I (DeAnna) try to think of things that are different in our lives in Cameroon compared to what our lives were like in the USA.  Towards the top of that list, just under cooking practices, is medical things.  In many ways one has to be their own doctor, however, it’s wonderful that our organization has a nurse to consult.  There is a wonderful nurse with another organization who has made herself available to us, plus she’s from Missouri.  I’ve had the joy of befriending a doctor who was practicing in Buea, Cameroon, but is now in the USA.  A nurse friend who used to be here with our organization.  Plus, we found a doctor here who gave good advice when Jonah had his severe asthma attack and now I’ve been introduced to a Malagasy (person from Madagascar) Pediatrician who has practiced in a French pulmonology hospital department and has two asthmatic children, but lives here.  What an incredible network!  Talk about being showered with blessings!

We’ve had ailments that have been bizarre – like nasal impetigo, ailments I thought were only plagues in the Bible – like boils, ailments I never knew existed – like watching a friend pull the larva of a Tumbo fly from her child’s forehead (by the way it looked kind of like a grub) or like a friend who had a a small worm swim across his eye (filaria), friend’s children with jiggers that you have to carefully dig out from under your skin so you don’t break the egg sac, the many digestive ailments like giardia and ameoba.

Enough of going on about those things, we have a new one raging on right now.  I started having pressure pain coming from inside my nose, basically the feeling of a zit, only it’s up in my nostril about 1/2″ up there.  I’ve been taking ibuprofen, which helps a lot and I definitely know when it’s time for more.  Monday I decided to go to the health office.  I can only imagine the requests that the nurse in our organization and the nurse in the other organization I mentioned above have had, but they seemed a bit surprised by the request I asked.  I went into the office, told them the weird pressure pain I’d been having and asked for them to look up my nose.  I can’t see up there.  I don’t have an otoscope and just shining a flashlight up my nose didn’t help.  They looked up there, found a pocket of pus and told me to treat it like I would boils or impetigo, which is to place bactroban on a cotton swab and swab it on the place a few times a day.  Now I can add to our ailment list – interior nasal pus pocket.  The pain is still raging on, but hopefully it will drain and go away soon.  The picture below shows the swelling you can see on the outside of my nose from the ailment inside my nostril.

I just want to add that I had my fair share of ailments in the USA too.  Ailments that stumped doctors and were bizarre, just not tropical bizarre more Midwest bizarre.