Easter Break with a Little bit of Work

Happy Belated Easter During the Easter I had the oportunity to take a little break and go to Zambia and Victoria Falls and briefly in to Botswana and the Chobe National Park. On the roadtrip to Victoria Falls we stopped over in Lusaka to visit the Beit CURE hospital which is the closest hospital to ours, outside Malawi, where they perform Neurosurgery. The Beit CURE hospital in Lusaka has been running since 2006 and as far as I know they have been performing Neurosurgery since then. As of now they are mainly operating Hydrocephalus patients and performing VP-shunts and Endovascular Third Ventriculoscopies, this after 10 years of practice. This is very hopeful for our Project and very New practice at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital where we also perform mainly ETVs and VP-shunts. This is after having a neurosurgical ward and dedicated theatre for only 1.5years. We are also operating craniotomies and have done some spinal surgieries. What we have to remember is that this practice is still in its' pionering stage so every Surgery apart from ETVs and VP-shunts are considered Major Surgery. Anyway, we had a lovely visit and were very well taken care of at Beit CURE, so thank you very much ladies for takng care of us. After Lusaka we drove to Livingstone, Zambia for a quick stopover before we took a pontoon Ferry over the mighty Zambezi River to Botswana. We stayed for 1 night in Botswana and squeezed in a brilliant dinner of Eland, Kudu and Impala meat and an Early morning Game Drive in the Chobe National Park. Mid day we took the Ferry back to Zambia and our lodge in Livingstone. Our Mission in Livingstone was Clear, to see 1 of the seven natural Wonders of the world: Victoria Falls... it was Absolutely Magnificent!

I ofcourse had to jump of that Bridge, twice, doing a a Bungee jump and a Bridge swing. We all did a zip line across the gorge from Zambia and in to Zimbabwe. If that is not the coolest way to travel in to a country I do not know what is.

Have fun and live a little!

Back to Malawi!

Dear friends After quite a long break (6 weeks) over the holidays I am back in Malawi since a few weeks. The trip back was a bit of a pain. The plane was delayed out of Oslo and I landed in Stockholm as my plane for Addis Abeba took off. Scandinavian Airline System (SAS) put me up in a hotel, fed me and I was quite comfortable for the 20 hours I was in Stockholm. 24 hours late I arrived in Blantyre on a Sunday istead of Saturday, atleast I came with both my suitcases (with all the Medical equipment). One thing is for sure, it's a heck of a lot warmer here than in Norway. The Monday before I left it was -27C. Here it is somewhere around 25-28C every day now at the end of rainy season. I did not only have vacation while in Norway, that was only about 2.5 weeks, the rest of the time I worked. I gave a presentation at my ward about the Project, I also gave a presentation for HR at Oslo University Hospital and wrote some reports. I also worked on the New Project application and round 1 of that application that we are about to hand over to FK Norway, crossing my fingers. Every 3 years we have to Write a New Overall Project Application, every year we Write a yearly Application, every year we also Write a Budget Application and a report for the past year's work and budget. Sometimes I think I am more coordinator/organizer and social director than nurse. I was the kind of student that hated writing papers with a passion, now I actually enjoy writing applications and reports. If I ever get my thumb out and get my masters it should be a breeze compared to this stuff... ;-D So, what's the plan forward? I honestly do not know. I may stay in Malawi until August to get the nurses in the New Project settled but after that, I do not know. What do I want to do? I want to continue working on Projects. I feel that it would be difficult going back to my ward in Norway, with all the resources we have after having been out and seen what is happening elsewhere. I am officially a mission junky now. Either way I would love to continue working in Malawi on this Project or maybe going somewhere else working on another Project. Maybe working in Norway on these kinds of Projects... We'll se what the future holds. Big hugs

Faux Pas - An Embarassing or Tactless Act or Remark in a Social Situation

Funny stories What can I say… I’ve been lazy. I have been back in Blantyre for about 1 month after my summer break. I spent 48 hours in Norway before I jumped on a plane for Nueva York and a 3 week round trip together with my bestest bud. The trip took us from NYC, to Virginia Beach, Savannah, GA, Miami, Key West, New Orleans, Jackson, MS and we flew home from Memphis, TN. It was a wonderful trip with too much fun, a lot of good music, mostly great weather, wonderful people and a lot of laughter. Coming back to Blantyre felt a little like coming home. This is where I live, have my own room, my house, my dogs and cat and a lot of friends. Back in Norway I do not have a home anymore but hopefully I’ll be able to buy a small apartment in Oslo when I move back next year. I want to share a couple of funny stories and one of them is a major fuck up on my part. Considering this was my first really big faux pas since coming here I do not feel too bad. We had a group meeting within the project and discussed staff/personnel matters and 1 girl just got married and we are not sure if she will stay here in Blantyre or move to Lilongwe to be with her husband. We discussed this back and forth and we would be very sad to lose her because she is 1 of 2 Theatre nurses that has been to Norway and the other one is going back to school to get his bachelor. One member suggested that although it would be sad to lose her she might have to go since it is said in the Bible that a woman should love and support her husband a stay where he is… For those who know me well know what is coming! I momentarily lost my brain to mouth filter and wasn’t even aware of my own thought until I heard it coming out of my mouth: “Well, the bible needs upgrading”! Needless to say the room got quiet, very quiet and a colleague sitting next to me theatre whispers in my ear: “some people might find that offensive”. I just said thank you and carried on like nothing happened… What was I supposed to do? I am just brought up with not bringing up religious References in a Professional setting and still get confused when People do. If they can express their thoughts on this matter referring to the Bible I should be able to express mine as well, I Guess that is my thought! The most important thing is that we respect eachothers beliefs, something I kind of missed on this one..... Another story a friend shared during lunch one day had me giggling for days. I might have shared my distinct hatred toward the Immigration office in Blantyre on a previous occasion and even though I have my Temporary Employment Permit (TEP) and VISA is secured until May 2017 my hatred has in no way diminished. A friend was in the office of one of the head honchos at Immigration to talk about her TEP that had just been given her. She sat with the papers in hand in an office with this Gentleman working with Immigration alone. He then got up from behind his desk and walk around it to the door. He opens the door, peeks outside and step back in, closes the door and locks it. He then walks back around his desk sits down and looks at my friend and says: “Let’s play”. My friend gets a little confused and ask: “Excuse me?”. He then proceeds to answer: “Let’s play”… bows his head and starts praying… The thing is, in Malawi the letters L and R tends to swap places or just being used as interchangeable. F.ex. If your name is Laura, the people here a most likely to call you Raula or Laula. It takes a little time to get used to this and these miss pronunciations makes for a very interesting life here in Malawi. Have a wonderful week

Long time...

Dear friends It has been a long time since my last post and it is mainly because we have been very busy and we've had visitors from 2 rounds of ressource personnel. In March we had 2 scrub nurses here for 3 weeks visiting and then we rescently had two Medical engineers visiting for 10 days. We also had a visit from the head of the Project and a colleague. We originally also have had 2 operating days for the neurosurgical patients but that has rescently changed to 4 operating days a week. This, ofocourse, means more work in the Neurosurgical High Dependency Unit as well as in theatre. With more patients and more complicated surgery we also get more Equipment that many are not familiar with so we have ongoing training. This week the participants that just arrived back to Malawi from a 6 months stay in Norway, came back to work. It is always a burst of energy when the participants return and they can share their experiences and newly acquired knowledge with their colleagues. I have also celebrated my Africaversary, my one year stay in Malawi, on May 16th. I arrived on May 16th 2014 in Malawi and was supposed to stay for a year but that plan changed within 3 months and was extended to 2 years. I do not regret it but I am definatley looking forward to a long summer holiday. This year I also celebrated Our constitution day in Lilongwe at the Norwegian Ambassador's residence. It was a wonderful evening with good wine, excellent food and brilliant music. We have also installed our own washing machine in the ward, something that led to a great deal of entertainment for some of the guardians. They placed themselves on the floor close to the washing machine and watched the whole cycle that ran for 2hours 20minutes. In a few weeks I am getting a visit form my parents and my sister and my sparetime goes to planning what to do while they are here... Good times! Take care

Back in Blantyre after Christmas Break!

So I am back in Blantyre since 2 weeks. It was really nice to come back to some warmer weather. Unfortunately the rains this season has been so bad that southern Malawi is declared a disaster area. Especially the lower shire valley has been badly affected by the rain. Almost 200 people have lost their lives due to floods and mudslides and thousand of people are homeless. Many schools haven't started after Christmas break because people who have lost their homes are living in the local schools and churches. In the hospital we have received many patients with trauma caused by falling houses, especially in the paediatric department. The heavy rain has caused a lot of sand, mud and debris to wash in to the water supply for Blantyre and therefore access to water around town is still scarce. When I make comments on my facebook page about being without water for 6 days I really don't feel it is a big deal. We wash ourselves in the water from the pool and if I have to wait 3-5 days without washing my hair, so what! (I just feel sorry for the people around me... ;-D ). Jokes put aside, the situation for many people are dire and my thoughts go out to all families affected by the floods in Malawi...

Looooong Christmas Vacation

Who am I to contradict my boss's orders? She told me to take a proper long (and well deserved) vacation in December and taking 1 week off in the beginning of the month, then go back and work for 2 weeks before taking a 2 week Christmas vacation wasn't good enough... "No, why don't you take all of December off and then go back in January with your new college on January 7th" I thought about it for about 10 seconds and said: "OK" So here I am at Frankfurt airport waiting for my connecting flight to Oslo. For the last 2 weeks I have had a really good friend visiting from home and we started my vacation last Friday with a trip around Lake Malawi for 5 days. We went to Cape Maclear where we stayed at Mgoza lodge (great huge double beds, would have slept fantastic if it hadn't been for all the dead banana flies on my face, pillow and in the bed). Then we drove north to Nkhata Bay where we for 3 nights stayed at a really cool place called Mayoka Village (for more than 1 night there, bring your own mattress, they're a hip killer, felt 65years old every morning). On the way south we stayed over at Senga Bay outside Salima where we stayed at Cool Runnings, a quiet relaxing spot where they have beautiful long sandy beaches. Great place, apart from all the ants... But hey, it's Malawi ;-D I left Blantyre at about 32-34C and going home to -1C... I want my winter coat!

Leaps of Progress!

Since I arrived in Blantyre on May 16th, and started working at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital I have waited for this day. Pretty much every week since I got here the answer to my question about finishing our High Dependency Unit has been: "Next week". FINALLY! Tomorrow morning (yes it is a Sunday) we are finalizing the HDU and we will during the day receive our first patients. The reason we choose to open on a Sunday is because we have developed preoperative checklists and guidelines. As of now, there are no uniform routines or stationary at the hospital so all units have their own set up. Also, there are no preoperative routines... kind of. The only routine the units have before sending patients to Theatre is to provide an IV line. No washing, preoperative fasting routines or pain medication. We want to make sure our patients are well prepared for surgery so that they have a stable blood sugar postoperatively, starting pain medication already before surgery and that they are clean and properly washed to prevent infection. The wards send all their patients going for surgery to the OR in the morning, no matter what time their surgery is planned to happen. So a 3 months old baby can fast all day for a surgery taking place at 3pm. While they are waiting for their turn they are sitting with their mothers in a corridor which in summer is very warm and in winter very cold. If we can improve at least a few of these conditions for these patients I will be a happy nurse... Wish us luck!

Name change...

Yeah, I changed the name on my Blog and you understand why... I am staying for another year, until May 2016. I felt relieved when the decision was made and I have more time to do what I am here to work on. It gave me time... I got the Ok for leave from my regular job and now it's just the paperwork to sign left. Wish me luck!

Opening a bank account!

So, last week I went to the Standard Bank Blantyre branch to open a bank account. First, I may have to tell you that the post system here is not quite like home. You don't have a mailbox at your house you have a P.O. Box and that is of course separate from your living address. When you fill in forms you have to state your mail adr. (Which in my case is a p.o. box at the hospital) and then you physical adr. which in my case is Jackson rd (nr), Blantyre Malawi. At the bank I filled out around 10 forms with personal information, the same info over and over again, including my post adress and where I live. When the guy at the bank reads through these papers he asks me: "Where do you live?" Me: "Nyambadwe" Him: "Nyambadwe is a hill" Me: "Yes, it's a hill in the Nyambadwe area but I don't live on the hill" Him: "Well, Jackson rd is not good enough, are there any trees or other landmarks around so we can find your house?" Me (trying not to laugh): "Well, it's right across the street from Peter Mutharika's house (the President of Malawi)" Him: "Yeah, that would do!" Made my day!

Vacation in Zanzibar

Last night of vacation and I am sitting with my travel buddy at the Swiss Garden Hotel in Dar es Salam with a G&T fighting the mosquitos. We end our vacation in the same way we have spent it, being incredibly lazy and going to bed early. We started our trip here in Dar with a 15 hour sleeping marathon before we took the ferry to Zanzibar and Stone Town last Sunday morning (and almost missed the boat). We spent 2 days in Stone Town doing all the touristy stuff, visiting house of wonders, prison island, sunset drinks at the Africa house and snorkling the Indian ocean in pouring rain. We also satisfied our shopping withdrawal by buying shoes, pants, dresses and just enjoyed window shopping... I also met my fellow FK participant Tiffanie who lives and work here which was lovely. Tuesday we took the Dala Dala (lokal bus) to the town of Jambiani to stay at Mango Beach House which is a lovely 3 room guesthouse right on the beach, run by the lovely Lisa. We hired a sailboat to go out to the reef for some snorkling and sailing. We slept outside on a platform one night to wake up to the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen. Most of all though, we just lazied around. It was not all vaca though, there was a boy in the village who came by Lisa's guesthouse (as they often do) with bad burns on his hands. We cleaned and dressed the 3rd degree burns and asked him to come back the next day (yesterday). He came back and the burns were no better and we took him to the local hospital. This is where it gets ugly. They removed all the dead skin on his fingers without analgesia whatsoever. They had no scalpell to cut the dead skin off but used sterile compresses and just pulled it off while holding him still. Finally, after what seemed to be an hour (more like 30 min) they decided to admit the 10 year old boy to the hospital to anesthetise while continuing cleaning his wounds... Just heart wretching!

I have been incredibly lazy about my blog and see that it has been 2 months since my last blogpost. Time pass so quickly when everything is new and you meet new people every day, trying to figure out how everything works. For example, back home you get all your bills directly to your bank or on email and you go online and it takes 20 minutes every 2 weeks to sort your bills out for the month. Not so much here... Electricity is prepaid and bought at the gas station, you go to the waterboard to pay your water bill, to the internet provider to pay that bill, to the Alpha security company to pay their bill etc etc etc, you get the picture. Also, there is no one stop shop here. I go to one shop to buy most of the groceries, mainly because they irregularly have greek yoghurt, sour cream and cream. Another shop to buy other certain groceries, another shop yet again because they have meat and frozen seafood and some edible cheese. Then you go to another couple of shops because one is a greek butcher and the grocery store next to that have some European/American products. If there are any furniture needed you do not go to IKEA, you call a carpenter who will build you the furniture you need, like our bed for the annex. The conclusion to this is as follows: I need a stay at home ex-pat husband!

Just so you know

I hope you all understand that what I wrote yesterday was not a critisism of QECH but a comment about the difficult working conditions all the healthworkers here work under. They all do it gracefully and without complaining... Us foreigners on the other hand... not so patient or graceful under these conditions... ;-D

Short and quick

So, a quick info post from Queens. Although the percentage of HIV/AIDS in Malawi is around 11-12%, the percentage of patients admitted to the hospital with HIV/AIDS is around 75%. A lot of problems the patients have are secondary infections due to these problems. 40% of the people on Malawi are stunted due to malnutrition. Also, imagine a hospital functioning for a whole day with no water supply... Or on a daily basis you cannot find toiletpaper in the staff bathrooms and nothing to dry your hands with after you wash your hands (that is if you are lucky enough to find soap since it's portioned out). Tubing and ambubags are hung out to dry in open air, as I posted on FB. Don't even get me started on the staffing problems. Anyway, some info about our day to day work here at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital... Have a good one!

First 2 weeks lost...

Hello, I am so sorry for the break... We arrived in Blantyre on May 16 and celbrated May 17 with a visit to the hospital followed by a liquid lunch and later a liquid dinner, just like being home, The first two weeks here have consisted of visits to the hospital (received equipment from Norway), visits to the immigration office (a total of 3 times), a visit to the medical council (who had never registered a nurse anaesthesist before and therefore refused to do so), a visit to the nuses council (who required a 4 week introduction to the hospital working in different units).... They love forms and paperwork here! We finally negotiated it down to 2 weeks intro, after all we are here to do a specific job. We started yesterday in the AETC unit, which is actually not really an emergency and trauma unit, more like "legevakten". Not the funnest day I've had and I'll let u know why: 1. I've had a Delhi belly since I arrived (finally better as of yesterday), and I'm a bit dehydrated. 2. Fell in the shower a couple of days ago (yes I am an old lady), hit my right hip and shoulder and whipped my neck. 3. I have a throat/upper respiratory infection and feel like crap! But hey, why not do it all in one go? So, playing hookie today, lying in bed and watching tv... hope all of u a good! Love C

Week 1 in Johannesburg

Enjoying the first day off this week and have been lounging in the sun by the hotel pool. Recovering after a late night which consisted of dinner with FK participants,the organization friends of Norway, FK workers and the Norwegian ambassador to South Africa. Afterwards we had a party and danced pretty much all night.... Good times. The week has beed packed with interesting discussions, useful information and fun excercises. Not to forget the football match that Group 1 won.... hhhmmmm, just saying! Tomorrow, Sunday, we will do a tour of Johannesburg, visiting the apartheid museum, Nelson Mandela square and Soweto. Really looking forward to that. I have some trouble uploading pictures to this blog will try to work it out and I am sure it will sorted eventually

Night before takeoff!

I got a phone call today... your flight has been pushed forward 7 hours tomorrow! Instead of leaving at 6.45pm tomorrow I'm flying out of Oslo at 1.05pm. This really sparked my energy and I finally had my suitcases repacked and ready to go. Trying to check in online was quite difficult also as I got the message: "This customer has been registered with special need assistance (as travelling with animal or children travelling alone) please contact check-in desk at the airport". They know me well at the travel agency... Having stopped taking the malaria meds I have high hopes of finally (after 3 weeks) enjoy a good nights sleep... Nite nite ☆☆☆

A few more days...

I've been ridiculously busy lately but now it seems like all is falling into place. Pretty much all that needs to be done have been done. Yesterday I had a wonderful moving out party where we executed a flawless (nurses only) move, and we used only 1h 10min to empty the apartment and fill up 2 storage units. Today my sister and I cleaned out the place. I am now on my way to Harstad for my grandfather's funeral. I am glad I got to still be home when he died so I can attend at his funeral. I am otherwise preparing for departure on Saturday and still have a few last minute things to do... when will you ever be prepared for something like this?

2 weeks 'til takeoff!

I am 2 weeks shy of my big African adventure... For one year i will live and work in Blantyre, Malawi. Through the Oslo-Blantyre Neurosurgery Program we will aim to start the first neurosurgical unit in Malawi, train neurosurgeons, clincial officer's anaesthesia, OR nurses and nurses for the ward. This Blog will be a journal of my experiences (the good, the bad and the ugly). Beyond excited and at the same time somewhat terrified of what is to come, I am ready!