Happy New Year from South Africa everyone! I send you wishes of kindness, peace, health and protection, and I miss your gentle spirits. I haven't blogged for a while because it's been wild n'crazy busy at the hospital -- a lot of patients on the wards died after I thought they might live --they were dear human beings -- mothers and fathers, teachers, community-health workers, managers, students -- most dying of complications of advanced HIV and TB. The holidays brought more gunshot wounds, stabbed chests and abdomens. Babies born too premature to survive, a baby with an omphalocele that I did manage to send out for possible surgery. My mind has been whirling -- trying to react to various difficult realities, making repetitious analyses, emotions surfacing, dispersing, surfacing again, wondering again and again, am I OK? do I know enough? why am I here? and on and on. The human mind is a piece of work, isn't it? When I reflect a bit, I realize that this is what I signed for -- turmoil was and is to be expected.
On New Year's Day I started coughing and came down with pneumonia. I was out sick most of last week, have responded well to Augmentin and erythromycin, slept a ton and am recovering well now.
With typical Anne style, I mistreated my camera to the point of unresponsiveness, and I dropped my blackberry phone, full of pictures, into the Indian Ocean!
These photos have been borrowed from Steven's facebook page.
One of the major highlights of the season has been The Sani Stagger, a run, or in my case, a prolonged-self-dragging-incident, up to the top of Sani Pass, which separates Lesotho and KwaZulu-Natal. I did the 21 km to the top and rode back down to the bottom in a tippy minibus taxi. It was gorgeous. Steven ran the whole marathon -- up and down -- quite fast. I would never have tried it without Steven's inspiration. It is so nice to have a friend and a goal to inspire morning jogs up and down the hills of Centocow. Next for me is the Two Oceans Half Marathon near Cape Town at the end of April. Come and do it with us... please?
Thankfully, the New Year brought St. Apollinaris four new doctors, so now we are eight! Three are doing their community-service year, and one is a full-fledged medical officer. So there's a good chance work will be a bit less hectic in 2011.
I'm headed back to work in the outpatient/emergency department. I hope to write about it here soon.
