21 June 2012
Hey all!
These few days have been full of accomplishments! I feel like I’m getting more and more things crossed off of my to-do list while in Malawi, and making great strides to completing goals that are in progress.
This Monday Kathleen and I prepared for our demonstrations we had this week; we were presenting the SAPHE Pad on Tuesday and the IV Drip, NeoSyP, and Babalung on Thursday. I borrowed an IV pole from Special Care Ward (it was being used as a files stand) and got an IV bag and tubing for the IV Drip device…assembling this thing was tricky.
We did the CPAP daily check-up as usual then I began working on the new Babalung sensor strap to fit the neonates here. It’s going to be so small; just to get a grasp of how small these neonates are pretend you’re going to take a picture with a camera, now let your right pointer finger overlap your left and your right thumb overlap your left thumb…that’s about how small around these babies’ tummies are.
When we got back to Kabula we watched Date Night…this movie was nothing like what I was expecting, I would watch it again.
On Tuesday Kathleen and I gave a demonstration of the SAPHE Pad in Obs & Gyne Ward during the morning meeting. It went really well! We handed out surveys pertaining to the pads to the medical students and a few doctors that were at the meeting; I know team SAPHE will be glad to hear all of the feedback we got.
Second big accomplishment for this day; I’ve completed the new model of the neonate sized strap! This new one is about half the length of the original one and less than half its width. It still has the same stretch sensor and vibrating motor…during all of this assembly fun I burned myself twice with the soldering iron, but this is well worth the future scars, haha!
Wednesday we did a lot of preparation for our demo of the NeoSyP syringe pump, Babalung apnea monitor, and the IV Drip volume regulator that we had on Thursday. When we presented the three devices the medical students and doctors absolutely LOVED them! We got comments like, “That is brilliant…amazing…so simple…very clever”. We got a lot of great feedback as well for each of the devices.
After the demo we paid a visit to our pals in the Physical Assessment Maintenance building of Queens Hospital (I’m sure they think who are these 3 women that are come through here on a weekly basis?) looked for spare parts to fix a few oxygen concentrators…there were none. This building is pretty large and houses, from what I can see, at least 20 oxygen concentrators; none of which had the parts we needed attached to them. Since the parts can’t be salvaged from the broken machines in PAM, Kathleen and I are looking up information on part costs and vendors online.
With love,
Bridget
Things that were new to me:
Making a clothesline out of shoelaces and bungee cord (engineering at its best!)
Taking a deep dive into Romans ch.1-3
Things I wish I had:
MEAT!
A clone so I could be there for the Father’s Day feast my family is having
For my parents—I promise I’m eating:
For breakfast: Toast, jam, eggs / and Toast, jam, banana in oatmeal
For lunch: Beef samoosas / Tuna casserole / grilled chicken, rice, stew and green beans
For dinner: Spaghetti and meat sauce (at Bible study) / Tuna casserole / Mongolian Chicken (Chez Maky)