Cake Hangover

I woke up feeling very ill on Tuesday, thanks in no part to the large amount of cake consumed the previous night. I had stacks and stacks of work to do on Tuesday due to the lack of work done on my birthday so I went in and started on that. Disaster struck when I went to pack the kids prescriptions for Ngcwanguba clinic that day and discovered that we were completely out of stock on Kaletra syrup, as was the depot in Mthatha! If the kids don't take their ARVs correctly, not only will they get ill, but the drugs that they are on won't be effective if they do start again. There also isn't any alternative treatment to Kaletra available here in Zithulele so we were in a bit of a quandary.




I phoned the HIV hotline who agreed that it was a bit of a disaster and said we either had to send our pharmacist to wherever in the country they have Kaletra [oh wait, we can't do that as we have no pharmacist!] or phone the hotline on a case by case basis to discuss if there's any way we can use the drugs we have here to treat them on a temporary basis. In the end I had to leave without a clear plan because we were getting later and later for Ngcwanguba clinic.



First we went to Mapuzi to pick up the uncollected packs from the previous week and, joy of joys, one of the Kaletra patients from there had deigned not to come, upping our stock level from zero to three! That meant that at least one of the four kids at today's clinic could go home with their meds. I must be becoming a familiar face around there because all the staff and patients seemed to know me when I showed up [maybe they remembered my pink wellies/shorts combo...] and I even recognised a fair number of people there too,



Ngcwanguba was heaving when we arrived and set up. Nokuthula the ARV counsellor got the ball rolling and Sam and Sarah were also there to dispense, giving me plenty of time to sort out the Kaletra situation when the various patients rolled in. It worked out alright in the end because one of the patients was changed off the drug by the doctor and two didn't turn up before we left so I was able to give my miniscule supply to the one who did arrive. The other two would just have to come to Zithulele next week and we'd make a plan for them.



Back at work we were busy again, and I ended up running the pharmacy on my own between 5pm and 6.30pm when Liz and Sally dragged me out of there. Then, guess what I received from Emma [Sally's three year old daughter]? A cake! Yay! Lent has gone down the drain this week, looks like I'll be playing catch up until May!