So I worked day shift again today. I had the same patients as yesterday..except fo a new baby. I took care of a 3 month old with an infected head wound. SOOOO cute. Everytime you look at her she smiles and laughs...except when you are changing her dressing or her IV goes bad and you have to start a new one...oops. But def. my first time providing medical care and giving IV antibiotics to a baby...and learned a lot:) Her mom is wonderful too....and is the only one who speaks the same language as my 84 yr. old patient so she always translates for us:) I love how the patients translate for each other even though we have translators who work with us:) And many times the translators say the exact word for word thing we say but the patient doesnt understand it when we say it cause they have such a strong accent on their words. But it's humorous...when the patients nod after it is interpretted and Im like...dude...I just said the same thing. :) Or I have patients that interpret for others and then when you talk to them they still need an interpreter. Good times:) So one of my other patients is an 84 yr old man...so cute. He had a cataract fixed as well as a hernia...as well as some other edema down in that area. Poor guy. And they just found pnemonia. So I have been getting him up to walk in the hallway and get his lungs moving. Today I took him in the elevator to deck 7 where us day nurses take the patients who want to go at 2:30 to get some fresh air. I think it took us like 30 minutes to get there cause he walked so slow...lol...but his face lit up when we got there and he didnt want to leave, so I stayed awhile with him and held his hand. Oh, and I also got the enjoyment of teaching him how to use an incentive spirometer to help him take good deep breaths...now that was quite the task...trying to translate that...I think he is kind of getting the hang of it now...:)
Last night I went to go watch the soccer game and then went to hear one of the plastic surgoens talk about the nooma infection that is very common here..and eats away at the skin. Crazy pictures and even crazier description of how they treat it and fix ppl's mouths, noses, and faces that have been affected...by taking skin flaps from the scalp and neck. Fascinating. Well, Im off to go run before volleyball tonight. Hope ya'll are donig well. Oh, and if you are looking for something to pray about you can pray that we (mercy ships) can find a way to get synthroid into this country. The surgeons have had to cancel many goiter surgeries because many of the patients would have too much thyroid removed to be ok without taking synthetic thyroid hormone. It's cheap to get in the states and is available here...but only by like 1 company who has a monopoly and can pretty much charge whatever he wants and pts cannot afford that even short term let alone the rest of their lives...which they need it for. So docs here are trying to find a way to get someone to supply it here reasonably priced without wanting to make mad money off it and jacking up the price. Many women have been sent away crying and devastated that they could not get the surgery they were once told they could get. Their is such a social stigmatism to having deformaties here and they were SOOOO excited when they thought they were gonig to be fixed and now they are being turned away. Most countries that Mercy Ships visits does not have a problem getting this hormone...but here it is a big obstacle...so pray for that situation. ...and my apologies fro writing another book;)
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