CHK Day 5 -

Venant's schedule had me starting @ 7:30 which meant I had to have the Abdul pick me up early enough so he could do the regular route which meant he was beeping at the gate at 6:15. No Breakfast, and worst no Skype with Shaloy. I've definitely got a cold.

We started physics @ 7:15 because Aphrodice & Venant were there early. Twenty minutes of physics concepts and then scanning each other. These folks can learn if they want to learn. There is no problem with brain power. An interesting comment from Venant, ,"You really must know anatomy!!". This waiting room is almost never empty but I arrived before the radiographers and they were mopping the floors and had the patients waiting outside the building.

I scanned with Dr. L today, , , and Dr. Landos was back for more as well. We scanned 45 between 8:30 and 1:30. Not as much pathology as previous days but still some very interesting cases; Atrophied testis after infection and treatment with antibiotics, pelvic mass, an infant with a large subdural with almost as much fluid outside the skull as inside, an accessory spleen, and the usual group of ascites and lymph nodes.

Part way through the morning Dr. M asked me to come look at the processor again. . . . They were getting an "E2" error message and the processor was shutting off before the films made it out. So I made arrangements with Maurice from maintenance to meet him @ 1:30 to work on the processor. 1:30 was when I finished with the sonograms but I hadn't eaten since last night. I was about to say I'd be back after a bite but Maurice already had the processor off and partially disassembled and the Radiology patients were starting to back up. So I dove into replacing the main drive motor (the solution to an E2 error according to the manual). They have a processor that they don't use but scavenge parts from. It ended up taking the drive motor, replacing the main drive gears, adding a cooling fan which was strangely absent and wiring all of that back together. We finished around 3:30 but had issues with the computer programming of timing switches.

I jumped on their Internet and tried to contact the folks @ protec in Germany. There names, pictures and phone numbers but no e-mail addresses so I guessed what they might be and sent an e-mail knowing if any didn't get bounced back they must have gone through. Sooo Doris Tontsch I tried Doris.tontsch@protec-med.com DTontsch@protech-med.com TontschD@protec-med.com one went through and two came back. I received an e-mail back around 4:20 From Michael Piecha and Ms. Tontsch, so I walked out and told Abdul that I'd be staying late and I'd see him in the morning. I'd received one e-mail back from service then the power went out @ the hospital. So that was it for the day. Hopefully, they can get me some more information tomorrow.

Back to the KHI guest house by moto by 5:45 and out to eat tonight at "La Fiesta" Mexican restaurant around the corner from the house. Leave it to me to find the only mexican restaurant in Rwanda. I ordered fajitas but they were out of chicken so it was goat. I hadn't eaten in 24 hours and I'd have probably eaten anything that was clean meat and didn't bite back. A new faculty here at the house, Philip, a Rwandan who teaches environmental sciences, went to eat with us.

Dr. Konn's students were supposed to arrive this evening but they missed their connection in Brussels so they are delayed 48 hours.