Well, I spent half and hour last night and again early this morning typing my daily log only to have it vanish from my iPad when I was inserting a photo…..ouch! Megan had a lecture to give this morning at 8am so we had to run up a bit early to set up and now I’m behind. Luckily, it was raining last night which means the patients come up a little later in the morning so I have a few free moments….I think.

Thursdays are supposed to be slow here, but someone must have announced a special rate or something as we were pretty much swamped throughout the day. Megan and I started off seeing patients together, but had to split up after lunch to get everyone seen. We had a family with pretty classic migraines and medication overuse headaches. The usual complement of “GBM” or general body malaise with aches and pains. The last patient was a cute 9 year-old boy with a two year history of sleepiness that was mostly in the morning and was unable to stay awake in the office with us. A pretty good MSLT watching him with near zero sleep latency. No history of cataplexy, but pretty certain he has narcolepsy and was able to put him on some Ritalin and will see him in a week. Also sent an email off to Larry Brown at CHOP and had a reply from Larry and another sleep specialist there within an hour. Pretty good seeing a kid here and having feedback from the best pediatric hospital in the US that quickly.

Waiting to be seen at FAME

Had dinner last night with my friend Daniel Tewa. I visit with him and his family at least once while I’m here and it’s great for whoever’s with me to come along and visit a Tanzanian family in the area. Daniel is also Iraqw, one of the indigenous tribes in Karatu and has an Iraqw underground house on his farm that we got to see. Dinner is usually an experience as it is a traditional meal, but since Megan is a vegetarian and they weren’t sure what to do, his daughter (whose house we were eating at) had her uncle come help cook. Problem is that he was a chef at Gibb’s Farm for a time and prepared an incredible meal. Megan wasn’t subjected to some of the unusual foods that Danielle got to try last year (much appreciated) though we did each get to drink warm whole milk with dinner. Daniel and his family are very special and treat us like their family so it is a wonderful experience.

Got to run and see patients right now.

Here is a photo of Daniel’s daughter at the grinding stone in his original Iraqw house alongside a wonderful huge twined storage basket. Craig, Sheila, Brian and Bob will very much appreciate the basket. Also a photo of a busy clinic yesterday.

Daniel Tewa’s daughter demonstrating grinding maze in original Iraqw underground house

Later,

Mike