Suprises abound

If there is one thing I have learned the past few months, it's that not everything goes exactly how I plan it. Now, if I didn't have such a thick head, number one, I would probably wear a more normal hat size, and number two, I would have learned this lesson a long time ago. I mean, I didn't go to the medical school I thought I would, Caleb came along well before we expected him, and I didn't even choose the specialty I thought I would going into med school. That said, everything seems to work out for our good, just as the Lord promises in Romans 8:28. What a lot of people forget about in that verse is the qualifier, but that's another discussion for another day.

At any rate, preparation for this trip to PNG has been anything but smooth. First, our visas were late and we had to cancel our flights. We couldn't reschedule them because there was no way of knowing just how late our visas were going to be. Normally, it wouldn't be that big of an issue, but flights into Mt Hagen, PNG only occur once a week. On top of that, we are dealing with the airline of a "Least Developed Nation" that only deals with paper tickets, meaning there must be at least a week leeway between when we book our new flights and the date we actually fly. So, we went ahead and booked our flights for March 14, two weeks after our original departure date. That meant that we would be there for 7 weeks, one short of the normally required 8 weeks for a two month rotation. I was convinced my medical school would be understanding, however, so there was no problem.

Then, yesterday, our visas arrived! We were pretty pumped. On the half-empty side, that meant that we could have scheduled our flight for this Friday, the 7th, but it would have been a pretty big gamble. No biggie. Then, however, we were told by our travel agent that our return flight date had to change. Apparently, when you cancel a flight with PNG's airline (they have only one), you must cancel the whole deal. When we tried to re-book our return flight, there was no room. So, we have to leave either a week earlier or two weeks later. We were expecting/hoping to leave our return flights the same when rescheduling due to our hectic schedule of house hunting, graduation, moving, settling, then starting residency when we return to the States. But, a week earlier just isn't an option because that would cut our trip too short. Guess our hectic schedule just got a little more hectic!

Sorry to those of you who struggled through those last two paragraphs. Welcome to our confusing world! The end result is that our trip is back to a 9 week adventure, just shifted two weeks later. I guess that's just what happens when you work with a third world country. The upside: I get to do a whole bunch more and genuinely help a lot of people while I'm there. The downside: it is a whole lotta work and money to get there. To those of you planning to do this in the future, just be ready to be flexible!

In the mean time, Josh Adams, the best man in my wedding and fellow med student (attending a different med school), will be getting into town this week, so we are excited to spend time with him and his wife before we all leave. They will be joining us to PNG where he will also be working at the hospital, though he will only be there 3 weeks. He was scheduled for 5, but also encountered visa trouble and is not fortunate enough to have flexibility with his return date. For the next week and a half we'll just be reading as much as we can about the culture there and the major diseases we'll be seeing: malaria, typhoid, tuberculosis, pneumonia, and HIV. Oh, and we'll probably manage to get in some time with his new Wii!!