No I am not practicing for the Super Bowl, today is the halfway point of my trip!?! 🥳 In some ways I feel like I have been here forever yet in other ways it seems like just a week.

I’ve definitely started settling into a routine here and that feels great. The last few days however have been a bit crazier than usual. I was teasing the 2 new volunteers from Scotland asking if they posted on Instagram that I had opened a private clinic at our volunteer house because I had 2 serious patients to care for who were at our door last night. AND the day before I came home from the clinic at lunchtime to find a man waiting for Me all morning who had taken one of those trotro vans from Accra (over 3 hours away) to see the “White Lady Doctor who could fix his wound”….ummm, I’m not a Doctor and even though I ride several hours a week on Richmond’s motorcycle to do wound care, I have never had any official training in that arena so I am doing my best but it is definitely not my specialty. Well at least he did get the white lady part right which actually is quite easy because there are only a handful of us in this country at best.

After bandaging that man’s wound I had a quick lunch and walked back into town to do a malaria test on one of the local woman I have become friendly with (her son is Grant, the kindergartener that I’m sponsoring for school). Her Malaria test was negative (yeah!), headed back home.

I couldn’t wait to get back here to change out of my scrubs and into some shorts/tank top because it felt like 90+ degrees again with the hot sun and high humidity. As I made my last few steps towards our front door, I heard, “Please Sheila, can you help me? I was at the clinic but they told me you had gone.” I turned to find Godwin, a 17 year old boy I know from town, with a blood-stained rag wrapped around his hand. I thought, “Oh poor kid banged his hand. I’ll just patch him up and head inside.” We unwrapped his hand, there was a 1″ wide laceration from the middle of his ring finger all the way down past his wrist!!! I usually try to keep a poker face on in situations like this to try to avoid scaring patients. But this time, I reflexively gasped and said, “Oh my God, we have to get you back to the clinic for stitches”. I asked Godwin why he didn’t stay at the clinic when he was there earlier. He said it’s because he didn’t have any money to pay for his care💔. I told him not to worry that my donors would pay so he and I set out for the 1 mile walk back to the clinic. Yes, even with this horrible injury and in this terrible heat, this poor kid had now done this walk 3 times!!! These people are SO tough. I’m stunned and amazed by their tenacity each and every day!!

Oh, and how did this injury happen you ask? He said he was cutting down trees with a machete to earn money for his school uniform😔

At the clinic, I assisted my nurse friend Alice who did a great job stitching this boy’s hand, then I started an IV to give him some fluids+antibiotics while Alice gave him a tetanus shot.

I saw Godwin that night downtown when we volunteers went out for a beer. He ran over to say Hi… he looked great😍

Glad it’s Friday because the “white lady in Frankadua” had plenty of big boo boos to contend with this week. I’m very grateful for my medical friends over at the local clinic who helped me manage these patients this week! Even though the clinics here have nothing close to the resources that we have in the States, they have a heck of a lot more resources than I have here in this house. It takes a village, even in Africa!

Now I can’t forget the most exciting patient of the week. The 30 week premie baby girl went home this week! And as luck would have it, she lives in a town very close to where we go on our motorcycles for wound care on the remote farms….So we made a housecall.

Weekends are made for some R+R. And if you are hyperactive, they are for adventures! Whoot Whoot!

Last weekend, I joined my friend Giftie (the midwife that saved that baby a few weeks back) to visit her hometown of Suhum about 3 hours West of here. She wanted me to experience Ghanian homelife including attending the funeral of her uncle. As I’ve mentioned before, funerals are way too prevalent here and they are also a giant celebration of a person being “Called to Glory”. I was told to prepare for drumming, dancing and of course some wailing too.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I like attention. That is how I connect to and interact with those around Me. 😇 That does NOT however include tribal dancing with only 6 people in the courtyard in front of hundreds of relatives as the ONLY Obroney (white person) at the party (or for hundreds of miles for that matter.) All eyes are on Me everywhere I go which can be quite uncomfortable at times even for this attention-relisher. So honestly, (really I am being serious), I had NO desire to bust a move at this funeral. But Giftie was not taking no for an answer. Also she and her family had been very gracious all weekend and took very good care of Me so I felt I should answer their pleas.

….Oh you’ll have to check out my next post for that vid. I’m keeping you in suspense….OR I’m a bit techno-challenged and it’s the only way I could do this? I’ll let you decide😁