I Became the Patient For a Few Minutes - March 4th

Sunday is the day of rest, so doctors don’t even do rounds on the patients, but Jim does anyways and they are used to him doing it by now.

So Sunday rounds Terry is Jim’s nurse so they invited me to come along as well for the time if I could handle it.

Now of course the people who stay overnight are in wards and all the men in one room, women in another, children in another. It’s just beds lined up along the walls, with about 2 feet in between each. The family is responsible for taking care of the food, bathing, taking them to the restroom or helping with bed pans for the patient. There is a cookhouse and a little canteen where food is available to buy or they can make food, as well as a small market on the grounds of the hospital.

We went through the hospital starting in the pediatrics. There were 3 children and babies, one girl had had heart surgery somewhere else and was here for I am not sure what but she is very very sleepy and can’t move very well on her own, she is 8. There were also two little girls with pneumonia, baby age. Very cute and afraid of Jim (mainly cause he is white).

Then we went to the mens ward with about 10 patients or more. Some very very sick, some less sick. One passed away last night (I’m not sure who). There were many with HIV and other various infections and diseases and a man with lung cancer. Of course they can’t do anything for someone with something like lung cancer here. Also one man was having a lot of pain in his back and was there to stay until he was better. I generally just stood around and talked to Terry while Jim and my dad talked about the patients and how to care and what to do with each patient.

At the very last patient in the mens ward it hit me really fast. Between an antibiotic on an empty stomach, jet lag and travelling anxiety, the heat, smells and the realization that I’m in Africa in a hospital looking at patients who are extremely ill and all of the standing in between patients I “krumped” as Terry called it. Within 15 seconds I went from fine to feeling like shaky to losing my vision and hearing. Somehow my dad and Terry and Jim walked me out of the ward and to the sidewalk outside where I had to lay down on the cement and recover. It was the exact same thing that happened when I got my yellow fever shot, I just almost passed out. I think it was just too much at once on an empty stomach.

So Terry and I came back to the house and about 12 we made lunch, eggs with potatoes and onions a couple pieces of bacon and some fruit.

In the afternoon we walked to the main street of Njinikom, passed homes and people and everything again. It was about a mile walk and we stopped to buy bottled water (for my dad and I, not sure if I want to drink the water here or not, Jim and Terry have always), spaghetti noodles and tomatoes. We also stopped for a beer at their favorite place where its on the second story so we can watch the people. The beer was 23 ounces and it costs 600 francs or $1.20. So can’t hardly afford not to drink! It was a warm german style lighter colored beer. Not bad. We watched the women prepare for Women’s Day Thursday all in their traditional outfits and all the many passerbys.

Basically anything goes here, people wear everything from Obama tee shirts to pokemon to fake name brands in the US, along with traditional clothing, very European style jeans. Men wear women’s clothing, women wear men’s clothing. They don’t really know that a blouse is gender specific. I mean everything you can imagine, fancy sparkles all day long, dirty old clothes.. you never know.

If you want to know more about the patients you can follow Jim and Terry’s blog, hakesincameroon.blogspot.com