APR-B-15
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN AND PACKING UP FOR THE LAUNCH OF MALAWI-03
I may still be limping along,
nursing some deglycogenated muscles back toward function, but that does not
mean the rest of the world is not streaming by rather quickly, and I am now
trying to catch up to events, a couple of which I should be leading.
Upon re-entry to the office and
clearing phone and email messages, I have also turned in my film and the ailing
laptop which needs to be in top form for the African expedition, whereas its
screen would not even light up for booting.
That is why I had to abandon it before the last week’s domestic
excursions and the two Big Runs, and try to work on the now-obsolete IBM Think
Pad that had carried me through the 1996 year in Africa. But, my extensive notes of the delightful
experience and Visiting Professor all over the University of Florida campus had
been “Saved” in a hieroglyphic format that could not be re-translated back for the
purposes of the filing as Apr-B-10 in this second April series. The essays I had put together in last year’s
Malawi-02 are only now being typed, so I may have a chance to carry a few of
those along for the people there, and to orient others to what is coming.
The medicines that had been specifically
requested and air delivered to Harolyn Johnson’s office for pick up and
delivery by Kevin Bergman are found parked in the Dean’s office, so that they
missed their chance at an earlier delivery to Malawi, and now must be added to
my already overburdened stock of supplies to be making an excess baggage
one-way trip on Friday. George Poehlman
had called my cell phone from his satellite phone to request urgently several
sizes of Vicryl sutures, and a lot of number 7 ½ gloves, already assuming that
Kevin Bergman would be carrying the other medicines specifically requested for
Malawi, and now I have these additional demands as well as the backlog of the
new medicines to add to the freight I had already packed to deliver for their
use. This means I will have to delete
almost all the textbooks and a lot of the surgical soft supplies that I had
planned to take in favor of the missed medicines and newly requested supplies,
added to the two pulse oximeters already packed, and the one-way trip planned
for the clothes and at least two suitcases.
THE STUDENTS
WHO MAY BE ACCOMPANYING ME TO HAITI,
THE JUNE TRIP
SUBSITUTE FOR THE SARS-CANCELED CHINA TREK, ENTITLED:
“SO, YOU WANT
TO BE DOCTOR LIVINGSTONE, I PRESUME?’”
The medical students had arranged a lecture
in the main lecture hall here Ross 101 which was to be divided between me and a
public health lecturer who was supposed to have gone first. But, when he was not seen, I began with the
stories for which the students had really come, where they see patients and
problems and imagine what it would be like to separate them. This is heady stuff for a freshman medical
student, and a couple in the group were veterans of my entry-level travels of
last year. Since Africa is coming up this week, I used my own initial
experiences in Africa in Nigeria as the model to reflect on what they could do.
if turned loose on the world and its problems tomorrow. I feel a little bit that way right now,
since I will have to pack between now and being turned loose on the problems
tomorrow, and some of those problems consist in getting from here to being able
to pack. And getting all of what I need and more of what they need from Derwood
through Dulles and Heathrow to Lilongwe.
I have had multiple drop-in wannabes
who were present in my lecture earlier today, who are now all abuzz about what
they can do in the world, and I have interrupted this narrative three times to
speak to a number of them, every bit as enthusiastic as I once was—and hope
still to be. I used to think for the
purposes of the number crunchers who kept score of the number of patients I had
admitted, operations I had done or students I had taught—that is OK for their
record keeping purposes, but I will continue to keep a different score—that
fewer and more vital group of folk I may have inspired.
And, now, “Into
Africa!”