For the past few post, I have been meaning to tell you all that I survived my first hurricane! (not that you couldn't have figured it out by either having talked to me or seen my current posts, but I thought it would be worth a mention!) Hurrican Richard came and went 2 Sunday's ago now. Saturday was a rainy day, but that evening the water became very still, like a sheet of glass; the trees were not blowing in the wind at all; it was a very calm and peaceful evening (even though there was supposedly a police order out to stay off the roads....oops!). However, that night before going to bed around midnight, the winds picked up significantly, the water was no longer calm as waves were rolling in, the waves had changed direction from the good direction to the bad direction and it started to downpour. During the night I woke up a few times to strong winds and heavy rains but nothing too much more. When I woke up Sunday morning to contemplate whether or not there would be church, I realized there was no power and just about the time I was going to get out of bed, I heard a tree branch fall on Peggy's car. Chances are that even if there was church, there would not be a single taxi on the road to get me there! Therefore, I laid in bed for the next 2 hrs figuring that there was nothing else to do without electricity or light. The whole day we were without power....I believe for a grand total of 18 hrs! Needless to say, we played a LOT of games that day- Bananagrams, Nerts, Rummikub. Our area of the island survived the storm fairly well; however, I heard the east end of the island didn't fare as well. There were about 25 people that lost their homes and of course great amounts of flooding and mud slides, but other than that I think damage was kept to a minimum. Monday after the storm? Everything was as calm as could be again. Before and after the storm, you never would have been able to guess that a storm was coming or had passed through! Today again we have seen the same thing happen. It was calm all day yesterday and even early this morning, but throughout the morning and into the afternoon, the winds have picked up and the waves are rolling in! Something tells me we may be in for a good storm tonight!
This week at the clinic has been going pretty well aside from the longer days. We have more doctors in this week meaning that more patients are admitted to be seen. However, if the doctors pair up to see patients, we don't REALLY have extra providers...it just looks that way! So all week we have been working until 2 or 3 but I can't really complain as it's not like I had anything better to do! Today I got to do a wound debridement of a gentleman that had recently undergone surgery to remove skin cancer. His incision was separating in areas and therefore needed some major cleaning, before we could even locate the stitches to remove them. After much soaking, scrubbing, patients, and tediously trying to find all the stitches, we got him cleaned up and sent on his way. Unfortunately, because it had separated he will have a nice little scar to share with all when it is all healed up. Earlier this week we also saw a lady in the clinic that has a diabetic ulcer on the bottom of her foot that is probably the size of a half dollar and a quarter inch deep. We have been working to heal this ulcer now for about 3-4 weeks without much success. She recently had her right leg amputated at the knee because of an ulcer on her foot and we are afraid that if this ulcer doesn't heel the same thing might happen to her left leg....ugh! I want to be able to help in lending my knowledge of what is the best way to treat and care for this wound, but unfortunately I haven't had much experience yet with wounds- for instance, one of the PA students asked what's better- packing the wound or leaving it unpacked...I would surely thinking packing, but I don't know. What makes things worse is that since we rely on donated supplies, do we even have the right supplies to be able to treat it?! I guess this will be my research for the next few days to see if I can come up with some evidence-based practice (yes, my professors woud be so proud!) as to what is the best way to go about treating this.
In other news, Vanessa, the girl that I work with at the alternative school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I feel, is starting to make progress!!! Just as a reminder, she is 11 years old (so the age of a 6th grader), in 3rd grade, but I would say has the english comprehension of about a 1st grader. This could be a long year, but hopefully we will be able to accomplish something by the end. Today, proved to me that we are headed in a good direction and she is benefitting from what we are doing. She even told me that her mom was asking her how to say different things in english! But, I digress. On Tuesday we were reading a book but didn't get all the way through because we were also making a list of words that she didn't know and writing them in spanish as well as english. Then today, before we started I had her remind me what was going on in the story and she was able to tell me! Plus, she used one of the new words that she didn't know previously!!! Oh, i'm so excited. I love when you can see even the little baby steps that are taking place. It makes for very good positive reinforcement.
Peace and Love
No comments:
Post a Comment