Some random things

A little episode in theatre...
2 days ago Dr. Kajesi was going to perform a small surgery in theatre and he asked if I would like to assist him. I was so excited, finally! (I have just been observing in theatre most days). Dr. Kajesi's wife, Noe (her really name is much longer) in the theatre nurse. We went into theatre and Noe said wait until you hear his CD. The CD had the song hallelejuah in 3 different versions on it. In repeat. Noe was like he plays this CD all the time. (After about 15 minutes when one of the songs started again, I said "I've never heard this song before!" Dr. Kajesi just stared at me for a second and then started laughing. Noe said don't talk about it and make it any more painful than it already is.

The surgery was a lypoectomy (spelling is off I think)- basically just a removal of a benign fat blob, in this case on the patient's left arm. As an assistant, it was my job to hold the skin up with a clamp and blob the blood away so that Dr. Kajesi could see what he was doing. I was very excited to be up close and see what was going on and he was explaining everything to me which was great. Until the edges of the room started to blur. I started repeating a mantra of sorts in my head, over and over. "I love this, I am okay." A couple minutes goes by and the room starts spinning faster. I repeat the mantra with more force in my head, "I am OKAY, I AM OKAY." I am starting to get frantic though because it is not working and I can feel the strength leaving my legs. Then I felt all of the blood drain from my face and finally I said, "I feel dizzy" and ran out of the room (that was quite an understatement by the way, I have never feinted but I am sure if I had stayed another 30 seconds I would have).

I sat outside in the scrubroom for a few minutes, mad at myself for leaving the surgery and this opportunity. When my vision returned to normal I went back in the theatre and watched the remainder of the surgery (safely, sitting on a stool). No one really said anything, they just asked if I was okay and I said yes.
The next day (yesterday) I walked into the office and Dr. Kajese said, "what happened yesterday? You ran out on us. Do you still want to be called into theatre?" I said YES YES I do. I have no idea what happened yesterday. I mean I was fine every other time- even when they pulled a baby sized tumor out of someone. Anyway, we walked into OPD and Dr. Kabanzi was in there. Dr. Kajesi told him that I almost feinted in theatre yesterday and everyone in there started laughing. Dr. Kajesi said that if anyone forgets my name they can just ask for the girl who almost feinted. I said no way,  that is not how I am going to be remembered. But then they all stopped laughing at me finally and Dr. Kajesi said that it happens to everyone at some point. He told me that he almost feinted one time when someone was pulling a catheter out of a patient and the patient was screaming in pain. Dr. Kabanzi said that he almost feinted the first time he saw a vaginal delivery. This was so funny we all started laughing again (everyone loves to laugh here, it is so great).

Anyway, I have been back to theatre since then and everything was ok. It might have been too hot or something combined with the surgery, I don't know. They all think it is so cold here so no one turns the fans on, but really it is pretty stuffy in the theatre sometimes. It made a good story though and they all got some good laughs out of it.

Burns
There are a lot of patients with burns here. I think I already mentioned the young boy with the burns on his leg in a previous post. I was doing his dressing changes all last week and they were really quite horrible. He would start screaming and crying as soon as he saw the other nurse and I coming. We had to take off his bandages and scrub the raw, burned skin with antiseptic stuff and then put a cream on the burns and wrap them back up. I can't even imagine how much that must hurt. I always tried to say sorry and smile and comfort the kid but he wanted nothing to do with me (which I can't say I blame him). But he would be laying on the grass outside later in the day with his grandma and never smile back at me. So yesterday I went and got a lollipop and took it to him. As soon as he saw it his eyes lit up and he clapped his hands twice (their way of saying thank you). Later that day when I walked by I got a huge smile and a wave. I was so happy that something so simple had made his day because he has been here the entire time I have and it is miserable for him.

Later in the day, a woman came into OPD for a checkup. She had been here before because she had terrible burns on her arm. She has epilepsy and during a seizure her arm went into the fire. She is pregnant and looks healthy until she unwraps her arm. Then it is swollen and raw and she lost 2 fingers to gangrene from the original burns. It was so hard to look at her arm. I still can't believe all of the horrible burns patients have.

Rural Living
I have been lucky since I have been here and there has been a fairly good amount of electricity and the water has been turned on. Although I have taken a freezing cold shower for the past week. I was showering after the hospital yesterday (in the dark) when the water turned off midshower. I had just put a lot of conditioner in my hair and I had no idea what I was going to do. Luckily, I had two fairly full water bottles in my room so I could rinse my hair.

I started thinking about how all of the people that live around the hospital experience this everyday. They don't have electricity or running water in their homes. It reminds me just how lucky we are in the U.S. to have electricity and running water. It seems so simple but it is so important for so many things. I still am so impressed how well the hospital runs when there is not electricity all of the time. If there is going to be a surgery sometimes they need to turn on the generator (which is kind of spotty too because it was donated used 13 years ago). They are building a recovery room right now for after operations which is going to be great. Noe was saying how nice it would be to have an ICU machine donated so that patients could be monitored more closely. Sister McCarty pointed out that it would be kind of pointless because the electricity would just go out in the middle of it. This reminded me that even if they had all of the nice equipment (which they have none of here), there would still be many barriers to using it. It is still hard to wrap my head around what MGH has compared to here. It really is worlds apart.

Exercise
I decided to go for a run yesterday because I haven't had the chance to exercise much since I have been here because it has been so busy. I left around 4 pm and ran by the school right when the students were getting out. What a mistake. I forgot that everyone here thinks that exercising is hilarious. I mean they just don't get it so it is so funny to them (they get their exercise just living daily life, most of them walk far and work in the fields around here). They are like what is this crazy white lady doing? The students were saying hi and laughing so I just kept running.

After I crossed the soccer "field" I could hear footsteps behind me and laughing.  I looked back and I could see 2 girls running behind me in their uniforms. I kept going around the dam and they were still following me from a distance. I stopped and let them catch up and we said hello to each other. I told them to run with me so they did until we passed the road leading to their house. They said goodbye and I kept going. Anyway it was pretty funny how funny they all thought it was. In the future I think I will try to skip running at that time because people already stare at me enough here.