Jambo from Kenya! I (Bryan) wanted to put together a quick letter to report on our return trip to Tenwek Mission Hospital. I want to thank Jane for being able to write several times over the past few weeks. The past two weeks have been great. It has been exciting to experience Tenwek with Wil along with Jane.
We left Nashville, Tennessee, early on November 21st and arrived in Nairobi late November 22nd after approximately 24 hours of traveling. I was amazed at how well Wil traveled. I think he tolerated the flight better than I did. Once we rested overnight in Nairobi, breakfast at Java House, and a little grocery shopping, it was off to Tenwek. Crossing the Rift Valley, we saw zebras and gazelles, as well as the Maasai herding their goats and cows. The roads still leave a lot to be desired, but all in all I think the roads are better than they ever have been and it appears that they are attempting to properly repair the existing roads. The Roberts Family greeted us at Tenwek with Sunday lunch.
Monday came and it was off to work. Five minutes into morning report, I was call to Maternity for an obstetrical emergency. The day flew by running from one problem to the next. That Monday, I did five C-Sections, two HSG's, rounded on all the maternity patients, and saw a few out-patients, including a patient with a vesicovaginal fistula. To top my welcome back to Tenwek off, I was also on call that night. In fact, out of the eleven days I worked at Tenwek this trip I was on call seven times. It was great to be back though. I love the surgical experience I get at Tenwek. I did more C-Sections and hysterectomies in past two weeks than I will do the other 50 weeks of the year practicing in Winchester. There are always a few cases that blow my mind. The winner this trip was a young lady who presented with an 18-week abdominal pregnancy. The infant was still alive, but the patient had become severely anemic and had a small bowel obstruction. She is now on her way to a complete recovery. Other pathology that was observed this time was an infant with spina bifida, an infant with anencephaly, an infant with an omphalocele, mothers with eclampsia, typhoid, worms, HIV, and these are just a few examples.
Again, one of the most rewarding aspects of going to Tenwek is the ability to teach Kenyans. I had two Medical Officer interns, Kevin and Evans, on my OB team. They were very eager to learn how to do C-sections and wanted to continue to grow their knowledge base. This past Monday I was able to give a lecture to the interns. My lecture was on Ultrasound in Obstetrics. I was very pleased to see the interns using the ultrasound machine that was given to Maternity with the donations that many of you gave two years ago. The ultrasound continues to save lives and improve the care given at Tenwek. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed to see none of the five NST machines working. In fact, I had brought twenty pounds of NST paper with me, but unable to use any of it because all the transducers have been broken. I hope to be able to get these transducers fixed in the near future, so that we can better monitor the fetal heart rate. A praise is that the suction D&C had been broken for several months, but I was able to bring the correct parts to repair it and it is now fully functional. A pleasant surprise for me this trip was to find that Tenwek had a new pager system. Over the one and a half years I worked at Tenwek, I can not count the times I wished they had had a pager system. Well thanks to Dr. Spears the pager system is making finding people around Tenwek a lot easier. However, one day last week I did have second thoughts about the pager system when in the scope fifteen minutes, I had been paged to maternity, theater (OR), ultrasound, MCH (Maternal Child Health), and outpatient.
I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with many of our Kenyan friends. Last Monday, I hiked for an hour to visit our friends, Wesley Koech and his family. Unfortunately, Wil and Jane were not able to join me because Wil was still sick with his ear infection. He has now completely bounced back and is doing great. We also enjoyed going to the Murukas and Myshokas homes. We enjoyed having Dr. Mania (Head Of OB) over one night along with our good friend Agneta. The day before we left we had the opportunity to sit down with the Towett family. Again it was so wonderful to see our Kenyan friends!
We also had the opportunity to make new friends, the Friess family and Galat family. We all arrived at Tenwek within three days of each other. Both families are participating in the post residency program through World Medical Mission (Samaritans Purse) and Project Med Send. This is the same program that Jane and I went with in 2005. It is an incredible program that allows young physicians to experience the mission field for two years after they have completed their residency. It was especially nice to be at Tenwek when Dr. Sara Chichowski (Friess) began. She is an OB/GYN who will be serving for the next three months (maybe next two years) at Tenwek. It was a pleasure to orient her to the Maternity department. In many ways I am very jealous of the wonderful yet challenging next few years that she faces.
I also wanted to report on the orphan ministries. As many of you know, the Tenwek community is involved with five orphanages (Mosop, Bosto, Kenduwia, Kitoben, and Umoja). The Upwards basketball program from Winchester First United Methodist Church donated funds to provide two soccer balls for each orphanage. I want to thank many of you who gave money to give to the orphans. The need is always so great. The money given was able to fulfill their prayer request for seed and fertilizer for Umoja and mattresses for Kenduwia. Jane, Wil, and I did get the opportunity last Wednesday to visit with Joseph and the children of Umoja. There are now 29 orphans. It was great to see them once again.
On Friday, we left Tenwek for Nairobi with the Roberts. We did our usual Nairobi shopping and ate at our favorite Nairobi restaurants. Saturday, we had the opportunity to go to the Nairobi Christmas Fair and take Wil to the Giraffe Center to feed the twigas (giraffes). It was great to experience this as a family. The return flights were all unremarkable.
My prayer is this—That God will continue to bless the ministries at Tenwek. We thank each and every one of you for your prayers and support of us as we have felt led to serve the wonderful people of Kenya. May God continue to bless you richly.
Serving Christ,
Bryan for the Myers Family
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