I don’t like mornings. And I don’t like the phone. So when I get a phone call at 7:30am, and while I’m on the phone, another phone gets a text, and yet another phone starts ringing, I’m not terribly amused. Adam is still out of the country since earthquakes are becoming pretty popular, and Mark went back to the States for a week last Monday, so I have both of their phones in addition to my own. I’ll go ahead and admit to the panic attack I had that morning before we took him to the airport. We were getting three volunteers in that afternoon, and as of 6 hours before their arrival, I had yet to get confirmation on any of the things I was trying to set up for them. I told one of my friends that I was really hoping this was one of those things where God was trying to teach me patience and to trust his timing, and thankfully I was right.
After dropping off Mark at the airport, we picked up Isabella, an Italian photographer staying with a friend’s organization, and we took her to Sister Marcella’s for a few hours. The place looks really different – it’s painted and there are babies and toys and equipment – all signs of life. I know I say this every time I write about going back there, but it’s just so strange. I was telling Stephen (a friend of Adam’s from previous Haiti and Pakistan
After taking Isabella back to Brenda’s house, Stephen and I headed to the airport to pick up our volunteers. Mike and Justin had worked cholera with us at Sister Marcella’s in November, and Justin was also bringing his girlfriend along. Even though I’d only been with them for a week back then, there are only eight other people who can understand that experience, and it was so good to have two of them back. I’ve definitely enjoyed the other volunteers we’ve had since, but I loved when, for example, we’d drive past something and one of them would say, “Hey, isn’t this where Brenden fell out of the truck?” For once, I had people that remembered all the stories I told. And they were also quite impressed by the fact that we now have a refrigerator and running water.
The downside, however, of having people come back who worked with us in a crisis, is that there’s no longer a crisis. We had something to do each day, but it wasn’t nearly as stimulating for them as keeping people alive. Saturday morning we picked up a baby from the Germans and took her to Medishare, so it was nice that they got to have the experience of hanging out on the tarmac and checking out all the broken down/wrecked planes and helicopters that take up most of the space. But after returning to the house, we didn’t have any other work plans. So we decided we’d hang out for a little just in case we needed to do another transport and then head up to Ibolele to get some food and watch basketball. About 45 minutes after coming up with that plan, I got a call from the head nurse at Medishare asking us to come back and work. So Justin and Mike went to triage and I worked in Med/Surg. Some combination of us continued working there for the rest of their trip. Katie came with us on Sunday because they needed help feeding and holding babies in Pediatrics. At one point I went over to check on her and she had a baby in each arm. So cute. I spent the rest of the week there, which I absolutely loved. The only thing that I was kind of bummed out about was that Monday and Tuesday we had set up a couple locations for Katie to do cholera education at and I was looking forward to it because that’s something we haven’t done before.
So many random patients came into the hospital this week. We had some births, we had some deaths, we had mystery diagnoses, and pressure ulcers. I’ll save the detailed stories, because when one of the Medishare nurses (they volunteer for a week) asked me some questions about cholera, she told me I should see a counselor after she heard my responses. No, I did not get to deliver the baby. But we’ve now had four in a matter of three days, so I’m figuring if there’s another one and I happen to be there, the doctor just might let me help out. I did, however, finally get to suture someone! I’ve only been practicing for this day since October 31. I was filling in in triage on Friday morning, and in the midst of seizing babies, a woman with an abscess on her bum, and a patient with an infected leg, a woman came in with a sliced hand. Becca, another nurse who had done sutures for the first time earlier that morning, asked if I wanted to take care of her. Then we asked the doctor if he was okay with that, and after saying yes, he left. So Becca and I decided that to do sutures you either need one doctor or two nurses. At one point while I was getting stuff together, a translator asked me if this was my first time. “Yes it is. Don’t tell the patient.” And Becca agreed, “Yeah, we never tell the patient that.” After I’d finished, the ER doctor was passing by and stopped to see what we were up to. Apparently the silk we used was a bit too big, but hey, stitch and learn. I thought it was pretty. My very first stitch was a little tight, so she’ll have a bit of a bigger scar there. But now that I’ve had someone that legit needs stitches, I’m ready to take volunteers. Adam once said he’d let me practice on him, and now I’d be okay with that. Maybe that’s why he’s staying in Japan
Another interesting aspect to the week was that I had nursing students! How very strange. At one point during one of the days, I was sitting on the counter charting (that took some getting used to – paper charting…all during clinicals I just scanned things, clicked things, and checked boxes) when one of the students starting asking me questions about drugs. Then she started writing down what I was saying. That’s when I was like, “Shoot, I need to find a drug book.” Before I knew it, I had 8 girls in white uniforms around me listening to me talk about medications. One day, my student was giving me a report on my patients vitals (they just did baths and vital signs) and she told me that the patient’s temperature was 91.6 F. I’m not quite sure what my translator told her, but what I said was, “Mmm no, I don’t think so.” Upon further investigation, I discovered that she had no idea what normal was. After telling her, I asked what she thought we might want to do if we had a temperature of 91.6. She didn’t know. So I suggested taking it again. While we waited the five and a half minutes it takes for the thermometer, I tried to explain to her what our patient might look like if that was an accurate temp. But the fact that she was sitting up and complaining of pain indicated that we should probably double check for accuracy. I’m not sure how effective my teaching was. After that is when I started semi-joking about starting a nursing school here. The next day one of the nurses I’d been working with asked if I was serious because she’d be willing to come down and teach…
