Open globe!

This was a post I wrote this past Monday 9/29 and am just now publishing.

It is hard to believe that September is almost over. That means I leave in about one month. Time has gone quickly, and I can already tell that I am going to be very sad to leave Swaziland.

As I write this, I am sitting in the Good Shepherd Eye Clinic pre-op area. As soon as I returned home from my 2 hour drive from Mbabane, I stopped at Jono's house to fill him in on a few things. I haven't seen him in over a week, as he was in Cape Town last week. As he and I were talking in his yard, his eyes looked beyond me and got really wide and he said, "Bull"! Apparently one of the bulls had gotten out of the pen. So our conversation quickly ended, and he ran off to go drive the pull back in to the pen.

I then walked over to Angela's house and mentioned that a bull had gotten out. She said, "Yes! I know! I just saw Jono running by with a stick, chasing after it!"

I headed back to my house, when Sister Senani called me to tell me there was a patient in the clinic that had an open globe. She thought I was still in Mbabane, so she had tried Jono's phone, to no avail. She said, "I don't know what he is doing right now..." I responded that I did...he was chasing a bull around his property. All in the day of a Swazi.

At any rate, I came to clinic to help Sister. Unfortunately, the globe is ruptured--with a traumatic cataract and iris incarcerated in the corneal wound. It should be a quick repair (we will save the cataract for later), but poor Sister, who has had a long day, has to get the OR up and running.

As for the rest of yesterday--I decided that rather than drive back and forth to Siteki two times in two days, I should just stay overnight near the capital last night. I found the cutest little B&B that was very clean and inexpensive. It was a perfect place to get some work done. Today was another successful visit to Mbabane Government Hospital. Dr. Msiska, gave me a big smile and said, "It seems as though your visit to the Ministry of Health was productive." After my visit last week, Dr. Zwane (Principal Secretary to the Minister of Health) visited the clinic and told them to make a master list of all supplies and equipment they currently need. Everyone in the office at MGH has been in a buzz, trying to get this list finished and feeling more optimistic than they have in awhile!

That is all for now. (Oh, and just to make things more exciting at the eye clinic...we keep having power blackouts....yay! We have a back-up generator, but the lights still go out for a brief moment. That should make operating fun :-/

Update (Friday 10/3/14): The globe went well, although it ended up being a stellate corneal laceration, which is hard to fix and very aggravating. It took me 45 minutes (although Sister insists it took me 1.5 hours to repair...). The patient looked great the next day, so I was relieved!