Thursday October 2, 2025 Hi folks! Just a quick check in from Amsterdam airport. I arrived the night before last and made my way to my hotel in Amstelveen, a charming suburb of Amsterdam. I took a cat nap and rallied for dinner, taking a short walk to the restaurants and pubs. I chose a great little pizza place, had a wonderful dinner, chatted with my server for a bit, then walked back to the hotel for the night. My bed was so comfortable, but it didn't prevent my time zone confused brain from waking me up at 3am. This is where it gets interesting. I returned to the airport, had trouble checking in at the kiosk, then proceeded to the help desk to discover there was a problem with my Visa (for Uganda). It's me...I'm the problem. 🤦🏻♀️ Long story short, I completely messed up and did not have a valid Visa to get into Uganda. I have no idea why this was not caught when I left Seattle, but here I was stuck in Amsterdam. I cannot begin to express my gratitude for my friend A...
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Saturday 9/27/2025 Hi, wonderful people! In 48 hours, I will be boarding a plane that will eventually get me back to Uganda! As usual, and an important part of my pre-trip ritual, my home looks like a tornado ripped through the garment district. 😂 I ordered a few extra supplies from eBay, and I am waiting on 2 more packages, which are supposed to arrive today/tonight. But let's back up and catch up... As usual, I am overwhelmed and overjoyed by your generosity. 💖 Many of you made monetary donations that will help me cover the extra costs of luggage and supplies, and direct donations to MHI that will help them get a new ambulance. Thanks to my fiber-folks, I will be bringing 70 baby hats, a duffle bag full of yarn, and enough knitting supplies for more knit kits! Between donations and multiple thrift shop raids, I am also bringing a large number of beautiful, colorful scarves as gifts for the midwives and birth center staff. I'm also bringing extra pens and thumb drives for t...
Saturday, August 30, 2025 Hello, darling people, It's catch-up time! It's hard to believe, but I am already (almost) 7 weeks post-op from my knee replacement surgery. I have had a few bumps in the road, severe reaction to pain meds and a feeble attempt to get by on Tylenol and Celebrex as well as some overzealous home PT on my part, but I am healing well in spite of myself. 😁 This was my first major surgery, so it's been a lifestyle adjustment...What do you mean I'm supposed to rest?!? All they did was disconnect my muscles, remove a bunch of arthritic bone, hammer in a new joint, and reconnect everything! And did you know that PT actually stands for Paid Torture? 🙈 It turns out all of that is rather exhausting. Who knew? I had a long list of projects to keep me busy while in recovery, most of which I have only recently started working on. I did manage to knit a batch of baby hats, and I've started my 2nd baby blanket. I'm still dealing with (normal and expect...
Sunday, July 13, 2025 Hello! A lovely email from a dear family friend (Hi, Kathy!) reminded me that I wanted to check in when I returned home, sorry for the delay. 😉Except for being a long trip, my flights home were blissfully uneventful, with layovers in Amsterdam and London that were just long enough to allow me ample time to hobble through the airports and get some "normal" food. I was pretty wiped out, getting home in the late afternoon of July 3rd, and definitely needed a few days to get my head on straight. Monday and Tuesday I ran some errands, had a pre-op appointment with my orthopedic surgeon, and had my bloodwork done. I worked a few shifts at the end of the week, as an applications consultant for a medical equipment company, which worked out well for a couple of reasons. I was hired by this company at the end of May but had yet to work there because of travel and my hospital schedule. The job is very flexible, but I was hoping to get the chance to try it out, t...
Wednesday, July 2nd Well, even the most seasoned travelers screw the pooch once in a while. In my anxiety about my previous flight debacles, I read my ticket wrong, and my flight leaves at 11:59 PM and not 11:59 AM. So, I am hanging out at the Entebbe airport for 14 hours. 🤦🏻♀️ I have ebooks and knitting and there's a cafe, so here I sit, completely annoyed with myself, expecting a not so delightful day at the airport...until Rachel came to my rescue! She called the guesthouse, and I was able to get a day rate for a room. I was also lucky enough to score a ride from the airport with a very nice gentleman who was dropping off his friends. I'll spend the day here and head back to the airport at 8pm tonight. I arrived in Entebbe Monday afternoon and checked into a very sweet guesthouse Rachel had booked for me. There is a rooftop lounge and restaurant, many cute tables in the garden areas, and it's easy to walk nearby. I walked to a local craft market, then to a nearby mall...
Thursday, June 26, 2025 I have been writing notes on the past view days, without posting, because no power means no computer battery and usually no Wi-Fi. I am also writing in between scanning patients and working on other projects. I'm hoping to get this out to you by the end of the day! 😁 We lost power Tuesday night around 10:00 p.m., which was unfortunate because it was particularly still and warm. I always bring a small foldable rechargeable fan with me, thank goodness or it would have been difficult to get any sleep at all. Power has continued to be spotty over the past few days. Once again, the roosters woke me up Wednesday well before the Sun. I love the mornings here; cool temperatures and I can see the sun rising through one of my windows with a slight view of the mountains. Our little village starts to wake up and get to work, sweeping out their huts and often the areas around it, making breakfast, getting ready for the day. It's so comforting to wake up in this com...
June 23, 2025 Hello! It's early Monday morning and I'm pretty sure that every single rooster in Norhtern Uganda is crowing right outside my hut! The sun is not yet out, and the Wi-Fi is terrible this morning, but I will just keep writing and we will see what happens. 😁 Our Sonographer Mentor candidate, Max, had major delays using public transportation to get to us. The poor man arrived in Atiak at dinner time Thursday evening, found no suitable place to spend the night, returned to Gulu (1–2-hour drive), and came Friday morning instead. Dinah (a midwife from my first training group in 2024) and I had a couple of emergent patients needing ultrasounds Friday morning, which kept me busy until Max arrived. One of our patients arrived early, with cramping and spotting in early pregnancy. Using ultrasound, we were able to see a gestational sac, without a fetal pole. There was the possibility that the pregnancy needed more time to develop, however due to the size of the gestational ...