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Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Still pending...

Although John Shoshiwe (Theater nurse at the hospital) bas been treating me cat bite injury, yesterday the deepest wound showed signs of serious infection. John spent thirty minutes flushing the poison out with saline and then packing the wound with cotton wool soaked in iodine. He then sent me along to see Dr Leonard for an anti-rabies injection.

When I arrived at Dr Leonard's rooms, he was holding court  having a meeting with the other doctors, technicians and sisters. While I waited on the veranda for him to to see me, I sat in the sun and read. However, before his meeting was over, he called me inside. He said that he'd been telling his staff that I'd been bitten by my own pet cat; I fed and housed this cat, yet it still bit me. So the people offered to come and shoot the cat for me! Although I could see no-one believed me, I told them that the cat hadn't actually meant to bite me. It was having a fight with another cat and I got in the way.They 
asked if the other cat was a stray. And when I said no, both cats were mine, they just shook their collective heads!  (Crazy Mzungu, I could see running through their minds) 

Dr Leonard then told me that John had already given him a full report of the state of especially one of my wounds. He then suggested that I go onto a stronger five-day course of antibiotics, this time administered intravenously. My heart sank. It's only a week since I had to make the trip to the hospital for malaria injections and here I am doing it all over again!

I submitted my prescription in to Prokeria, the pharmacist; then came the next shock: she handed me ten boxes of vials of one injection and a strip containing five ampoules of another injection. She also gave me one box containing the ampoule of anti-rabies injection.  She then sent me to the sister, in an adjacent room. There, Sr Theresa prepared the anti-rabies injection which she then administered into my arm. Then she prepared the two sets of antibiotics. These she injected intravenously. She noted the time of administration and asked me to return to the women's ward in twelve hours' time. So last night at 9.15 Grant took me back for the second injection. 
 Culprits and cause of my present predicament, Shadow and Ginger with the "stash" of meds I have to have administered

Early this morning, I'd arranged with John to be at the hospital where he treated my wounds again. As this post is aired, we'll be on our way to Mwanza; it's time for Grant's bridge to be fitted at the dentist.

And now, something much more pleasant: pups, day 39 update!
 On Monday, Michael had to attend to family business in Shinyanga. Joshua stood in for him. Here he lets the pups out of their enclosure
On Sunday Grant had a chance to play with the pups
 Joshua plays energetically with Princess and the pups
The above scene is not a normal one; in Africa dogs are not normally patted; at best they're ignored, at worst, they're kicked and beaten
 Princess learned quickly how to romp on the lawn with the pups (albeit sometimes a little too roughly)
Oooh mama, that tickles!
The pups have no lack of playmates: mum Jo, Mama Princess and Askari Joshua,  Michael and Zechariah
Mum Jo has many exciting things to play with: her leg bandage...
... her camera lens cap ...
 ... her shorts!
I found a stick but it got stuck in my throat and Mum had to pull it out!
 Giving Joshua a high-five
 To tempt them back into the enclosure, I bring out the food bowls

I'm linking my post to Our World Tuesday which you can visit here

 














12 comments:

  1. really sorry the wounds are complicated! i hope this round of antibiotics takes care of it!

    and those pups and all their caregivers are just wonderful!

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  2. Oh My Goodness, I go on vacation --and when I get home, I find that you got a bad bite from one of your babies... I'm sure it wasn't on purpose --but sorry you have had so much trouble with it....Bless you, Jo.

    The pups are growing so fast... They all look so happy and healthy.

    I published a cute blog today from our vacation in Cataloochee this past week. Check it out if you haven't yet.
    Hugs,
    Betsy

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  3. Oh my Jo, that is a LOT of medication. I do hope you will heal up and be better than brand new very soon. Big hugs.xx

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  4. Oh dear! All those injections. I had a rabies jab before going to Africa. It cost me the the earth. Hope it lasts for a while! Well at least you are getting the right treatment and IV is much less sore than IM. Can't get over how big these pups are now.. Don' forget to look at my post today as I am showing some of the birds you mentioned yo me that you had never seen. I must now put it on.

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  5. Oh my, Jo! You have been thru so much lately with the Malaria and now the cat bites.. I hope the infection clears up and everything returns to normal. I love the puppies, wonderful photos and update.. Have a happy day!

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  6. so sorry to hear this.. i was afraid you might need antibiotics, here they are standard for a cat or dog bite and we just take them by mouth, that is to prevent infection.. this sounds horrible and right before your trip. pups look adorable again. hope you leg is better today

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  7. It's good you are watching that infection carefully. There is something called cat scratch fever that can be pretty serious. I hope the antibiotics do the trick for you.

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  8. Jo, almost the same thing happened to me years ago. My cat and I were in the kitchen when a couple of strays decided to suddenly have a screaming fight on the porch just other side of the window and door. I made the mistake of starting to take a step and my wild eyed, frightened cat latched onto my leg with all claws and fangs. I had on panty hose, and either that or the taste of my blood was not good. While looking very confused, she made motions with her tongue and mouth as if to try to spit something out. bleth,yuck! I figured the best thing for the punctures was to let them bleed which I did. I was lucky it worked, but I did get a tetanus booster. Yours must have been deeper. Good luck with the healing.

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  9. Oh Jo! I went back and read about your injuries! You poor thing!!!
    Here's hoping they heal up nicely!!!
    hughugs

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  10. Dang, you've really been through the gauntlet lately with doctors. Guess you'll be taking some of these shots in SA. The pups are getting cuter every day/post.

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  11. The moral of this story is, don't mess with cat fights.
    One of our cats got spooked while my granddaughter was holding it, the result, nine stitches in her ripped arm and puncture wounds. They are such lovely, docile pets except when . . .
    Take some zinc tablets to speed the healing, they really help.

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  12. I hope you recover soon from your wounds. Your pups are lovely!

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Thank you for visiting my blog and taking the time to leave a comment. I appreciate your feedback. Jo