Monday, April 21, 2014

Our Burundi adventure was just interrupted by another kind of adventure.  Gary started peeing blood.  As soon as we let the PA in Lubumbashi know, she sent us orders for tests to be performed here in Bujumbura.  We went to a small but clean hospital for blood and urine tests. This is a photo of that hospital and its waiting room.



We went there without an appointment and were seen promptly.  Everyone was very kind and the tests were administered in a professional manner.  The next day we returned for the results.  They were good (which was bad) and that ruled out any simple problem like an infection or parasite.  On learning of the test results, the PA then made an appointment with a urologist in Johannesburg, South Africa, started conferring with a doctor in Salt Lake, and booked us plane tickets to Johannesburg.  We left for the big city on Monday, April 14th.  Tuesday we met with the Dr. who was Indian.  We found ourselves in a crowded office with blacks, Indians, Muslims and one other white guy.  The Dr. was great!  He did an ultrasound and told Gary he had a prostate the size of Texas.  It is 4 times the normal size, a duck egg instead of a walnut.  It is pushing on the bladder, and being very vascular, tends to bleed with the friction.  Just to be sure that was the problem, he scheduled a CAT scan and a cytoscopy for the next day.  Gary was admitted at 6:30 the next morning, and we spent the day in a 6 bed ward mostly waiting , but receiving the 2 scheduled tests, one at 10:00am and one at 2:30 pm.  Gary spent the day joking with the nurses and making them laugh.  Some fellow senior missionaries we met in the MTC drove 3 hours from where they are assigned and hung out with us for a few hours at the hospital.  When Gary was released, we went out to dinner with them.  It was fun to be in Johannesburg, but I was very excited to head back to Bujumbura.  I missed all the green and the birds singing in the morning.  Johannesburg is just a big city, but we were grateful for the medical help available there.  Here is the hospital we went to.

Gary is on meds now, and hopefully that will be the end of the prostate saga!
We flew back to Burundi on Saturday---Yay!!  We're back!!

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