ETHIOPIWHERE?!?: Medivac

Life is full of surprises. Mine seems to be overflowing with surprises lately. In late February I had an episode of sharp, unrelenting right-sided abdominal pain. This bought me a 2-week excursion to Addis where I underwent numerous tests (blood work, ultrasound, MRI) and even met with the US Embassy doc. As none of the tests were terribly conclusive, I was then instructed to eat a diet chocked full of fatty foods (truly a hardship) for a period of one week in an attempt to truly challenge my gallbladder. Although they were suspicious of gallbladder dysfunction, nothing seemed to reproduce the pain, and I eventually returned to site.

All seemed to be back to normal until I returned to Addis on April 6 for an all-volunteer inservice training conference. After treating myself to a farenji dinner (i.e. no injera!), I was again hit with another attack. Fortunately, this time I was already in Addis. Our fabulous PCMO paid a house call to the hotel where we were staying and decided that I needed further work-up. This is what bought me an open-ended ticket to South Africa--PC’s regional medivac hub.

And here I sit….still! I’m writing this post on day 29 of my South African “adventure”. I had always wanted to travel to South Africa, but never dreamed that it would be for a tour of Pretoria’s medical institutions! Upon my arrival, I was immediately taken to the offices of one of the area’s leading gastro-enterologists. He subsequently admitted me....definitely not what I was expecting. After 2 days of tests and good hospital food (I’m not joking…it was great!), I was discharged from his service (no gallstones for him to deal with) and referred to a surgeon. The surgeon ordered another battery of tests and it was eventually confirmed by a DISIDA scan that my gallbladder was indeed dysfunctional and causing these episodes of pain. On Tuesday April 22, I had a laparoscopic cholecystectomy and am now 0.4 ounces lighter (just a gross estimate on the weight of a gallbladder) and bear 4 small incisions. My first PC battle scars! I’m now pain free (just a little itching as the incisions heal) and my energy is almost back to normal. My sutures will be taken out on May 6 and I hope to be on a plane bound for Addis by Thursday May 8. What an adventure this has been!

The crazy twist to this saga is that within a week of being in South Africa, another PCV from Ethiopia showed up with the same problems. She, however, was on the fast track due to the fact that she had visible gallstones. She arrived after me, had surgery within 2 days, and has already returned to Addis. We both agreed, however, that we must have missed something in the fine print when signing the papers for PC Ethiopia and are presently lobbying staff to add the following disclaimer: “accepting a PC volunteer position in Ethiopia will likely lead to a cholecystectomy. Anyone partial to retaining their gallbladder should remain stateside.”