I have just gone to sleep. I am awakened by a knock on the window. I stumble out of bed, and stick on something presentable. I find the guard of the hospital standing there with a carnet. A 18 year old boy from here in Koza was in a fight and stabbed in the back. I tell him I’ll be in. I fumble around and find my keys and my headlamp. It is cool outside. The moon is nearly full and I can walk into the hospital without a light. A dog runs past me in his search for food. I hear the cry of the bush babies in the near by treas. It does, in fact, sound somewhat like the cry of a baby. I shine my light in the trees and see two large eyes staring back, then they are gone. I see his 8 inch form jumping easily 8-10 feet. Wish I could jump like that little guy.
On the metal gurney in the dressing room lays a teenager with a pool of blood around his back. I see a small hole in his left flank about 1.5 cm wide. I take a forcep and probe it’s depth. It sinks in easily up to about 8 cm. This confirms what I was hoping to refute, he needed an operation. I call Jacques and Ganava. Only one is around and the other is in Mokolo. I have to use the night nurse again in the place of him. We take the kid to the OR. Prep him and give Ketamine. He falls to sleep. I open the abdomen. It looks normal. I search around and see a small hematoma near the splenic flexure of the colon. I free up the colon in this area and find a small hole in the back wall. I repair this and we close him up. I go home about 3AM.
Over the next few days he feels fine and his intestines start working. He begins eating without problem. The father of the guy who stabbed him has a business in Maroua but is unwilling to pay. He was on many days of IV antibiotics and now has a huge bill. He has not paid anything. Today when I make rounds he had run away. He is feeling good, eating, and now is at home in our village. That’s the risk of caring for people before they pay for their treatment. And it seems that it happens most often with the young men of the village who have been in fights. That’s another huge sum of money lost. We will again try to get the chief of the village to intervene, but sometimes that does not help recuperate lost money. Greg
Shanksteps #146