Week of November 23,

 

Boy! So much has happened since I have last written. I am assuming the other girls have been blogging to update you all, So I will mainly focus on my week.

           

 

 (Sunday) This morning Ashley, Kari, and I sat in the kitchen drinking coffee, making breakfast, and listening to Christmas music – you could say we are a little excited! After breakfast we headed over to the City Bowl to the Green Point Market. The Green Point Market is a huge market that has “African” souvenirs. Bargaining becomes a huge game, at one point I realized I was bargaining over 10R, $1, I stopped and thought about who needed it more. Needless to say, I paid 70R for my bag instead of 60R. Ashley walked out of the market about 1000R later and Kari and I walked out about 600-700R later. Oh boy!

            After the market we headed over the Waterfront. We strolled through the mall and then went over to the craft market which is more upscale than Green Point. We all picked up a couple of things but soon realized we couldn’t hold another thing so we headed home. 

            I ate some lunch, although it was 4:30P and went for a run. I hope some the girls mentioned that the Rotavirus, what we call, “Rota-Rooter” is slowly making its way through the house. Cardinal symptoms are vomiting and some serious diarrhea, totally not fun. Anyway, I had it on Saturday, but clearly it hadn’t quite cleared my system by Sunday because after my run I barfed. Sounds fun huh? I decided to call it a day and spent the rest of night watching Harry Potter.

           

I woke up today (Monday) at about 5:15A and got ready to head out with Jess and Ashley to Themba Care. I have been reluctant to go to Themba Care throughout my time here because of tuberculosis. The HIV isn’t a really big deal because it’s so easy to prevent but I have barely come to terms with TB – unfortunately there isn’t much you can do about it. I am glad I went though, it was a good experience. There isn’t much nursing care that goes on at Themba. It is more occupational therapy I would say – and babysitting! 

 

Today, Tuesday, I was at Mitchell’s Plain hospital. Sister Oliver started us up with the usual rounds of a brief synopsis of each patient. Halfway through the rounds, Sister Oliver had Iris and I take two children down to physiotherapy. She shoved the charts and children into our hands and asked if we knew where it was and said “go, go”! I walked only a couple of feet down the hallway before I realized, I had no idea who this child was. Iris had one baby and I had the other – which was which? What was this child’s name? What was her diagnosis? There was no identification band which is completely ridiculous.

            Physiotherapy is absolutely torturous to watch. In general, suctioning is an extremely difficult to perform on children, and I understand that. I want to compare it to how we do it in the United States. Do we hyper-oxygenate the child before and after? How long do they suction for?

            Sister Oliver had a “risk management” meeting for the staff. She brought up the incident that occurred this morning with the identification band. It was interesting to listen to the meeting; even I could tell them numerous things that are representative of risks on the unit. I only chimed in when I felt it was appropriate. Even after all this time being here I get so frustrated on the way things are done. Medicine in South Africa is so far behind America. Nurses always do the consent forms; the absence of hand washing; isolation rooms barely existent. Even the nursing role is vague in regards to vital signs, assessments etc. Sister Oliver noted that vitals didn’t need to be done at any certain time, but just when they felt something was wrong. That is so ridiculous! There are just so many loose ends – it makes me cringe! It’s going to be years and years before this country gets onto its feet. PS they don’t have one computer on the pediatric floor – can you imagine?

            After clinical I relaxed and made some dinner. Then Ash and I took a walk around The Commons and I did some work.

 

Today (Wednesday) at Gatesville was a really interesting day because there were so many children on the floor. I spent a good portion of my time with a 4 year old girl who had spina bifida. The mother was so really open to teaching us about her daughter’s impairment and answered all the questions we had.

            After clinical Kari, Jess, and I went into town to get ingredients for our big feast tomorrow! YAY! Jess helped me make my mom’s famous peanut butter balls but other than that we are saving the cooking for tomorrow.

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! (Thursday) I started off the morning with my traditional 5 mile Pie Run. It is a race sponsored by the YMCA (in America) that my Dad and I do every Thanksgiving morning. It wasn’t the same, but better than nothing!

Although we are not in America we did our best to make a Thanksgiving feast – and it was an absolute success! There were 10 of us, which included Jordan (Dana’s boyfriend) and Julianna (Carrie Ellen’s sister). Our menu was stuffed mushrooms and cheese and crackers for appetizers. Chicken, mashed potatoes, squash, stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberry, rolls, peas, and corn for the main dishes. Milk tart, apple pie (“home”made – yes), peanut butter balls, ice cream, and chocolate cake for dessert!

            Today, we were all thankful to have each other and to be American! Everyone contributed and it was absolutely fabulous. Not to mention it was 75 degrees, sunny, and some of us were even in sun dresses. Wahoo! After cleaning up the kitchen we all headed upstairs to the rec room to watch Elf – I’m not a huge fan of the movie and I might be guilty of falling asleep halfway through it, but it was still a good end to the day.

 

            (Friday) Ash and I went to Themba Care again this morning. It totally exhausted me. I took a nap and had some left over turkey for a late lunch. I laid around the pool for an hour, headed out for a quick run, and then had some dinner and called it a night.

            (Saturday) Today I started the morning of with some coffee and read by the pool for about an hour. I am going to head over to Canal Walk with Ashley. There are 440 stores in the mall – wowzo! Anyway, we might head out for some drinks later tonight, but that is still up in the air.

Only 2 weeks left in Cape Town! Can you believe it?!

 

Ps I am going to try and link up our Thanksgiving pictures for you! Stay tuned..