Back to work at Kalene

Straight back into work after my holiday, I met a ward full of new patients...


This man had a strange fungal skin condition in which he shed a complete layer of skin head to toe. Quite bizarre!



This man had a large tumour and part of his mandible removed. The second photo is a few days after surgery with the swelling. We sent him home before the swelling completely subsided, the third photo is him with his family just before discharge.


Moses is an epileptic patient who fell into a fire while having a seizure. Often patients like this don't survive, but he's done well, and his skin grafts have mostly taken.

Sports Outreach


I've recently got involved with a local sports outreach program being pioneered in the area to reach the local youth with the Christian gospel. We've started with a small group of about 25 young people from a range of different churches who we meet with on Saturdays.


We have a time of games, team building activities, and then a time of prayer and teaching.


This Saturday we had a lovely time singing together. I love the way they use their voices!

Our roads...


Here's a classic example of the state of the roads in the stretch between us and the closest government town. In good conditions it can take about 2 and a half hours to drive. Obviously not this day though! And ironically our government paid staff don't qualify for a rural hardship allowance because our roads are "all weather worthy". Ha!

Holiday

I was never really one for taking holidays, but this one taught me it's important to take them from time to time! I had a lovely time with friends in Livingstone and South Africa.


The Victoria Falls are amazing, these photos don't do it justice. Amazing how close you are allowed to the top of them, even to swim! What an experience!!


Friendly baboons at the Vic Falls... well I don't know if friendly is the right word, tame perhaps... obviously used to having people around anyway.


I spent over a week with good friends Mariska, Craig and their new baby Angus. They live in Natal, close to the Drakensburg mountains. Beautiful!


Stellenbosch is a beautiful part of South Africa, I went mountain bike riding and hiking there with Chris and Anna.


In Cape Town, I swam in the sea for the first time in over a year, woohoo! We are spoilt in NZ!! This is my friend Amelia's boy Zach.


Anna and Justin Phiri with their son Khondwani, a day old. Anna did a fantastic job of covering my ward while I was away and delivered her baby the day I started back! Gods timing is perfect!

See you soon Kalene

I'm off for a holiday, so thought I'd upload a few of my lastest pics before I go...

The night before I left for holiday I went into Mens Ward and said good-bye to my patients. Of course they all wanted their photo taken! We had such a laugh.


The TB room. These guys are great! They have to be in hospital for a while for their treatment so I get to know them well. They drew some pictures for me, this was my favourite!

Childrens ward

Kasongu... he's doing so well! A 10 year old. He came in terribly malnourished, and is also found to have TB. When he first arrived, his swelling was so bad you couldn't even make out his chin or ankles!


Silver is 8, but about the size of a 4 year old. Another malnutrition patient. So polite and friendly, he's gorgeous.


Muyila was brought in after being found on the side of the road hypothermic and unconscious. We warmed him up, gave him fluids and hydrocortisone, and ventilated him for a few hours, the next day he was back to normal and went home a few days later. We still don't know what was wrong with him!


Nandu fell into a fire during a seizure (from Malaria).


Anna with some of her kiddies. Anna leaves Kalene on the 30th of January, she will miss her kids! And I'm sure they'll miss her too.


Anna and her staff.

Some interesting cases...

Is that an abscess? After a squeeze, this maggot appeared from the skin of a wee boy on childrens ward.


This man has portal hypertension. He has classic ascites and collatoral veins. Amazingly he's been like this for 14 years!


This cyst was removed from an eldery womans abdomen.

Outside working hours

The girls! Bethany (a midwife from the USA), Anne, Anna and I.


Anna with braids.


Anne negotiating the mud on her way home from church, and a man having much difficulty getting up a muddy hill on his motorbike. Yes, this is the state of the roads around here!


Another visit to the orphanage.

Nature has it...

Snakes! A friendly (although we still didn't get too close) house snake, and what we think may be a black mamba. We saw it at the top of the hill (after Anna prayed we'd see a snake!). Thankfully it was on a ledge 6ft below us!!


Some smaller creatures... This acrobatic chamelion we'd put on my bed and it fell off the edge and caught itself on the telephone wire.

My first year!

I've recently put together a bit of a summary of my first almost year of life here in Zambia. Click here to download a PDF copy.