Ouch, more tsetse flies!

Three months have literally flown by since the last update in February.  And our family is trying to catch our breath from it all. 

Family & Friends

1.  On February 23, 2014, we had the opportunity to invite our friends over for lunch.  One of the first friends we made while in the country, Karla and Jonathan Kanyanga, and their son Christopher, are near and dear to our hearts.  Mari & Katungu are friends we met through the others, and they are a lovely couple.  Cherry and Ben Liu (and their four incredibly cute kids, Elijah, Abigail, Benjamin, and Naomi) are also amongst our first friends in Zambia.  Both Cherry and Ben are U.S.-trained doctors, and Cherry also happens to be my Ob/Gyn.  We are so sad that the Liu family will be leaving Zambia early next month, and we wish them the best as they return back to the U.S. to start their new life there again.

2.  During that time, we also met Anthony, who works with Maranatha.  He is a very precocious 20-year-old young man with a heart for the Lord and who has been instrumental in the building of hundreds of churches across the Southern African region. 

3.  We had the privilege of inviting another wonderful family over for lunch on March 30, 2014!  Pastor and Mrs. Song and their three children are a missionary family from South Korea who has been serving in Zambia for about 4 years now.  They are a delightful family, and we are so lucky to have them as friends.

4.  From March 29 – April 12, 2014, we were honored to have Helen Zakrzewski join us for a medical school rotation.  Helen is a bright and budding future ophthalmologist, in the throes of her medical school training in Canada.  

As we happened to have quite a bit of surgical variety during her 2 weeks with us (scleral sutured lenses, strabismus surgery, corneal tattooing, traumatic cataracts, glaucoma procedures, corneal transplants, etc.), she had a great time learning about international ophthalmology.  

Guess what, Mom!  I've become a tattoo artist.  =)

Patient #1 - PBK in nearly blind eye OS

Patient #1 - immediately following corneal tattoo

Patient #2 - dense endothelial scar in OD (6/36!)

Patient #2 - immediately following corneal tattoo

The Thank You cake Helen bought on her last day with us

A farewell party for Helen

5.  From April 7 – 25, 2014, we had yet another set of visitors. Audrey Hunt, a senior ophthalmology resident from Loma Linda University, and her husband, Pastor Bill Hunt, spent a full 3 weeks with us.   

 

 

The first great feat that she managed was to bring over 5 corneal tissues over from the U.S.!  Again, thanks to Midwest Eye Banks, 5 patients were able to undergo corneal transplantation on that Monday that Audrey arrived. This case below was of a patient who had a corneal perforation/cataract and had previously undergone glycerol PKP with open sky ECCE/IOL placement.  He was so happy to get his fresh cornea at last!

With the opaque glycerol-preserved cornea

Immediately postop, fresh graft in place

6.  Also in April, Paul and I got to attend our first Zambian wedding.  Congratulations to Jones and Nsekwa Simamba on tying the knot!  Jones is an Accounts Clerk at Lusaka Eye Hospital, and we are so happy that he has decided to venture into the world of marriage.

7.  Finally, we’ve been so lucky to have Annie (Paul’s mom, aka “the best mother-in-law in the world) spend the last 5 months with us in Zambia.   

 

Having left her home in beautiful Hawaii to act as a gourmet chef and professional babysitter for the last half year, she has truly made great sacrifices for our family.   

As we prepare to bid farewell to her next week, our hearts are saddened.  But all we can say is, “Please come back soon!!!”

Accomplishments and Achievements

8.  Lusaka Eye Hospital now has a website!!!  Ever since we’ve been here in Zambia, we’ve known that we’ve needed to have some presence on the internet.  Because of all the drama of trying to turn our institutions around, we put this need on the back burner.  Only when someone on Facebook randomly contacted me and offered to help us build our website free of charge did we start to look into it.  But, finally, I can say that we have a basic, far-from-fancy, informational website for our eye hospital!  Feel free to visit us at lusakaeyehospital.org.  Thanks, Laurentiu, for your help with this!!!

9.  These last few months, we’ve also been working hard to repaint the entire hospital – both inside and outside – thanks to the generous donation from Standard Chartered Bank.  In addition, our small library project for the Eye Hospital is well on its way.  The bookshelves are now made.  All we need now is a table, some chairs, couches, curtains, computers, and some books for the bookshelves!!! =)

 

10.  Lusaka Eye Hospital continues to be involved in various eye screening programs throughout the year.  The most recent one has been for a health expo as part of an evangelistic series preached by Pastor Pardon Mwansa and held at the Government Complex in Lusaka. 

 

11.  The Lusaka Eye Hospital SDA Church that we attend now has tiled floors and benches!!!  Truly a work in progress, this church has really come a long ways in terms of infrastructure.  Our knees are no longer caked with dust after a long prayer.  Our backs are no longer tired and sore from balancing on thin beams that served as benches for many moons.  Thank you to my parents, Jennifer & Edward Lee, who felt moved to sponsor all the benches at this church!

 

 

Travels and Tsetse flies

12.  April 18 – 21, 2014, marked a long weekend in Zambia.  Never have I lived in an area that celebrates Easter Monday, so we enjoyed a 4 day weekend, starting on Good Friday, to explore a bit more of Zambia.  We ventured into Kafue National Park to get away from the crazy life in Lusaka.   

 

 The lodge we stayed at was a 20-year-old dilapidated resort that a family decided renovate into a nice lodge.  We were its first clients!  A four-hour drive from Lusaka, deep into the heart of the national park, we arrived at a “pick-up point.”  We then had to cross the river to get to the lodge.   

The hosts were pleasant and accommodating, especially catering to our dietary preferences.  =)   

Happy Birthday, Carla!

The game drives were mostly duds, although one cheetah feasting on an impala and one pride of lions lounging around did make up for the lack of animals.   

 Both Paul and I got attacked by Tsetse flies once again, mostly on the back and arms, and we do have pictures with “tsetse eye” (right upper eyelid bites) to show for it. 

 

 

 

Jaycee decided to take us on a game drive

Our little girls

13.  Jaycee continues to grow and learn.  She loves to play with her friends.   

With Omega

  

With Natalia

With Inge

And with her best bud, Cino

At 19 months old, her vocabulary is blossoming, and she’s learning how to put 2 or 3 or even 4 words together.  =)  Her favorite words lately include, “Aya” (“ouch” in Korean), and talking about how the “Cheetah impala aya” or how “papa aya swing crying” when she fell while with Paul on the swing set, and the swing hit her head and she ended up crying.   

She loves to play piano!

 She continues to impress us with her intuition and apparent understanding of basically everything.  She has been awful jealous and clingy lately (does not let daddy or grandma touch mommy).  

Perhaps it’s just the natural progression of character in toddlerhood, but we wonder if it is because she knows that a little sister is baking in the oven.  =)  But overall, she's still a ray of sunshine in our lives, and we love her to pieces.

The end.

p.s.  For those of you (you know who you are) who always demand more of Jaycee photos, feel free to scroll down below.  =)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a Beautiful World

1.  Despite being surrounded by suffering, pain, and poverty, I often see glimpses of a beautiful world.  It is times like these that I am ever grateful for organizations and individuals that come together to help those in need – paying no heed to the barriers that usually divide us all: religious preference, socioeconomic status, race, creed, or gender.  Midwest Eye Banks is one such organization.  In January 2014, they generously donated 20 corneas for use in Zambia; this was all facilitated by friends and colleagues, Drs. Jeff Colquhoun and Doug Buxton.  One of the eye bank technicians was able to bring over the tissues, 9 were left for use at the Zimba Eye Clinic, where Drs. Colquhoun and Buxton were conducting an eye camp, and 11 donor tissues were generously donated to Lusaka Eye Hospital.

As soon as we heard that that the eye bank technician + corneas would be in Zambia on January 29, 2014, at the crack of dawn we sent a driver the long journey down to Zimba (a 6 hour drive) to pick up the package.  We made sure he was equipped with an ice cooler with adequate ice to keep the donor tissues cold during the journey back.  The technician’s flight ended up getting a few hours delayed, so my driver never got back on the road until 5 pm, finally reaching Lusaka before midnight (just in the nick of time for the following day’s surgeries!). 

There were just so many people and so many factors involved in the whole process; I don’t think my patients will ever know how much work went into ensuring that their surgeries happened.  But receiving this gift of corneal tissues was truly like receiving a priceless jewel.  Eleven corneal tissues never looked so beautiful in my sight.  

I was forced to think, this is a beautiful world, indeed, with beautiful, selfless people and beautiful organizations who love to commit themselves to charitable work. 

It was nice to have two local ophthalmologists, Dr. DJ Kwendakwema and Dr. Edith Pola-Smith, join me to observe the surgeries and learn a few tips during the week.

All the surgeries went well during that glorious week.  However, we did encounter some hiccups.  The first was that we had purchased some trephines from an Indian company, only to find that the blades were blunt!  For the first time in my life, I could not completely punch my donor tissue through and through!  I ended up having to complete the anterior cut manually under the microscope with corneal scissors.  This made for a less than ideal result, but fortunately the surgery otherwise went successfully. 

Some of the patients we did were pediatric patients.   

We arranged for an anesthetist to join us on that day in order to put these cutie-pies to sleep.  One patient, a four-year-old male, had a bad corneal scar and cataract after a likely corneal ulcer during his early childhood. 

 

After a delicate surgery (PKP triple), he is doing well so far.  His father was ecstatic about his improved cosmetic appearance, but I was more excited about his visual potential.  This is his post op week 1 photo (just after a suture replacement in the operating theatre).

Another patient, a 9-year-old male, had experienced a progressive haziness of his corneas over the last few years, likely due to some corneal dystrophy, causing his vision to drop to counting fingers.   

 

 

Amazingly, on postop day 1, he was able to see 6/36 from his operated eye!  Below are his postop week 1 photos.

 

I continue to pray for improvement and healing on all the patients who were operated on.  And even if the perfect results are not achieved, I pray that the patients are able to have an improved quality of life than before the surgery.

2.  From February 3 - 9, 2014, a team of 12 volunteers from Korea’s Vision Care Services organization, headed by Dr. Dong Hae Kim, served at Lusaka Eye Hospital for an eye camp.  Of course, there were some headaches and difficulties at the onset of the week (upon arrival, 20 boxes were detained by customs at the airport), which delayed the start of the eye camp until Wednesday, February 5^th. One of our eye hospital staff, along with 4 Korean team members, basically camped out at the airport for a grueling total of 12 hours on Tuesday, February 4^th, trying to work out the details of clearing the boxes.  Initially, they quoted us a price of approximately $2300 to release the medical items, but after a full day of negotiations and processing, fretting and prayers, we finally got the boxes released for a mere cost of $40 for clearing and handling charges.  By Wednesday morning, the team had set up our operating room to their preference – two portable phaco machines in place, and all their consumables and disposables ready to go.   

A total of 53 cataract surgeries were performed that week (really 2 full surgical days) as part of the eye camp, and many patients were very happy with the outcome. 

 

It was such a blessing to work with this team.  They donated quite a few things – drapes and eyedrops and consumables and a small set of microinstruments.   

We hope to establish a more firm and formal relationship with this wonderful organization, and we hope to have their team back next year for another eye camp!

Friday afternoon, we had the team over at our house for lunch.  

 

And on Friday evening, we were invited for dinner to the Korean restaurant and guesthouse where they were staying.  There, this historic picture was taken of some of our Zambian ophthalmologists – Dr. Mumba Musonda (from Kitwe Central Hospital), Dr. Doula (from Vision Care Appasamy Eye Hospital), and myself – along with the two ophthalmologists from South Korea, Dr. Dong Hae Kim and Dr. Jaeyun Kim. 

Farewell, team!  Have a safe flight (they are en route to Korea as we speak)!  And hope to see you again next year!

3.  Management at Lusaka Eye Hospital decided that in 2014 we were going to institute an Employee of the Month award!  For the month of January, one of our most hard-working employees was recognized for his dedication and service to Lusaka Eye Hospital. Your hours working hard at night when everyone has gone home, your extra days working when everyone else has gone on vacation, and your loyalty to our institution have not gone unnoticed. Congratulations, Webby, our accounts clerk, for being named Employee of the Month for January 2014!  =)

4.  Meanwhile, Jaycee continues to grow and thrive.  She’s learned to use a spoon, but now she’s learning how to use chopsticks.  =)  

She’s also very fond of playing soccer (or with any ball, for that matter).  

She’s a great girl overall, but she can be quite demanding when she insists on using the iphone or ipad.  She has already learned to take selfies with the devices.  =)

I hope we can be reminded that despite some of our own personal challenges and dark moments, we can see that this world can be beautiful if we do our part in making it so.  May we reflect upon this quotation below as we take the challenge and strive to be a blessing to others.

“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.”  –John Wesley