In which I am offered a (masters) acceptance and interview, and give my first IM injection

I haven’t spoken to my Emmy in a while. I tried to call her last night when she got off work but her phone was still on silent so she didn’t hear it. So I went to bed, at like 10. At 11 I get a phone call from “unknown”. Whenever mom tries to call me, that’s what it says. I was asleep and the call woke me up and I didn’t want it to wake up the other girl in the room so I just hit ignore. It called back. I hit ignore again. Repeat TIMES TEN. On the TENTH call, after my brain said “this must not be Mommy, and don’t they get that I don’t want to talk to them!? I’m sleeping!” I finally decided to answer it.
It was my mom. Nobody has ever accused her of being one to give up easily. I said “WHAT?” she said she just wanted to tell me that I got accepted to the masters program at one of the schools I applied to- actually, the program I like the best, if all other things were equal. So then I couldn’t o back to sleep for another 2 hours, my mind was working so fast. They want a “yes, I’ll come” or “no” by May 15^th. That’s less than 2 weeks away. And I hadn’t heard from any other schools yet. So my brain was and still is on a string of rambles, weighing the pros and cons of each program, each way to go about doing things, but there are so many unknowns still that I have a huge number of possibilities.
So it’s GREAT news, I know I’m going SOMEWHERE at least but there’s still a lot to figure out. I told God “thank you VERY much, now if you could show me, somehow, what exactly you want me to do I would appreciate it. J”

Today when I got home from the clinic I checked my email and found that I’d been offered an interview at one of the other programs. They offer in person, skype, AND phone interviews. Perfect. J

Clinic has been greeeeeat. Yesterday was awesome. There were THREE people with crackles in their lungs. Crackles means fluid, and fluid usually means pneumonia. Lucky for them, antibiotics kill pneumonia. There was one little girl who came in with her dad (I LOVE it when 6-yr old girls come in and their dad sits down on the chair and the girl stands between his knees and holds onto his arm, which is wrapped around her waist, while leaning her head on his chest. It makes me feel good to know that she knows that her Daddy loves her. BUT it makes me miss mine!) and she had something that required a shot. She was NOT going down without a fight. It started out with screaming, led to running out the door. She was brought back in, and ran away again, screaming “Sitaki (I don’t want) operation!” I told her there is no operation, but that didn’t help. When her dad tried to carry her back in she screamed and kicked and held onto the door frame with all her might, but eventually enough people held her down so she got the shot. Afterwards, she was angrily pointing at Naomi and shouting “You! You!” It was funny. Amusingly, the same exact thing happened today, though instead of screaming that she didn’t want an operation, she screamed “Ninapona!” which means “I’m better!”- as if that would convince us not to give her a shot. :-P oooh kids.
Also, a man came in limping, using a branch for support. He had 2, 1.5cm shallow puncture wounds on his left wrist, so we cleaned and dressed them, and when we got him on the exam table to look at his hip, discovered that (OK well maybe Naomi already knew, but I only had a basic understanding of what happened- he fell- since they were talking in Swahili) he had 2 more puncture wounds. One was just behind his hip bone and the other was just slightly off midline. I thought for a minute something had gone in one of the wounds and come out the other, but was told he just fall and was poked by a couple sharp sticks, or something. So we cleaned and dressed those wounds, he got a tetanus shot and a diclophenac (pain killer/anti-inflammatory) injection in the gluteus maximus muscle which I DID, as my FIRST EVER IM INJECTION (there’s a story for the grandkids…) So that was exciting. :-P
Today there was an old woman who came in for something else but had a big pulsing what-i-assume-was-her-carotid-artery in her neck. Her blood pressure was high, but she’s already being treated for hypertension, so somehow it was decided it was no big deal, she got more bp meds and went on her way. Maybe it’s just my love for the medically dramatic that puts these things in my head, but how do we know it’s not an aneurysm about to burst? I dunno. I also hoped the lady with neck soreness today was meningitis, just cuz that would be cool, but it wasn’t….so they say. :-P
I think my problem is that there are a couple really worst-case scenarios I know the symptoms of…but those symptoms are also symptoms of lots of minor things as well. But I don’t know that, so I always assume the worst. I can’t “hear hoof-beats and think horses, not zebras” if I don’t know what horses sound like…also since I’m in Kenya, I actually should think zebras, or at least wildebeest.

Monday evening I worked out in my room a little then went outside to run for a bit, just back and forth in big circles around the yard. The kids of course like to watch me and make fun. After they all got bored and went back inside and I finished running, I decided to brush up on my gymnastics, just for fun. I’d done a back walkover in the hallway for them the other day, I forget how that came about…but they wanted me to do lots and flips and stuff, which I wouldn’t/couldn’t do in the house. So it was in my head, so I was just playing around when one of the kids saw me. Next thing I know they’re ALL standing in the doorway watching. So I told them to stop hiding, just come outside, and I’ll do some stuff. So I id some walkovers and backhandsprings and basically just wowed them with my (in my mind) pathetic leftovers of a mildly successful high school gymnastics career. :-P

I’ve been doing this new thing where I sneak half of my breakfast (today I wrapped half a “pancake” in a plastic bag, yesterday I hid a banana in my sweatshirt) to the clinic and eat it around 11:30, since lunch doesn’t come til around 1:30-2 some days. It’s a big breakfast but I get hungry again and rather than eat more, I’d like to just spread the food out. So that’s been working very nicely.

Last night we had meat for the…2^nd time since I’ve been there. Just “fried” (with no oil/fat…so, grilled?) pieces of beef with onions and what not, along with cabbage and ugali. My goodness it was DELICIOUS. I’ve been craaaaazing savory food for a while. Not just well-seasoned starches, which have minimal innate flavor…but foods that actually have some flavor themselves that can be enhanced with seasoning instead of just having the seasoning being ALL the flavor. It was awesome. It was not much, like 1/8 of the meat Emmy would eat at any given dinner, but I savored each piece and it was a little bit of heaven.

Now I am going to go attempt to figure out my future as much as I can through phone calls and internet research and emails to a few key people. Thanks for tuning in. J Ciao