The day after Christmas

Saturday, 26 December 2009
This day off found me rising at the usual 5:30 AM, breakfasting on yams and onions, muffins, fresh orange juice and a pau pau, which I purchased with haggling yesterday. I studied Dagbani for an hour by listening to conversations that I had recorded while in taxis traveling to and from work. It is fun to use the small hand-held recorder I recently purchased as some passengers are not familiar with recorders nor have they ever heard their own recorded voice. They also roar over my atrocious pronunciation. I laugh too when I listen. Just this month I have been able to have a simple conversation with a familiar topic. It gives me a thrill as language learning is difficult with my moderate hearing loss. Afterward, I placed cuttings from flowering bushes in water and compost soil and following that, I spent an hour studying a patient’s disease. Today, the disease was hydrocephalus and Arnold-Chiari malformation, because I lost a three-month old Wednesday with this condition. The child had a progressively enlarging head and dyspnea from bilateral vocal cord paralysis when he presented with cerebral malaria, seizures and died. A pediatric fiberoptic nasopharyngoscope was needed to examine this sick infant’s larynx. The adult scope was too wide to pass through her nose.
Lunch today consisted of a yam, string bean and carrot stew, diluted orange juice and a Christmas present of cashew nuts which Cyndy gave me yesterday. Then another gardening break. This time planting pau pau trees in the dry cement-like soil. Each side of the house now has a row of ten pau pau trees; the symmetry is pleasing. Time to treat myself to whatever I choose. This blog posting is being written because my friend and former medical school roommate mentioned on a call yesterday that there were no blog entries since November. Next on my agenda: taking an interactive aviation course online or looking up sites for my birthday-family vacation this March in Egypt. Hopefully the hospital will not call to disturb this Type A personality. I described my day after reading "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave, Written by Himself." It is an excellent book and he could certainly give me a few lessons in writing. P.S. Corrective comments are appreciated.