Saturday Posting

Sorry guys... I know it's been a while since I've done any proper medical posting. The usual things have been going on: yesterday a woman presented with a dislocated jaw. Nothing unusual there, except that it had been dislocated more than a month ago (by my flatmate, The Dentist... hey these things happen...), but ya, why did she wait so long? Who knows. We couldn't get it back in, and she went off to Civilisation so they could give it a go there. Also this week: a man with a tumour that had been growing on his jaw for a year, full of maggots; and a nineteen-year-old (who already had a five-year-old at home) who was induced for PET and delivered a 3.5kg baby boy, even though she swears she had no idea she was pregnant.

We did end up striking, for a whole two hours yesterday morning. This basically entailed a press release that said we were going on strike, and then we saw all the patients anyway. The strike was called off yesterday - our demands have not been met, but the DoH agreed to reinstate the doctors in KwaZulu who'd been sacked if we agreed to go back to work. Does this mean They have won? Probably. I'll tell you next month.

And, I got a puppy! Two weeks ago I found her shivering outside one of the clinics in the neighbouring township that I do 'outreach' at once a week. Someone had dumped her there and thrown rocks at her. She couldn't stand up by herself and had a temp of 40. I took her to the vet who drained a big abscess behind her ear, and de-wormed and de-flead her. In the two weeks I've had her her body-weight has doubled: she now weighs three whole kilograms. Here she is:

Her name is Pepper. Before you ask: she is a Pavement Special, or a canus africanus, if you want to be fancy.

And then, I'd just like to direct y'all to a lovely blog I discovered via my old friend Arcadia: 66 Square Feet. Marie Viljoen is a fellow South African living in New York, who designs gardens for a living. Her blog has nothing to do with medicine, and is beautiful, just beautiful. Go and have a look.