Monkey Brain Musings

 Hello, friends and followers! How about a little update? In theory, I should be writing this while recovering from my knee replacement surgery...however (and this may come as NO surprise to anyone working in healthcare or dealing with our broken medical system in any way), my surgery was denied after multiple appeals and a peer-to-peer conversation with my surgeon. Insert expletives here. My biggest concern was how this may affect my trips this year, but I will shift the short trip up from July to June, hopefully having the surgery in July and keeping my plan to return again at the end of September for a longer trip. I was hoping to use my recovery time to create the Phase 2 curriculum (and the knitting tutorials), but I will make that work between my shifts at the hospital and my bi-weekly Physical Therapy.  My walking group kindly dropped off enough mint tins that I have been able to make 12 knitting kits, complete with darning needles, stitch markers, paper rulers (repurpo...

 Hello dear friends and followers! Many of you have reached out to me, concerned about future trips and funding, considering the dramatic and horrific changes being made within our current government. I have much to catch you up on but let me begin by letting you know that the primary funding for MHI (Mother Health International) comes from an organization based in Australia. As of now, our funding and training programs are secure!  so, let the catch up begin! For those of you just joining us, and those of you that need a recap, I am now working directly with Mother Health International ( Mother Health ) and Rachel Zaslow. Here's a brief introduction and profile... Dr. Rachel Zaslow's career as a Registered Midwife in Sub-Saharan Africa spans 20 years with a focus on strengthening maternal health care systems in resource poor areas. Her area of expertise is in developing midwifery models of care that blend clinical excellence with culturally specific practice for improving hea...