on a village mission with Ministry of Hope Crisis Nursery (the one where Gift is) on Thursday so I will let you know how that goes!

Thanks to all our friends and family who have been praying for us and supporting us ......we appreciate it more than you know!

Love Becky

Miracles Do Happen!

Yesterday was a great day for the Epperson family! We finally got our TEP reciepts. This doesn't actually mean that we have them in our hands but we did recieve a letter saying that they had been approved and could we please pay them a boat load of money for this great honor of recieving our TEP's! No really this is a great thing. Now if and when we are stopped by the police for routine checks we have official papers saying we are here legally in the country.

Plus.....now we can really start the process for fostering to adopt. I don't really know what that all entails but I am hoping that we can at least start doing weekend visits with Gift while we sort out the requirements for adopting here. Please pray that this process will be as smooth as it can be in a country where adoption proceedings are ambiguous at best. The TEP's are only the first miracle that will need to happen in order for us to adopt Gift. We will now start working with the crisis nursery and our social worker here to get things going. The last I heard from the manager of the crisis nursery was that Gift is still considered a "police case" since he was abandoned. She is trying to light a fire under them to get the case closed so that he becomes "free" for adoption. It is hard to have patience in this but I know that God has a perfect plan for Gift and if that plan is for him to become part of our family then he will work all of this out in his perfect time!

I hope to visit him tomorrow so I will try to take some new pics and post them here. He is starting to walk and is getting close to what must be his 1st birthday!

Becky

Road Trip!

In all the times that I have been in Malawi I had not as yet been to Blantyre. But that has now changed. On Monday of this past week we took a road trip to Blantyre.... to have an MRI. On the trip down to Blantyre I was thinking to myself how much different it is to get an MRI here as opposed to at home.

So firstly, instead of hopping in my car and driving a short distance to a medical facility to have the scan done our whole family packed overnight bags and 7 of us plus a baby (not ours) piled into our truck and set off on a 4 hour journey down a two lane road that was full of pot holes. Incidently, I learned something new. If it is safe to pass the car in front of you they will turn on their left blinker. If it is not safe to pass the will turn on their right blinker. Thankfully we arrived safely even though it was already dark outside, had dinner at a friends house and then spent the night in a guest house.

Tuesday morning we were up early to check things out before the MRI was scheduled. We got to visit a store called GAME. Imagine KMart minus the clothes. There was also a mini mall with a cinema in it. I will post the pictures from outside the cinema since it is closed on Tuesdays in my next blog since they are on my phone camera and I cant upload them right now.

We then called the Dr. to get directions to office since our appt. wasn't until 2pm. He of course said "Hey, I am at Queens Hospital right now. Why don't you just pop on over and we will get it done now." It is about 10am. So thinking that this is our lucky day we drive the 1/2 mile to the hospital and park.

We then proceed to walk around aimlessly for about 1/2 an hour trying to find the right building to be at. Many people gave us directions....none of them too accurate. Finally at about 10:40 we find the place and go in to find a waiting room full of people including a guy on a stretcher. This is already looking bad to me. I give the receptionist my name at which point she gives me a blank look and says..." You called to make an appointment? You don't need an appt. However you can see we are very busy so you should leave and come back later."

So I ask her multiple times if we can come back at 2 for our previously SCHEDULED appt. She says " Well maybe if you come back sometime after 2 we can squeeze you in." It is making no difference to her that I have a nice referral letter on fancy letter head from the orthopedic surgeon. I politely told her we would be back at 2pm and offered her my phone number. She said that it wasn't nessecary.

So we all pile back in the truck....and go shopping for TShirt manufacturers which is a whole different blog story. At 1pm we are done with our shopping and decide to go to the radiologists office to make sure we can be seen at the hospital later. There he adds a polite little note to my referral letter kindly asking them to get Ryan seen on Wed. Thankfully that was a mistake and he meant to say to do the scan on Tuesday. So we again pile back into the truck and drive back to the hospital where we were able to get the scan since it was right after lunch hour. (on our way out of the office there was a guy on a vent in a hospital bed waiting to be scanned. I couldn't see much though because they made me be a guardian for Ryan during the scan so I couldn't have my glasses on).

We then grabbed some late lunch and headed back to Lilongwe. It was dark on our way home and we were driving about 100km/hr and more than once we came up suddenly on a semi truck driving along without any lights on! Thankfully we made it home without any incidences!

I am glad to report that the emailed results did make it to the orthopedic surgeon and we will follow up with him next week here in Lilongwe.

So much is different about the healthcare system than back at home but I am certainly thankful that there is at least 1 MRI machine in this country!

We are going back to visit Blantyre over a 3 day weekend next Friday. I will be sure and take some good pictures and let you know how that trip goes.

Becky

New Bikes...

These are two of the gardeners who work here at the Free Methodist Compound. Solomon is on the left and Kangiwiya is the one on the right. Sometimes life here seems very routine with work and school. But the other day we were lucky enough to really make a difference in a couple of guys lives. Both Solomon and Kangiwiya live very far away from us. One walks 1 1/2 hours to work here and the other walks over 2 hours to get here. Then they have to walk home. While they are here the work they do is very physical. We were able to help them buy bikes so that now they can make it here in just 1/2 the time. It was so cool to see the big smiles on their faces when they recieved their bikes. They are working extra helping us with our tent rentals to pay for part of the bike while we were able to subsidize the rest.

Sometimes here it seems like what we are doing makes very little difference but when you get to be personally involved in helping make someones life more pleasant it really makes it all seem worthwhile. During the months that we have lived here in this compound we have had a great opportunity to connect with some very amazing Malawians like Solomon and Kangiwiya. We have been able to help 2 kids here go to school for this term that would not have been able to afford the fees without assistance, we have been able to provide extra food for some of the families living here on campus, we have hosted a business training weekend for some of the pastors in this area but most of all we have been able to make friendships and really get to hear some amazing stories.

We are so thankful to be able to be here in Malawi. Please continue to pray that we would have tolerance and patience with the inconsistent power, internet and water and that we will stay open to whatever God has planned for us to do here.

David, Becky, Ryan and Kimmy

Spring Break.....

So, we haven't been as good as we should be in keeping this blog up to date. One reason has been the lengthy power outages here. There has also been some interruptions with the internet but now that the rainy season is pretty much over we are hoping that it will be more consistent here.

It is Spring Break now so the kids are out of school for 2 weeks. Good Friday and the Monday after Easter are both gov't holidays so I am lucky enough to get a 4 day weekend. We might be lucky enough to get to the lake for one of the days. On Easter Sunday we are going to a concert/dinner for some of our friends who are in a band. That should be fun.

Before school ended for the term Ryan was lucky enough to be selected to play in a basketball tournament. I am sure you can imagine how excited he was about that. His team actually played very well and they took third place!

We also have have started renting out tents for weddings, engagements, etc... These are the tents that our friend Jay was picking up when he was mugged in South Africa. Thankfully he is okay but that was a very scary situation for both him and us. Here are a couple of pics of the tents.

They look so great now that we have figured out how to set them up. A word to the wise.... don't try to set up big tents in a lightening / rain storm like we did the first time!

We have already rented out two of the tents this last weekend. Apparently these kinds of tents are in high demand all year round to protect from both rain and sun! We use the young guys living and working here on campus to get them set up and torn down. It is a big help to Sam, Jay and David as well as giving them an opportunity to make some extra money!

Pray for Jay as he makes one more trip to South Africa to get the one remaining tent that is still there. He should be making the trip soon after the Easter holiday.

We pray that you have a blessed Easter holiday back at home. We miss you all greatly and pray for you often.