In Case of Emergency

Well this past week has been another week of excitement and learning.  It was another 4 day week as there was a holiday on Thursday (Armed Forces Day), which we deferred to Friday for a 3 day weekend!  While 3 day weekends are nice, they don't quite have the same appeal as in the US, unless you have plans for the weekend.  This morning I woke up feeling like it should be Sunday because we spent yesterday doing things that we would normally do on a Saturday.  Maybe in the future 3 day weekends will have a greater appeal, but for now, we just take 'em as we get 'em.

Let's see....what things did I learn this week?  I  learned many of things, the most important thing being, we were not adequately prepared for emergencies at the clinic.  AHHH!!!  Thursday, when we were a bit busier than normal because of our holiday scheduled for Friday, a little boy about 4 years old started to have convulsions and was seizing due to a fever.  How did this all play out?  Let me tell you:

I was in the gynecology room putting something away.  Dr. Rafael, the pediatrician, comes to me as I am exiting the room and say something in spanish to me as he is pointing to the oxygen tank in the room and putting his hand up to his face to symbolize a O2 mask.  I peak my head down the hall to see a kid convulsing on his exam table, the mother trying to calm him along with doing somewhat of a sternal rub.  My initial thought?  This kid is non-responsive; after all what else could a sternal rub mean?  My initial reaction?  Rafael must want the ambu bag so that's what I return to the gyne room to grab.  But then I see Dr. Rafael turn the child on his side; something you do when a person is seizing.  This kid is 'ok' but it is still an emergent situation we are dealing with; Dr. Rafael wants the oxygen tank.  However, keep in mind the 2 tanks we have are both about 5 feet tall....not something you would transport out of the gyne room.  Therefore I ask Dr. Rafael to bring the kid next door.  What was lost in spanish/english translation was, "I can bring the kid to the gyne room, but I need the other patient cleared out of there and the exam table prepared with an oxygen mask."  One time that having a language barrier is a problem.  We get the table prepared and are going to put oxygen on the child only to find out that both, I repeat both, of our O2 tanks are EMPTY!  Now what?!  Well we have a small little hand held tank with our emergency kit.  Do you suppose that one had oxygen in it? Nope!  Great, we have this kid that could use oxygen but no oxygen to give him.  But wait....luckily we had 2 small tanks upstairs that had some oxygen in them, they saved us!  Needless to say though, getting oxygen to this kid, which should have taken 2 min, took close to 15 minutes I'm sure.  Luckily it was a highly emergent situation!  After we had the child very stable, Dr. Rafael told me that it is important, in cases of emergency, that we have oxygen and other supplies that we can use.  I could not agree more!

This is the culture!  Everyone moves at their own pace, doing their own thing.  When something needs fixed or done, others are not always informed, they just wait until someone else finds the problem too and decides to do something about it.  The case of the oxygen tanks?  Well the nurse that had been in charge of making sure they stayed filled had probably been swamped with 3 jobs at the time and just forgot to make arrangements for them to be filled.  Then, when she quit the job at the clinic however many months back, nobody was informed of this issue probably because she had simply forgotten.  To add on top of this, I have never been in an emergency situation before so I still needed to be walked through it.  However, being walked through an emergency situation in another language?  Not the ideal situation! So plan for the next week or two?  Have the doctors walk me through an 'emergent' situation from start to finish so next time I know what needs to happen.  Emergencies aside, I did get to perform my own pap smears this week so that was exciting! 

In other news: I met this lady, Debi, at the clinic on Thursday. Her and her husband Bob, who are from Canada, have been on the island for 2 years as missionaries.  She told me about how she loves to do things for volunteers and she was having a game night last night.  So I decided to check it out.  We had soo much fun at game night and learned of a great resource, Debi herself.  She loves to interact with island people and she has connections with people all over the island.  Her and her husband work down by the cruise ship dock with locals and she loves to give true island tours where you get out and interact with the people of the island.  Looks like I will be seeing more of her!  I am very excited and looking forward to doing that sometime in the near future! 

Another hurricane is also on the horizon.  Last time when Matthew was due to be coming in the next day, we had a 'hurricane party' the night before (aka a potluck).  Since Peggy has 10 lbs of fish we were going to have a potluck with, why not make it another hurrican party!  Who knows, maybe this hurricane will turn out just like that last: windy/light showers over night and a gorgeous sunshiny day the next day.  We can only hope.  However, I still want to experience a hurricane sometime cause when else will I get the chance?!

I got my first glimpse inside the hospital as well yesterday.  That is a very interesting scenario, but I will save that for another day's reading. 

Love to all those at home!
Laura