Tope ander-a? (How are you?)

This morning three doctors and a nurse did our medical rounds on all the patients from outside the fence as almost all of them were able to sit outside.  The advantages are the patients could relate to us without our PPE and the 4-year-old Fatmata K is less afraid of us; our time spent in PPE in the ETC is curtailed.  The nurse and the doctors are all from Sierra Leone and they all speak Temne except for one who speaks Krio.  In the Suspected Ward, we have the youngster Abubakar who looks well overnight as his fever is gone but he still has muscle pain and occasional hiccoughs.  I could hear words in Temne that sounded like “hiccups and weak”.  Adamssay, the older woman continues to have pain and begins to have some diarrhea but otherwise quite well.

Over to the Confirmed Ward, the sickest person is Fatmata K, still refusing to eat but could be coaxed to drinking some water.  She refuses to drink the ORS so we continue her IV fluids.  Her cousin, Doris, has started to be febrile and now has muscle pain.  Sullieu and Gabriel are being tested for Ebola to see if they have cleared the virus, they are getting better every day.  Slowly they are regaining their strength and there is the beginning of a sparkle in their eyes.  Gabriel ate his raw cassava root yesterday but evidently did not get poisoned by it; he seems to be immune to the cyanide.

After our outside the fence rounds, the nurse and I donned to see the little girl.  We paid Adamssay a brief visit in the Suspected Ward, she looked well.  Fatmata K was lying on a mattress outside the Confirmed Ward.  She has been receiving IV fluid as she is still not drinking enough.

While I was rounding, the ambulance brought in Marhta, Doris and Fatmata K’s grandmother and Kadiatu, Fatmata K’s mother and Doris’s aunt to the ETC.  They are both from the quarantined area and live in the same household where Doris’s mother contracted Ebola and died.  Martha is 64, tremulous but she does not have a fever while Kadiatu has a high fever and reportedly has diarrhea.  She has a long dress that hides her legs.  Getting up from a sitting position posed an enormous problem for her.  She first had to lean her body weight onto a table and pushed herself up and even then her legs seemed to give way from under her.  The aides handed her cane and she almost fell taking a few steps on her own.  In the end she was transferred to the Probable Ward on a stretcher.  We could not clarify what kind of disability she has.

Transmission continues in the quarantined area, perhaps symptomatic persons should be pulled out to the ETC early for Ebola testing, minimizing further exposure to the rest of the quarantined villagers.

Drying Aprons and Scrubs in the Hot Sun