Monkey Brain Musings

 Sunday October 5, 2024 Good morning from Kampala! I am only halfway through my journey to Atiak. I left Seattle early Thursday evening, arriving in Dubai Friday evening. As I may have mentioned in the past, I am unable to sleep on airplanes, so I arrived exhausted, stumbling out of the Dubai airport into heat and humidity that instantly fogged up my glasses. I tried to stay awake as long as possible but was unsuccessful and collapsed into bed much too early. I woke up at 1:30 am 😕. I was back at the airport by 8am and arrived in Entebbe around 2pm. 4 flights arrived in Entebbe at the same time, so the lines at immigration were quite long, but that meant the luggage was waiting when I got to the baggage carousel. I am happy to say, that although I did get called out at security, there was no shake down like my last trip, just a quick look into one of my suitcases and I was released. Allan was waiting for me outside and had picked up my personal items and blue towels from the ITW o...

 Hello and let the countdown begin! This Thursday I will be back on a plane, heading towards Uganda. Yikes! I have lists and notes to myself all over the place and I will start the packing process as soon as I finish here. I am feeling incredibly grateful and lucky to have Rachel and MHI (Mother Health International) taking care of all of the transportation details, especially since the main bridge over the Nile River is closed down for repairs. Planning an alternative route will add hours to the drive, which they are figuring out for me.  In the meantime, I have finished the new curriculum, made another visit to the Travel Clinic to update my Typhoid vaccine, picked up my Malaria meds, applied for and received my travel Visa, and started piling supplies on my dining room table. Thanks to the incredible generosity of friends and family (Kathy & Jim, Arnold, and Steven), on top of the medical expenses, I was also able to order more rain ponchos for the midwives and will pac...

Hello, friends!  I hope you all are doing well and enjoying the tail end of summer...Is it really September already?!? I have been working and traveling and working some more. After returning from Uganda and Istanbul, I really hit the ground running and was working quite a bit. It was then that I discovered that I might actually be aging. 😂 I have been consciously trying to ease up on my schedule, both at home and at work. I only took a week off to recover from my 10-week trip and it was not enough, especially when my work schedule was so heavy.  I do have some fun things to share with you all. I may have previously mentioned that I received a $500 grant from one of my professional organizations, Society of Diagnostic Medicine (SDMS). I filled out an application before I left and was awarded the grant with the understanding that I would give an interview of the work that I had done, as well as show receipts from expenses. When I returned, I was interviewed by their Marketing ...

Sunday, May 12, 2024 Hello, friends! I have been home for a week now, and finally think my brain is in the right time zone, so it's catch-up time. My last week in Uganda feels like such a long time ago! I went to CHI on the Monday of my last week, to reunite and work with Dr. Lillian, a physician that has been getting ultrasound training. When I travelled to Kenya and Uganda last year, I spent a couple of days training Dr. Lillian, and we were both excited to see each other again. I was thrilled with her progress, and she was very complimentary of her training with Gingo, which made for a good day for all of us. Dr Lillian, Gingo and me! The rest of the week was uneventful, except that I managed to get a head cold for a few days. Kampala is a very dusty, busy city (lots of air pollution from the bodas, buses and cars), which aggravates my sinuses, activates my asthma, and leaves me with a head cold. I decided to get out of town a day early and spent my last 2 days in Entebbe, at a ...

 Saturday 4/26/2024 Hello! You might want to get comfortable, grab a snack, and put your feet up. This will be a long one! 😁 I am back from the Ssese Islands, visiting 3 islands and 5 clinics in 3 days.  Let's back all the way up to last Friday. I went to CHI for the day, but there were no patients. The clinics that I have worked with here do not run as they do back in the states. There are no appointments made, patients just show up, first come first served, or they don't. Gingo has been asked to create SOPs for the clinic, which is not something he is familiar with or has any experience doing, so I helped him with some research and examples, talked about some other resources that I may be able to send him, and then I headed back to the office.  When Picho and I arrived at the office we were informed that, once again, the trip to the islands might have to be postponed again due to a last-minute request from the US team.  Renny had responded with the requested paper...