1 fake pregnancy, 1 killer pregnancy and an African Wedding!

So on Wednesday I started at the hospital thinking that I would have a few days following people around to get my bearings...I was wrong. That morning myself and the Dundee student that I'm with (Mike) were told to start rounds on our own. Whilst examining and trying not to inhale the smell of the ward on the first few patients I thought I had made a HUGE mistake in coming here! I don't like dirt, or smelly people...or beasties (a cockroach walked under the bed of a patient I was examining, but I managed to remain cool and maintain my professional integrity) but once I got used to it the medicine side of things is really interesting.

A lady we went to see was apparently pregnant according to the notes and suffering from meningitis. When I examined her abdomen it was tender but it felt like a pregnant tummy. As getting a pregnancy test done is nearly impossible we thought (foolishly) that we should carry out an ultrasound ourselves as we were pretty sure that we would be able to tell a baby from a bladder.....but we couldn't. So still unsure whether this woman was pregnant we thought that if we stuck a catheter in her it would show if it was just her bladder that was full and in 10 minutes over 2 litres of fluid had rushed out into the collecting bag (the very most a normal bladder can take is 1 litre and even that is pushing it!). So delighted with ourselves that we had solved this mystery we spent the next 2 days trying to get some fluid back into her but the nurses conspired against us - changing the bags or stopping drips when they were put up! On the upside this lady stands a chance of survival unlike most of the other women on the ward.

My first saved life was a lady with a rare condition called a molar pregnancy (basically a fetus that isn't made up right genetically so turns into an invasive cancer). None of the doctors on the ward knew what it was and assumed this lady had pneumonia and a bleed in her brain. What myself and Mike managed to figure out was that actually her cancer had spread and no one else had considered that a possibility. We managed to get a gynae referral almost immediately and withink 10 minutes she was taken down to the high dependency unit and was started on the treatment which has a high likelihood of success. Win for us!

The rest of my time in the hospital is spent guessing what people have (usually malaria) prescribing drugs (ack!!!) that I don't really know will have any effect. If a patient can walk and talk then they are considered well enough to be discharged so there is a fairly high turn around on the wards. The hospital stinks like nothing I have ever smelt before but apart from that it is not actually that bad.

On to lighter things...this weekend I went on a road trip with Mike and his girlfriend (third wheel much lol). I managed to see some elephants in Liwonde National Park (after a pretty hairy journey in the dark trying to avoid bikes that had no lights on them and getting slightly lost on the way to the hostel!). Also saw lots of monkeys and some hippos who snore about as loudly as I do!

Yesterday I also was lucky enough to attend an African wedding of one of Mike's girlfriends work colleagues. It was amaaaazing! Lots of dancing and loud music with alot of happy people! One tradition is that everyone goes up and dances with the bride and groom whilst giving them money....definitely going to bring that one back to Scotland! One of the most cringy moments of my life was being called up to dance and then having to receive money after the DJ told the crowd of people that I wasn't married....cue several African men getting photos with me and paying a considerable amount of money for my hand in marraige. Very cool experience and felt like I saw a bit of the real Africa.

Today I am going hill walking (shock horror I know) around the Zomba plateau - which is a lush mountain overlooking the town of Zomba in the south of Malawi. If I don't write again its probably because I have fallen off or had a small heart attack from all the exercise!