Long Live The Sar

Friday and Saturday were spent with Rick seeing patients at the Mission. As usual, the days were jam-packed and went from 9:30-4, without any breaks. I still can't figure out how Rick survives most days without eating or drinking. The majority of patients were spine or heart patients, but it is extremely exciting to hear a heart murmur and be able to say something other than "yeah, hmmm, it sounds like water rushing through a pipe." Among the more interesting cases, there is a patient with potential Wilson's disease, a child with Madura head, and a child with Windswept Syndrome. Crazy, crazy stuff. It's odd how normal it seems to see a patient with TB of the spine with a shape like a > or worse. I have been spending a lot of time with Rick's boys, which has been a total blast. They are the warmest, kindest, most fun group of teenagers I have hung out with since the 10th grade. Semegnew, Dejene, and Mesfin are all home for the summer and we have sp...

A great last few days and only 1 more to go! Saturday we had Rick's regular saturday clinic. Lots of spine patients (TB and Scoliosis), heart problems (mitral/aortic stenosis/regurg), a case of Dermato Fibrosarcoma Protuberans, and one case of Lympho-Epithelial Carcinoma. Lunch consisted of a fried tortilla filled with lentils (11 cents on the street) and soft-serve ice cream from a fancy italian restaurant near the mission...best ice cream in addis. On the walk home we ducked into a "gym" off the main road. The sign for the gym should have been an omen of what was to come (faded, cartoonish, and nearly hidden), and maybe the treacherous staircase/mud slide down the hill was a warning, but the gym consisted of a shipping-container-sized room full of guys, benches, free weights, and an unspeakable stench. Not interested in embarrasing anyone with the size of my muscles, I kept my shirt on but did notice that the weights used for bench pressing consisted of a metal bar...