Baby Hats

Thank you to all at Westminster Presbyterian who lovingly made baby hats for the NICU. Also a big thank you to Laurel for getting these hats shipped. The mothers were grateful and the little ones now warm. As you can see from the pictures we have some babies that barely make 2 pounds. Mothers are required to come every 3 hours to feed, bathe and change their newborn. Some do this for 2-3 months while their little one grows. We previously gave out about 40 hats, then today another 40, and the nurse in charge will distribute the rest, which I think totals over 200 hats!  What a blessing to these young lives and their exhausted mothers. I wish those of you who made hats could've been there! Again, thanks.

Our Places of Ministry

I'm not sure if after 6 months in Kenya we had shared a picture of the Maternity Ward and the Dental Clinic.  Here we are in our respective places.  

      The Maternity Ward is dedicated to Edna Boroff.  Edna was a legendary Nurse Midwife who served humbly at Tenwek for over 30 years.  I think it was estimated that she had delivered over 10, 000 babies.   Edna was responsible for overturning a long standing tragic Kipsigis tradition.  If a Kipsigis mother had triplets it was considered bad luck, and the last of the three was left to die. She took these children in as orphans and through prayer and love was able to eliminate this horrific practice.

Sara spends much of her time (when not operating) in the maternity clinic.  I believe Tenwek maternity delivers over 20 babies daily. They have multiple wards with well over 100 beds.  (I get lost if I am there--and just ask for Doctorie Sara!)   With over 100 preterm, post-term, and active labor patients and families it is always a spectacle of sites and sounds!  I think the patients enjoy sleeping, eating, laboring, and feeding together!  Tenwek also has a Maternal Child Health Clinic to encourage healthy prenatal habits and well baby checks.

This is Tenwek Dental Clinic.  We have two dental chairs- the one I am standing by is where I spend most of my time.  We do similar dentistry you would find back in the States including fillings, crowns, dentures, Root Canals, extractions, and x-rays.  We have a small dental lab, x-ray room, second operatory, front office, and office/chai room.

We see about 20 patients per day.  It is a mix of meeting urgent care needs of patients in pain and giving ongoing dental care to much of the staff and community near Tenwek.

Needing Rest

Exhaustion tends to sneak-up on me. And yet, as I look back on being in Kenyan the past 6 months I shouldn't be surprised. The number are something like this: 62 nights on call, 12 maternal deaths (one my last time on-call), over 250 c-sections, and too many babies who don't live from prematurity, prolonged labor, anomalies, and delayed presentation to the hospital. Malin and I spent a lot of the past three weeks talking about how to balance the overwhelming needs of the hospital and our family's needs. 

In three weeks we move to Kijabe, and I see it as a time to start over trying to be part time. And would appreciate prayer for wisdom in making this happen. Tentatively I plan to reduce to 3.5 days per week and ask that my call frequency be no more than 5-6 per month. The hard part about doing this is I know it means others have to work harder so I can work less. On the other hand, I won't be able to keep up what I've been doing for much longer.  

Stuck in the Mud

Wednesdays the dental team and eye team drive the Tenwek bus out to rural health dispensaries for outreach.  The dental team provides extractions of diseased teeth and the eye team screens for cataract and glaucoma.

   Last week after a successful trip (we saw over 25 grateful patients) our driver choose a different route back to Tenwek. As you can see the bus got stuck. We pushed,  Leonard (our dental technologist) pulled, we dug out tires, we placed rocks under the wheels--all without luck. 

   We prayed and down the road came a tractor with a chain.  We were back on the road.

      The next day I gave a lecture on Dental Triage--and suggested before we can do outreach to patients, it may be the dental team that needs to be reached out to in the first place.