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...

http://www.kare11.com/sports /prep/prep_article.aspx ?storyid=268335 (story adapted from email by Rick Hodes) In summer, 1994, Rick Hodes was in Goma, Zaire and stopped his pickup truck late one afternoon as he drove out of Kibumba Refugee Camp to pick up a small kid covered with blood who had been hit by a hit-and-run driver. Contrary to what is reported in the Minneapolis story, it was Dr. Dawit Welday and Rick who picked up Taka. They drove to the Israeli field hospital where Taka had the first of many operations to save his life and reconstruct his skull. When they closed the hospital months later, he moved into Rick's personal tent. Every night, he'd shake Rick at 3AM, Rick would open the flaps and Taka would go out and pee. JDC funded him to come to the states for his surgery, which was arranged by Dr. Andre-Jacques Neucy of NYU. "I vividly recall writing a letter saying he is allergic to all eggs, so that the Kenyan authorities would not require him to show proof of...