MAR-A-3
COVER LETTER TO THE MESSAGES SENT OUT FROM ARRIVAL IN MALAWI TO THE
MARCH 1, DRAMATIC CASE OF A DYING 18-YEAR-OLD
MOTHER OF A THREE-WEEK-OLD WITH DEAD BOWEL
Sent to Lilongwe on Disc with Elizabeth’s departure from
Embangweni, March 2, 2002
Cover Note From Malawi at Second full Week
Embangweni Mission Station Hospital
March 2, 2002
Forwarded through Elizabeth Yellen on her Return
Through Lilongwe
To Email Addressees:
CC: To:
Hadley.Abernathy@stanfordalumni.edu
Message: I am at the Embangweni Mission Hospital station and working through my last few days of operating, teaching making rounds in this very busy tropical hospital station amid wonderful people struggling hard against a desperate burden of poverty, malnutrition and, in a most amazing volume and heavy disease burden in myriads of manifestations, late stage AIDS. This has not meant that I have not been busy surgically, with a regular repertoire of general surgery, including thoracic, urologic, orthopedic, gynecologic, and ophthalmologic as well as plastic surgery—and, oh yes, I did a thyroidectomy which I probably did not need to look up in a book before trying to teach the technique to those I will leave behind next week. So, report me if you like, for doing hysterectomies, sequestrectomies, thoracostomies, blepharoplasties, and prostatectomies—for cutting a few centimeters wide of my specialty certification, but as not only a Bush Surgeon, but as the trainer of Bush Surgeons from medical students to retired administrators to clinical officers to non-physician nursing of tech staffs, I am trying to leave behind more than the multiple “Action Packers” that we have carried in stuffed with life-saving drugs (many of them critical beyond our knowing when we had packed them originally for elsewhere) and surgical supplies. It has been very rewarding!
You may tell from a few of the chapters I have completed to tell you in real terms of this shared human condition what this experience is like in its triumphs and tragedies. This is said to be the “Warm Heart of Africa”—and of course, so are the ovaries, and therein lies some of the problem. The ambivalence about bringing in more life and sustaining it in a marginally sustainable environment often gives pause for thought, but each one of the individuals encountered is trusting us for, if nothing else, the courage to hope. You can read more in the daily log of encounters with the reality, close up and personal.
If there are messages for me, I can be reached by email, fax or phone at the email address through which Elizabeth has relayed this disc she has carried to Lilongwe before her takeoff tomorrow to Heathrow with the departing Kennedys. She will be at the Rodehavers tonight, where I will be on Wednesday night for my takeoff on Thursday morning, 10:30 AM, March7 from Lilongwe on Kenya Air 424 through NBO to connect with KLM 566 NBO to AMS 11:20 PM arriving 5:50 AM on March 8 for the KLM 6035 11:35 AM to 2:20 PM arrival at Dulles in DC on March 8. This allows only a brief touchdown before departure on March 10 departure for Havana.
So, send me any messages for my own pick-up at Lilongwe at :
AND THE COORDINATORS’ CANTACT NUMBERS IN LILONGWE
FOR FUTURE MALAWI REFERENCE
Embangweni Hospital
Physician Guesthouse
P. O. Box 7
Mzimba, Malawi
Fax: c/o F. Dimmock 265-744-560
CCAP Coordinators
P. O. Box 1266
Lilongwe, Malawi
or,
Phone: 265-750-007
Fax: 265-750-005
So, I am alive and well and happily doing what I should be about in the Heart of Africa with a couple of favorite good students of mine and some colleagues who are now good friends heroically trying to hold back the rising tide of disease, famine and despair in this rainy season wonderful spot in God’s very green earth. I return soon, to set off even sooner!
GWG