Charlotte Soulsby’s Blog

Cautery, Colons and CPR

8^th August 2008 

Well, as the title of this blog entry may suggest I have spent this week in surgery, which was quite the experience. Although I enjoyed my time on the paediatrics and TB/HIV wards, surgery has been something else. On my second day this week I was able to close up a patient, which is the first time I’ve been let loose with sutures! (For the more anxious of you out there, she’s doing fine and her wound is healing nicely)

I’ve been able to assist in many of the cases, which is a great experience, apart from that fact that I realised they were recording my name as ‘Shallot’ as I’d laughed when one of the surgeons thought I was named after the onion (I had thought he was joking, but clearly not). There have really been too many cases to mention this week, but definitely the most memorable deserves a mention. This was an elderly gentleman, who was opened up (again) with a suspected perforated duodenal ulcer. We couldn’t find any perforation so decided to put in a jejunostomy (tube into the small intestine to feed him). However, as we were closing the anaesthetic nurse (they don’t have anaesthetists here) announced the patient had stopped breathing and had no pulse. At which point the surgeon lunged for the patient and began to perform CPR. This went on for a few minutes, whereby the rest of us, still scrubbed in looked on in horror. I offered to take over when he looked like he was flagging in order to give him a rest, but there is only so much strength you can muster after holding a retractor all day. Anyway, to end the story, the patient regained a pulse (phew), he was closed up and sent back to the ward. After a sleepless night, I went into the ward at 6.50am to find him talking and to this date he continues to improve, surrounded by his many caregivers (which must number in the twenties). He even managed to ask who I was (and thank me) which was so reassuring as he doesn’t seem to have had any side effects from lack of oxygen to his brain! (ie we must have been very successful at CPR) For those of you in need of CPR in the future, my current tally is 50%, so I may be worth having round if you have an arrest!

So back to other matters, we gained another student this week – Eric, who is a Pre-Med from the
US. He’s been based in surgery this week too, which has been nice (although he has been the brunt of many a joke about americans).

The weather has been pretty bad this week, with almost non-stop rain, which has put us off going out as the roads are so muddy it is difficult to walk on them. Instead we’ve spent quite a lot of time going to the children’s ward in the evenings, giving out lollies. There is also one orphan baby in the maternity ward who Johanna and I visited. Her story is really awful as he was found in an outside toilet (a pit) covered in maggots, just down the road from the hospital by one man who heard her cries. The staff here have named her Hope (although one Dr was more inclined to christen her lou lou…). They are really fortunate at BBH to have a Breast Milk bank for babies such as Hope or others who cannot be fed by their own mothers. Hope is doing really well and is a really healthy baby, who is always smiling. We both really hope that they find her a suitable home.

So without going into so much detail about every surgical case I have seen, which I would love to do so, that’s been pretty much my week. Hopefully we’ll get some nicer weather at the weekend, as we’ve been invited out various places and have some clothes to collect. Gideon, one of the outpatient nursing auxillaries has invited us to his home to make Fufu and Njama Njama, which couldn’t be spelt more incorrectly, but is basically a mushy, smash but not potatoes, like corn but very tasteless and this bitter leaf (njama njama) which is far nicer. The other guy who might be invited is the one who has recently proposed marriage to me…quite seriously. I told him I’d love to but I couldn’t because I live in the
UK. I think he only heard the first part of the sentence, which is worrying. On the up-side, I’m teaching him Geordie, which should compensate for any broken heartedness.

‘‘WONDERFUL!!!!’’

(I’ll explain in the next blog entry)

Hope everyone at home is well and those of you away are enjoying yourselves… so many stories to tell!!

Charlotte (Shallot)