Respite

8/2/07

Daniel, Jordan and I made a foray into a game park last Saturday to get out into the countryside of central Kenya. Lake Naivasha with its Crescent Island Park are only 45 minutes away so we hired Elisha to take us there for the day. We left after Saturday morning rounds were completed and drove along the Rift Valley escarpment (at close to 8900 ft elevation) then down to Naivasha. Signs of new development were all around and the road was in great shape.

The great thing about Crescent Island Park - which started after they filmed Out of Africa there - is that you can stroll around the park freely. There are no predators in the park so you don't have to stay in a vehicle. We took a small canoe with outboard motor passing several disinterested hippos to the small dock on the island. We strolled around a 2-3 mile circuit walking among the animal heards - giraffes, wildebeests, antelopes, gazelles, water bucks, and dik-diks.

The sun was out when we started then the afternoon clouds moved in about an hour before the boat was due to pick us up. We finished out walk at about 3PM amidst a dramatic thunderstorm that was surrounding the Lake on three sides. Sure enough the rain moved in and when our boat arrived, we were in the midst of a tropical downpour. As we motored across the lake, it felt like scene from an old Bogey movie "African Queen"- sheets of rain splattering the green lake water infested with hippos the size of a truck. Completely soaked, we returned to Kijabe with fun but damp memories.

The guys are working in the surgery prep room to help get bandages and instrument packs put together for surgery. It's a hopping place as the OR's are quite busy here - 2nd busiest OR's in Kenya which is amazing considering how huge the hospitals in Nairobi are.



Our inpatient team is slimming down as we discharge patients from our last call night, and one died yesterday from her anaplastic carcinoma of the breast. We got the tissue diagnosis only 24 hours before she died. The 33 week newborn is doing fine and mom is up and around after the c-section. One more day then we are on call again for the weekend. Hopefully it will be managable and not a crazy weekend of admissions.