Weekend Fun

I wasn't working on Saturday so a bunch of us drove to Chipata, the nearest town. There's a supermarket and most excitingly a hotel with a swimming pool! So while I hear it's been frosty at home, and you've been sat around the fire with your cups of cocoa, I have been sunbathing! 

It really doesn't feel like December... although it is rainy season, so it's not clear blue skies all the time. 

But really that's a good thing, cos it's already 30+ degrees everyday, and apparently was much hotter in October.

On Sunday I shadowed James my O&G reg for his on call. We had a very sick patient in the morning who had had an antepartum haemorrhage (bleed before giving birth). Joop one of our consultants came in and took her to theatre. Initially she had a c-section, where they found a HUGE clot behind the placenta, but she had an atonic uterus (won't contract properly) due to having had 7 prev pregnancies and the prolonged labour so they did a hysterectomy. She lost about 3L of blood (out of 4 or 5L total blood in your body) so none of us were very optimistic that she'd survive. 

We had the same problem as before of not having enough blood available. She had the only 2 units available during the operation, and as they were closing her up her BP was 62/35, HR 140 - really really bad. I knew she was the same blood group as me, so I tried to donate some blood for her, thinking this was the only chance of keeping her alive. We don't have the reagent to test for hepatitis C here, but I figured the very very small chance of me having it and giving it to her was worth it since the other option was likely death. The lab technician really didn't want to let me, and when I told him she would die without the blood he somehow managed to find a third unit in the fridge... So she had that third unit, her BP picked up a bit and so far is actually doing very well, all things considered. I don't like to make promises, but it's looking like she'll survive.

I found out afterwards that it's actually illegal to donate blood on the spot, because it all has to be screened centrally. This being said, apparently when it was the matron's relative who would have died without an immediately donated transfusion, this was temporarily forgotten... It's difficult - obviously you don't want people to die needlessly from lack of blood, but giving someone a blood borne virus from a blood transfusion is a very big deal, so you can understand why they have the law to protect people. It just doesn't work in emergencies.

Then on Sunday afternoon, in an attempt to feel more Christmassy, we celebrated Sinterklaas. This is a Dutch tradition where Sinterklaas (v similar to Santa Claus) comes and gives you all a present and a poem bought and written by another member of the group. As well as about 8 British expats there are 5 Dutch.

Joop my Dutch consultant dressed as Sinterklaas

James, one of the medical doctors, hearing what Sinterklaas' helpers have found out about him

There's a distinct lack of originality in names among expats - we have 2 James', until last week 2 Sammy's and 3 Alex's, out of about 14 of us! I think the Zambian's must think we only have about 5 names to choose from. They can't really talk though - literally about 50% of people have the surname Phiri or Banda, which makes life very confusing!