Nope. Definitely not your ordinary day. I woke with the sunrise from a fitful sleep on the fourth day of my wicked toothache. Definitely worse today. I had a root canal and crown on this tooth before I left the states so I knew this had to be a gum/bone issue. It feels like someone is trying to pull out the tooth excruciatingly slow. Even touching it with my tongue hurts. So I dress, have a few cups of coffee and head out with Sukari to my usual four hours of solitaire while waiting for a call back from PC medical office. After a bit 'Dr. Lisa' calls and sends me to the local chemist to get some azithromycin. I get three tablets for $4 and buy a sprite at a duka to wash one down. While I'm on the street, I decide to get some beef from the butcher and bones for my girl. The new PC kid in town, Andrea, wants to make some burgers with me.
As I stroll back to work with thoughts of how this medicine better cure my problem, I remember that I have another problem--hakuna maji. Yep. we've been cut off again and its been two weeks. My emergency supply of water is almost gone. So I decide to go fetch after work at 1.
Even though my head is banging, I remember the three days of dirty dishes on my counter and we hop in my favorite cab, Kim, and I tell him we are going to my house to get my jeri cans and go fetch. I leave Sukari for her afternoon nap and lug my three cans into the back of his hatchback cab for the short trip to the water treatment plant. I had been told that you could get water here cheap and it is much closer to my house. We creep slowly up the dirt, rocky road and back up to the water tower. We're trying to figure out how to turn on the hose as big as a firehose, when a man comes running from the office wiping his lunch off his face. He climbs up the tall metal ladder and turns on the hose. We fill my cans, load them back up, I pay my 5 shillings for my khaki colored water and we creep back down the rocky road so we don't flip over the cans in the back of Kim's hatchback cab. One of them doesn't have a cap on it.
We arrive at the top of the hill by my house, I hear Sukari barking (she knows the sound of Kim's rickety taxi), Kim gets his trusty stick to prop the hatchback up and we both reach inside to haul out the jeri cans. Then, the stick breaks. And down comes the hatchback right on my head. Whack! I swear I really saw stars. I limped a few steps to a tree and leaned against it to clear my head. Then I felt something on my neck. I wiped with my hand and blood was everywhere. I called "Kim" and he turned to me and the whites of his eyes were huuuuuuuuuuge. He said "we go to district hospital sasa!" and reached inside his car to hand me a muddy blue rag he uses to wipe the dew off the windshield. I pressed it to my head and it was quickly becoming soaked. The local houseboy was outside with the cows and with a terror stricken face managed to utter that he would take the water to my house, The Mamas and kids playing in the yard were starting to run over to me as we hopped in the taxi and sped down the road. I've never knew Kim to drive so fast.
As Kim, deathly silent. dodged the car eating potholes and beeped at the people walking on the road, I was wondering what a "district" hospital would be like? I had never been there but heard that it was a big place and could handle anything.
Well, it is bigger than most other places I've seen, except the REAL hospital in Nairobi where I had my leg surgery. I wish I could have taken pictures to show you. But, with one hand carrying my purse and the other holding the rag to my head, it wasn't gonna happen. So I'll try to give you some kodak moments in words.
It's a white rectangular building the size of maybe three decent sized medical offices in the states. We pass through the waiting/reception area--six long wooden picnic table style benches on each side, no lights, blood/dirt stained floor and empty. We head down a short hallway, Kim leading me like a frightened puppy, to a room marked treatment area. Inside is a desk with two female students checking each others blood pressure. When they see the blood on me they jump up and lead me to another room marked 'emergency.' Inside is a open bay style room, long six foot metal sink, one exam table and two other patients seated on plastic chairs. One is an elderly man with bloody dripping gauze over his finger dripping into a plastic bowl on the floor, which looks completely severed. The other is a young girl with a cut hand being attended by a lady.
My two nursing attendants usher me to my own plastic chair and this young lad (I think he's no more than 18) swaggers over to look at me. I know there is a doctors strike on and he says he is a medical assistant. He is dressed to impress. Suit jacket with sleeves folded up to the elbow, shirts sleeves carefully folded over the jacket arms with sparkling gold cufflinks twinkling, crisply ironed khaki slacks and shoes buffed like mirrors. Hot stuff! He peeks at my head and says I will need stitches. I ask him to clean the wound so I can take a peek at it. He says to Kim that he doesn't have any sterile gloves and if I want them, we have to go buy them (Im wondering if the guy with the severed finger bought his?) and Kim rushes out to buy gloves down the hall.
Back with the gloves, he dons them, grabs a bottle of saline solution and then is looking around for gauze. He starts to grab a bloody piece from the plastic bowl on the floor and I tell him I will buy gauze. He opens a cabinet for a new package, tells me to hang my head over the bloody bowl on the floor while he pours the saline on my head, trying to guide the flow with a gauze pad. Once dabbed, I head to the mirror over the sink to look. I can't see it very well because there is no light on, but it seems to be about six inches long with a one inch section at the end still globbing blood. So I agree to let him stitch it.
I ask if he will use a local and he shows me a bottle. He says he needs to shave the area and asks for a scalpel. The assistant comes back with a sterile packet, rips it open to reveal half a razor blade. I'm thinking 'holy shit.' He starts to scrape away with this half a blade and then his cell phone rings. He steps away from me, the assistant reaches in his pocket for the phone and puts it to his ear. Only in Kenya right? He has a two minute conversation and then returns to shaving my head area. He calls for a syringe and I see a six inch needle on a tiny tube and know this is gonna hurt. He jabs my head with it as I'm bending over this bloody bowl on the floor when the tears start silently rolling down my face. A truly "WTF am I doing here?" moment. Then he calls for 'suture' and a mega ball of nylon string appears, he snips a piece easily five feet long, and I see the curling mass dangle out of the corner of my eye. I swear this stuff should be on the end of a fishing rod, NOT going into my scalp! He pokes it thru my skin and hits the area with no local and I wince. I know I'm gonna have a bugger of a headache later that may rival my toothache. A big squirt of betadine after the two stitches, a clump of gauze, and three mega strips of white tape and I'm done.
We go back to the first treatment room where he borrows my pen to make chart notes on a piece of paper retrieved from the trash can. I tell him I've had a tetanus, have pain drugs at home and just started antibiotics in the am. Kim meanwhile, is still at my side like a faithful puppy and is offering to pay but says he will have to bring the money next week because he doesn't have it now. I insist that I will pay, tell him I have insurance and fork over 500 shillings ($6) and we are headed back to the taxi.
On the taxi ride home, Kim is stoically apologetic. I know he thinks he just lost his best customer and I'm wondering if the muzungu at the hospital has spread through the grapevine yet. Once home I know the answer. Everyone is sitting on the front stoop and come to greet me with 'so sorry, pole, pole.' Sukari sees the big bandage on my head and just wants to sniff it and cuddle up next to me. Once inside I settle into my big uncomfortable chair and have a good cry. After a few minutes of pity party, I remind myself I just had two hours of this and the average Kenyan deals with it every day!!! So I snap the elastic on my big girl panties and go in search of pain drugs.
Crap. No where to be found. I just knew I had a stash and tore up everything in the hunt. No luck. I chomped down some more tylenol, tried to eat a banana but my tooth would not allow it. Between my toothache and stitches on the same side of my head, I now felt like I had a tomahawk stuck in my scalp. I needed to get my mind off it so I decided to wash my dirty dishes and do some laundry. When I looked at that khaki colored water again--no deal. So I hit the biggest container with a purifier. Didn't even make a dent. So I doused it again and it cleared enough to at least not stain my clothes but no way was I going to wash my dishes with that! I filled my clothes line and then back to my chair to think of what to do next for a distraction. MY HEAD IS KILLING ME! If I had a pair of plyers I swear I would yank that tooth out of my head as I think it is the biggest problem.
I feed Sukari, play toss with her for a bit, wash my face and then decide that if I take a sleeping pill that might at least put me out of it. 8pm I down that sucker and crawl into bed. It kinda worked. At least I got another fitful night.
Back up at sunrise and another call to medical for pain drugs. I do some more laundry to bide my time till the chemist opens and the phone calls start. Word is all over town. Everyone from my office is calling. And of course, Kenyans don't have phone conversations. They ask how you are, you answer, they hang up. No goodbye. That means they are coming over. Sure enough by 9am I have two visitors that stay till noon. I am so miserable I could cry again. I want my drugs!! Andrea calls and I ask her to be my delivery gal. My two guests leave and I go to get in bed and another two people come to visit. Dear God--I think I'll go insane!! Fortunately they don't stay long.
Andrea arrives with my drugs, helps me shave the rest of my head with my clippers, remakes my top bunk for me with the clean sheets and another visitor arrives. At least now I've had my drugs so I'm okay. After a short visit and a very looooooooooooong prayer for my speedy recovery, Andrea and I ground up that beef and made our burgers.
After she left, I had just enough clean water left to wash my skanky body and the dishes. I did manage to eat a big bowl of rice and now am ready for my bed. I took a pain pill for good measure and my clean sheets will feel nice tonite.
Tomorrow when I see the people in town they will be too distracted by my frankenstein stitches to ask me if the zit on my face is a mosquito bite. I'm grateful for the little things. Ahhhhhhhhh, lala salama.
