September 19, 2010 (Sunday)
I was on duty today. It was the first day that I’ve broken down. I feel completely clueless and useless. When I first got to work, there was a couple that came in with a little boy saying that he couldn’t sleep at night because of his ‘stuffed’ nose. The problem was that there was nothing really in it or at least that would come out of it. The child was screaming the whole time I was trying to get his pulse and listen to his lungs. Leah and I decided to admit him into the hospital, but the family didn’t want to do this. Apparently he was fine during the day so they said they’d come back later.
Later there was a woman that came in to get an injection. Normally we do it intravenously with a small butterfly needle, but we had none in the hospital so I had to use a larger needle. Unfortunately I blew the first vein so I had to use the other arm.
(Later)
Our laundry is dry! It’s amazing, we don’t have to wait till Wednesday and there was no reeking of mildew. Woot woot! So, after my lovely escapade in the hospital this morning I went over to Colwell’s for hot chocolate. (They have fresh ground coffee/hot drinks every Sunday morning) I ended up buzzing Ben’s hair, he’s one of the Peace Corps guys. I attempted to convince Moriah to do it, but she was too afraid to ‘ruin’ it…ya know, it’s pretty hard to buzz cut! J
September 21, 2010 (Tuesday)
I was the lucky one to go to market today. It was actually a lot of fun since I was able to just look at all the various items that were being sold. Christiane was helping me out in the beginning, but then she had to head home. So, I decided that I would do some shopping on my own. I was ubber excited when I found an English-French dictionary, (I think the guy ripped me off, but I only spent about 5 dollars so I’m not too sad.) Oh, and something else that made super excited was that we finally have a bucket to wash our clothes in. No more borrowing. Yea!!
This evening I made some ginger chai, fried breaded okra and peanut rice dish, which was pretty scrumptious. That’s something I’ll enjoy this week, trying out different recipes, which hopefully will turn out! And I’m going to have to start writing them down.
We admitted our first patient of the week- it was another admittance of a man to our women and children’s hospital! It was really sad, he had to be carried in and was in the later stages of HIV. What was even sadder was that had a fairly young family and a little boy that stole my heart :)
Anyways, on to something a bit lighter: When asking a patient if he was constipated, he said, "No." but then went on to say, "I haven't stooled in 2-3 days. (Wouldn’t that be considered constipated??) And then a little while later trying to assure us that it was okay he said, "I can stool when I want to." (I’m so proud of him! Teehee!) Oh, the joys of working in the hospital! :P
September 23, 2010 (Thursday)
Wow! I am soooo tired! This week I have been doing the night shift and haven’t had the greatest sleep so far. We’ve only had 2 in patients, but between the two of them we’ve been kept busy. The first patient that I’ve already mentioned came in on Tuesday and has been on pain meds the whole time, not completely sure why he has stayed since they don’t have money, and there’s not much we can do for him. Then again, I suppose at this point he’s comfortable, so we are doing something.
I must say though that the man’s little three-year old boy was pretty cute! The first night they came he wouldn’t look at me, but by the second day he was my little shadow! I had taught him the ‘high-five, to the side, down-low, too slow’ game and he wanted to keep playing it. Eventually, I convinced him to go running with me up and down the breezeway. It’s so cute, the last two days I’ve asked what he’s learned at school and his answer has been ‘ABCs’ in his little African accent. (The kids here start school at about the age of 2, which is basically daycare/preschool.)
The other patient that came in was a young lady with malaria/typhoid. She had some of the worst veins, I’ve seen. They were so tiny, and you couldn’t find any on her. Another problem is that we don’t have the IVs with catheters so if you’re not careful the needle can blow the vein. With this combo, it made for some interesting and frustrating needle sticking. I think we tried sticking her about 6 times before we were able to get any success. And then that blew about one hour later so the process was repeated. By this evening we have resorted to sticking the IV in her foot because we couldn’t find any other veins. She doesn’t take to pain very well, in fact she has a very low pain tolerance. And yet, I don’t blame her. I think that if after so many sticks and being sick I would be kind of tired of it too! Her last treatment will be this evening so she will be leaving either tonight or in the morning.
I felt pretty useless at night. For one thing it doesn’t require two people to check an IV drip or give meds and secondly, I don’t know how much of what to give/when to give the meds/drips. This leaves Christiane to do most of the work. I’m really hoping this will get better soon.
After I got off work this morning, I decided that I would head up to the bank to withdraw some money. The hike up there was only about 2 miles, but since Buea is build on the side of Mt Cameroon and there’s only one main road with most of the businesses, I had to go up hill to get to the bank. I decided to take Jordan, Colwell’s dog, with me for the company since Moriah was working at the time. (That’s not to say that Jordan is a good substitute for Moriah’s company, I would have much preferred having Mo come along with me J) The trip was done in about 2 hours and I came back all sweaty and ready for a nap.
Once I woke up I made some ‘pancakes’ and sweet rice with ginger and headed over to the hospital to see if Moriah was ready to eat. This is when I met the crazy women- no, not Moriah. She was a lady probably in her 30’s and she had an abscess on one of her breasts. Apparently she was in a lot of pain, because before I headed up to the hospital I could hear the cries of pain. Once I came into the ‘OR’, which was just one of our patient rooms, she had quieted down from the injection of ketamine that Lea gave her. It was taking longer than usual to have her pass out and that’s when Trixy realized that they needed to give more anesthesias. After the second injections that’s when things got really interesting. The woman started accused us of wanting to kill her and yelling other unknown things. Lea attempted to soothe her, but then the woman’s anger focused all on Lea. She got up off the bed, skirt falling down around her, and pushed Lea up into the corner of the room. At this moment Trixy stepped in to help and got Lea away safely. We convinced the woman to sit on the bed again and she kind of calmed down. She yelled a couple more words and then the anesthesia kicked in.… phew! We could finally operate and remove the abscess.
I had thought that I would get kinda queezy at the sight of all the puss and gunk coming out, but it was pretty interesting! Once the wound was packed with gauze we cleaned the bed up and waited for the anesthesia to wear off… just a bit scary with all the suspense! Trixy had given us something to read on what to expect of a patient coming out of ketamine. All the warning signs mentioned were the ones we had seen before the surgery so it made me a bit nervous. Were we going to be in the Cameroonian newspaper, “Two Volunteer Nurses in Cameroon, Killed by Patient”??
She started coming around 30 minutes later, yelling just like before. And that’s when I tried convincing Moriah that, this really was a good experience for her, and that she should go take care of the patient!! She wasn’t convinced and needless to say, we both ended up going into the room and just standing there. Neither of us knew what to do with this lady.
I actually was VERY glad that she had acted up beforehand because it prepared us for afterwards. The bandage that we had put on her, was now starting to get soaked with the draining blood. This made it look like she was wounded (which she was) so, each time she looked down at the bandage, she would make this sound of disappointment/anger/frustration and clap her hands, telling us that she was dead and we had killed her. She didn’t fully have the whole balance thing in order either. So, this caused her to fall off the bed onto the floor. Moriah and I attempted to help her back up, but she wouldn’t let us touch her. (We figured she’d probably be safer on the ground to prevent her from falling again) After some time, Lea came in to check on Mo and I. Once the woman saw Lea, that started another wave of emotion. Apparently she was convinced that Lea had something against the ‘woman’s people’. After yelling all this she stood and came towards Lea again. I tried to refrain her, but instead of calming her she grabbed me, and my shirt, and attempted ripping it off. The only thing that I could think of at this point was to grab her hands and try to keep her from actually more damage. After a couple of words from Lea and I, she ‘calmed down’ (or at least just let go of me) and went back to the floor. She hadn’t gained her balance so, between her yelling spells, she would fall over and lay on the ground for a bit and then sit back up and repeat it again. She did eventually get peaceful and accepted the fact that she really was alive. And I was a bit drained and also starving, so Moriah and I headed back down to our room and had our supper. (This is also when we were able to laugh about the whole procedure, and my near death experience! J)
Now I get to go sleep for a bit… woot woot!
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