My first day back and a bit of craziness. My mailbox is full of administrative things to take care of that require thier "Chief's" approval.  Acquainting myself with a new set of patients (I missed a busy Pedicatric week) and my 7 am conference took a few hours this am. The jet lag is not too bad, I just feel a little tired - then again it might have been the snow I shoveled this monring at 5am.  In a few hours of busy work, Ghana seem so far away. I am carrying around in my white coat a patient card- just to show people that I was there and we did operate all those days. Plus I remind myself of what we all accomplished over the week.

Now back to daily labs, post operative epidurals, and multiple cather options- none of which existed in Ghana.

I down loaded all 415 pictures I took in Ghana. My last few posts will be pictures only. Now that we are all back, you don't need me to tell you the stories.

Thanks for reading.

Goodbye and Stay Healthy.

Stephanya

It is 4 am and I am back in Rochester. I can’t sleep. That’s OK because all my belongings smell like smoke from the fires in Ghana and I really need to do laundry.

Most of the team was able to adjust to the time difference in Ghana, but some especially Nate and Danielle, would wake up at 2 or 3 am. No one could tell because they were fresh and alert all day and stayed up pretty late at night. Pretty impressive. Stacie and I had no trouble sleeping except the last night. She thinks we were both dehydrated and a little nervous we would be late for our 6 am pick up time. Good thing we all made it out early for it took us 2 hours to go about 20 miles to the airport. Traffic was horrendous. For an hour we stood in place and moved maybe 1 mile 30mins. Once we got past the worst, Mr. Houdo got us to the airport at 8:40. Then we waited in lines.

Line Dancing

One line at customs to check our passports and mark our bags with chalk. No one is sure what the chalk signified since no one checked for it later.

Another line to weigh our bags.

A third line to check our itineraries and passports (again).

Fourth line at Check- in to weigh our bags AGAIN and take our passports after issuing a baggage tag.

A fifth line to search thru our luggage.

A sixth line to wait for the return of our passports and obtain our boarding passes (which incidentally does not happen at the “Check-in” desk- very Ghanaian).

A seventh line for customs where they take our declaration forms and check and stamp our passports (third time).

An eighth line for carry on baggage check and security. They do not let women take off their belts so I beeped and got padded down.

An ninth line where they check our passports for a fourth time and our boarding passes again.

And finally a tenth line where they search our carry on (even after it has been x-rayed) and physically pad everyone down (my second time).

All the IVU bins went thru without any problem and I don’t think they were padded down once.

To the Plane

We all got thru the ten lines and even had time to spend the last of our cedis in duty free. I was able to score on some of that hot pepper sauce. I found the correct spelling is Shito (the name amuses Stacie to no end). Luckily the glass jar did not break in transit. Yum smoke and pepper sauce on my clothes.

Speaking of the smell of smoke. Dr Bellinger said he was almost knocked out when he opened the overhead compartment when we arrived at JFK.  The smell of Ghana smoke was overwhelming and may permanently etched onto his nose he thinks.

In JFK- a rush to get Brent and Stacie to their gate for take off and all the bins out. Luckily they were checked all the way thru. In Accra my check in person could not figure out how to code Rochester and was only going to check me thru to JFK. Luckily I gave her the airport code and she checked it thru or I would haven been delayed in JFK.

Charles stopped at Dunkin Donuts and four other people stopped at Starbucks when we hit the terminal.  Our first coffee in 12 days. It will surprise all my friends that I was not one of them. I was feeling pretty hypoglycemic and needed real food before any coffee. And I don’t support Starbucks. But I assure you now at 5 am I have an Americano next to me as I type this. It is 18 degrees- a day ago I was sweating in 85 degree weather.

I did not make it home until the wee hours of Tuesday am and after about 2 hours of sleep I was up at 4 am. When I got home I put my smoky bag in the laundry room and went right up to see my daughter who was asleep soundly in her crib. She looks bigger than when I left. Sometimes I would see a little girl or baby at the hospital that would remind me of her. I had pictures of her, but nothing compares to seeing and holding her.

It was a great trip but it is good to be home.

Saturday.

Another early morning after packing until late in the night. No breakfast and we hit the wards at 8 am.  I am the IVU resident scholar. This means that my application was chosen amongst the many and the IVU paid from my travel to Ghana. My contribution to the Team has really been in rounding. Danielle Sweeney, the Pediatric Urology fellow, has been the most help in the OR. So it was my job to find the children when they got to the wards- remember who was who (with the help of cards that had their pictures on them), now what surgery was done and when, and when the catheters should come out. I also had to keep track of who had medical issues or needed labs. Pretty much the standard job of any resident. Just remembering who is who and who had what was a big part of it. Drs Schneck and Bellinger did the exams, removed bandages and took out catheters. Danielle had the hard job of preparing the doses of medications we gave out. She also managed the ICU patient we had.

The entire team came to round the last morning. The bins, now empty were packed in the bus.   I found myself a little sad to leave some of the children, as I had gotten very found of the little ones and their mothers.

After that, some went to see the site of the sword of the Asente people which is right next to the hospital in front of the new trauma center which really is under construction. One final good bye to our host Dr. Aboah, and we drove out of KATH for the last time this year.

The sign over the Gate says “Good Bye and Stay Healthy”.