Want to Help??

Merry Christmas Friends, Family, and occasional random blog reader who stumbles onto my blog by mistake!! Well,as I write this I'm sitting in front of the Christmas tree with the heat blazing and my precious niece sleeping in the next room. Oh! And I just ate a Christmas cookie so......pretty much can't get better than that! I hope you are all enjoying this special season as well!

Well, I'll come right out with it. I have a hidden motive for writing this blog. Well, I guess it was hidden until I just told you it was hidden...so I guess it's not hidden anymore. Wait. I'm confused. Anyway, the other day I was talking to a friend of mine (shout out MAS, you'll know who you are). She was asking me about what kinds of things we'll need at the hospital in Sierra Leone, and how she could help. Since I've had multiple people ask me this, I thought I'd throw out a few ideas if there are any of you who feel the same.

Number One: D50. In the time I've spent at the hospital, I think one of the easiest but most important things we do for our kiddos who are sick is check their blood sugar. You can read about two of these instances here http://emilyinsierraleone.blogspot.com/2011/10/so-proud.html and http://emilyinsierraleone.blogspot.com/2011/08/bleh.html
Kids with malaria often have low blood sugar and the thing that saves their lives (I've seen it many many times) is a medicine called D50. When we have it, it's like gold. :) Unfortunately we haven't been able to find it in country so the only way we can get it is to bring it in. I did some research today and found out that a vial of 50ml is $1.40. We usually give a kid 5-10ml, so one vial can be used on quite a few kids!! Awesome deal! :)

Number 2: Glucose monitoring strips. Although the D50 is pretty cheap, the strips that we use to check the blood sugars are pretty expensive....about $1.25 per strip. Since we have to use them to find out if the blood sugar is low before we can give the D50, they're pretty important.

Number 3: RhoGam. We have two pregnant women who have recently come to the hospital who are RH -. This means that they can safely deliver one child, but the way the antigens and antibodies work (might want to Wikipedia it)she won't be able to have a second baby unless she gets a shot of RhoGam. It's $90 a dose. I need two doses.

Anyway, those are a few practical ways you can help if you want to. :)

Checks can be made out to
Willamette Medical Teams
PO Box 772 Albany, OR 97322

Thanks guys! Merry Christmas!