Often enough, I'm in the OR. Often enough that I don't get too upset because I've learned that usually they will come back after a while- you just have to be patient.
Our OR is on the lower floor but we can still hear the afternoon rain begin and usually great thunderbolts begin shaking our building even where we are deep in the hospital. Our hospital and mission is on a hilltop, close to the action.
Interesting fact: Rwanda is called the lightning capital of the world! This is based in lightning strikes per square kilometer or something like that. What I can tell you is that almost every single day we have thunderstorms, often brief but powerful. Despite that the climate here is almost idyllic: I tell friends that we haven't shut our windows since we've been here with temperatures that average 73 degrees.
Anyway, for the last two days I've had my patience tried. Maybe it is the late hour of the operation. Maybe I'm just tired from busy days and being short staffed, slowing everything down.
Two days ago, it was while I was trying to set a bad and tricky open fracture with a device which connects to the bone through pins (external fixator); just when I got everything lined up- darkness! Yesterday, again, working late, it was the last case, a skin graft. I was taking off a slice of the top 14 one thousandeths of an inch of skin to use for the graft. Well what to do when the electricity turns off in the middle of that? Freeze. Wait. Wait some more. Eventually the electricity came on for part if the case, enough to finish harvesting the graft and the rest we do by light of the cell phone. It actually turned out pretty good, but I felt my nerves were getting frayed.
By the time I started home, the rain had finally stopped. The cool air had that fresh clean smell that somehow revives your spirits. I then noticed debris everywhere -the storm must've been worse than I thought! As I came onto the Mission I saw a huge tree, diameter of 3 feet at least, ripped down on top if the carport -yikes!
Then, when I got home- Surprise! Our house was flooded - almost completely. With the remaining daylight we used squeegees to clean up all the water that had backed up through the utility drain. I was so grateful for the guys who came to help me- I was feeling pretty discouraged by then, especially since my family had been delayed in coming yet one more time.
After all that I finally put up my feet and closed out the end of a very long day. This view made everything better.
Power outages were a problem for us with an infant on the oxygen generator. If they started the hospital generator it usually took at least 15 minutes. By then sats were below 50. Headed back that way next month. Keith
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