Trip to Tenwek

This past week I traveled to Tenwek at the behest of the new Kenyan neurosurgeon at the hospital. He had arranged for a visiting American neurosurgeon and myself to do two transphenoidal pituitary cases together to give him more experience.

Tenwek is a mission hospital in Bomet, usually about 4 hours away. There were massive mudslides just below Kijabe the morning before I left, so I had to travel several hours north to avoid the destruction. Tenwek is possibly the most well known mission hospital in the world, somewhere I have always wanted to visit. As a bonus, I was able to visit with some fellow Samaritan’s Purse post-residents whom I have not seen since October.

I gave a lecture to the neurosurgery residents on Tuesday morning, and then spent the day removing a large pituitary tumor through the nose. The guesthouse at Tenwek has a communal dinner for all the visitors. I enjoyed talking with a few other visiting surgeons, both from the US and Australia. One surgeon was finishing up a 6 week trip, one had arrive a day before me for a two week trip, his 6th over half as many years. There were also several medical students doing month rotations in their 4th year, eager to talk about where they had matched and what crazy thing they had seen that day.

On the morning of my second surgery at Tenwek, I got a text from Mary Beth saying she had fallen down on the driveway as she was walking Henry down to catch a ride up to school. During my operation, she started having a lot of discomfort so decided to get checked out at the hospital. A few of our friends were quick to volunteer their advice and time, Grace headed to play with a friend at one house and Henry went home with a kindergarten friend. Owen and Mary Beth spent several hours at the hospital monitoring the baby and getting an ultrasound. Praise the Lord that everything looked normal, so they were all able to return home that afternoon, just in time for Grace to catch a short afternoon snooze.

Since my case finished around 2:30, we decided that it would be best for me to travel back to Kijabe Wednesday afternoon instead of waiting until Thursday. Since I had left on Monday, the rest of the family had been dealing with hundreds of Nairobi flies invading (those are the ones that can give you blisters and burns), a leak in the boy’s bedroom ceiling necessitating a furniture move, on top of all the normal activities: school, Mary Beth teaching, etc.

We had heard conflicting reports about the conditions of the roads leading to Kijabe, and I decided to try going through Mai Mahiu since the drive would be significantly shorter…if I could make it. The expressway was covered with mud in places, but passable. Once I arrived at Mai Mahiu, the trip up the mountain turned into an extreme 4 wheeling adventure as darkness set in. I only had use the shovel once on my way up the mountain. Thankfully, the rain had held off that day, otherwise I surely would have been walking the rest of the way. I was very warmly welcomed home by 3 children preparing for bed and an exhausted and very grateful wife.

I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to operate with my comrades at Tenwek and look forward to working with them again in the future. I am also blessed I made it back safely in this season of flooding.