Halleluiah!

Now, I promise this is not something you’ve ever heard out of my mouth ever before. EVER! But I am really enjoying night shift. J I think mostly because it’s days in the US and I get a chance to catch up with people on facebook (now that our internet is working properly) and hopefully via phone (when it decides to work). It’s so much less stressful without all the politics and confusion that happens during the day. PS Kendall now I understand what you mean when you said it’s just managing chaos. Right now we don’t even have Operation Smile in our wards and it’s chaotic everyday when the boats deliver the patients at the same time we’re getting 3 post-ops. Poor translators, they are pulled in so many directions. Can I give another AMEN?! Our new translators are SO much better than the ones we had in Vietnam. At least we haven’t figured out if they are telling our pts to rub Motrin on their bellies yet… Nights are good to me here. My room is a cave with no windows so it doesn’t matter when I sleep. Meals are always a struggle (*hint hint* send easy mac and luna bars! :-D) but whats new? I’ve gotten to work out every day after my 7-8hrs of sleep and like I said, a LOT LESS stress at night. Also props to my night team…they are easy personalities to get along with too!

 

Side note: I did get one package during mail call…it was the one Jenny sent at the beginning of May! Crazy ship mail…hopefully I’ll get the rest when we go to Singapore. Not sure why some people got the packages their families sent 8 days before we had a mail call… but I can’t complain, Jenny’s package had everything I needed for these next two weeks.

 

Back to MEDCAPs… All the nurses I talked to had a very similar experience at their MEDCAPs in Vietnam. They were patient traffic control and not much more. It was nice for me because I could see some of the other stuff going on, instead of getting stuck in one place the entire day. But wasn’t very “rewarding” for my skill set. My favorite part was passing out all the stuffed animals I had brought with me that day. I left a sea bag full of them with the pediatricians and then I passed out the ones from my backpack to all the kids not seeing the peds doctors (ie optometry, Physical Therapy…). We got an extended lunch and were able to go out on the street and purchase fruit and coconut milk and other items from vendors. I attempted to eat my MRE (jambalaya) but without great success. It really didn’t taste awful, but not good enough to encourage me to fix it to make it any more edible. I did however get a coconut (which I watched carved down a bit to a cup shape, then the bottom leveled off to place on the table and the top cut off to insert a straw. J And lots of local fruit. I wish I knew all the names of the different fruits …most tasted like lychee (kind of like saying everything tastes like chicken) but they came in lots of different sizes, shapes, prickles, no prickles, huge seeds, small seeds…  

 

Tomorrow I go on liberty in Cambodia. So far I’ve been told it’s so much more fun! It sounds like this area caters more to tourists… there is a snake restaurant with snakes in the tables, an airplane restaurant (you’ll understand when I take pictures), a 5 star resort with great massages… I can’t wait.