Liberia #6
I have 6 hours in Brussels. The terminal that I am to leave from is separate. I suspect that there is minimal food or other amenities there. So I confirm this with an agent , and I am correct. So I hang out in the terminal to go other international places. I find a juice bar and get a fresh pressed drink, way to much money, but that is the norm in the airports these days. They know you have to eat, because you’re not getting it on the plane usually. I sleep on a couch that I found, setting my alarm for a couple hours, giving me plenty of time to make it to my gate. I sleep about 2 hours on and off. Then on to the terminal. I start to get my usual anxious feeling when flying into Africa. What will happen at the entry airport? Will I be bothered by the customs officials, wanting to take things out of my bags? Will all my bags arrive? Will someone be there to pick me up? Will I be accosted by many men vying to carry my bags? The “usual” worries, because these issues have all happened before.
After I board the plane, there is an unusual experience. The plane is full of foreigners going to Liberia. Many are greeting each other and asking what they did with their time off. There are numerous languages represented. From what I can surmise, the majority are working in ETU’s (Ebola Treatment Units). We take off on time, heading for Dakar, then on to Monrovia.
Arriving in Monrovia, we disembark to a standing only bus. Then at the airport terminal we have our temperature checked by a woman with a white coat and a mask on (as if we are bringing Ebola INTO the country?!) and wash our hands in bleach water before entering immigration. They didn’t give any problems in immigration. Then on to the customs room. The baggage belt is overflowing and bags are falling off at every turn in the belt. Workers are pulling off bags and placing them aside. I get through customs and they don’t even ask to look in my donation box. So I go outside and many guys are trying to get my attention to take their taxi. Eventually I find the guy with the Cooper SDA hospital sign and ride with him. After the half hour drive at 80mph in the dark and passing on double lines, we make it unscathed. The driver Robert, points out the sites along the way. The ELWA hospital area, the ELWA ebola treatment unit (ETU), MSF, Chinese, and other ETUs as well. He says people are not being turned away from them any more, and that they are not full here in the capital.
Gillian is up seeing a patient, so after they show me my room, I go and see what’s happening. There is a ?12yo girl who has tetanus. What a terrible disease. Back arched in opisthotonis, teeth clenched, and rigid body. We consider cerebral malaria and meningitis and treat for both. They cannot do cerebral spinal fluid evaluation. I brought glucometers, so we check her glucose to verify she isn’t low blood sugar.
A taxi arrives with a man who has had difficulty urinating for 3 months, and hasn’t been able to urinate at all today. We ask the usual questions of fever and check his temperature, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, body aches… and these are negative- so don’t suspect Ebola. We admit him and have the nurses place a bladder catheter, being sure to ask them to get urine before inflating the balloon, to not create a urethral injury. I didn’t stay to watch how unsterile or sterile their insertion was.
Another guy arrived with headache and neck pain. No other symptoms per him and family. Says he was treated in outpatient clinic today for malaria but had a negative result. Ebola is possible but unlikely, so I admit him for typhoid testing, malaria test, and treat empirically for meningitis.
As I type I hear wailing- I suspect the girl has died. Just outside my window there is the loud noise of a generator, and I heard it over that! Sadness and death are everywhere- and it’s better than it was when James was here!