i want to be a nurse in africa ... or a ballerina




Archive for May 2010

VVF


posted by Jenn

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The VVF ladies arrived today.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I can say that, from the B-ward charge nurse perspective, things were a little bit chaotic. As we set about the task of discharging half the ward full of max-fax and plastics patients before 9:00am and playing the ever intriguing game of "crack the gridlock" with the hospitality center to find beds for all of our new clientele, the VVF team screened four weeks worth of surgical patients. By 10:00, half of our ward had been taken over by more women than we had beds for, beating drums, and the smell of urine. And, regardless of the fact that we are all working with the same goal, purpose, and hopefully the same selfless motives, there were times when it seemed to be taking some extra effort for us all to see eye to eye.

To be completely honest, I found today to be challenging. I am a peds nurse - an NICU nurse more specifically - and that whole "region" isn't necessarily my forte. Add that to the fact that this whole charge situation is still relatively new to me and every once in a while, the 42 point running to-do list in my brain becomes overwhelming, and I was left wondering if today was going to be the day I cracked. .

I got to lunch and started to cry. One of those emotional breakdowns that happens for no particular reason and I realized that somewhere along the way I had lost my joy. I think my mom used to say that to me, when I was being a drama queen about something that didn't really matter. I remember her telling me not to let the wrong people or situations "steal my joy".

Because the reality is, that there was nothing that happened today that had the right to steal my joy. A couple of extra phone calls, a noisy ward, and a mildly elevated blood pressure for a couple of hours are very little price to pay for what is really happening down in B-ward right now.

By the end of the next four weeks, hopefully dozens of women will be going home with a future that could have never been possible without surgery. And, yes, if day one is any measure of how it's all going to happen, it is going to be a challenge. It will be busy, and exhausting and potentially quite messy. But, I am gonna remember Mama Sue's words, because the minor sacrifices we are all going to make in order to give some incredible women an immeasurable gift are more than worth it.

Aissa


posted by Jenn

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I’m a pretty firm believer that the most valuable thing we can do with our life is to positively invest in someone else’s. Show them love. Take them in. Care for them. Prove to them that they matter.

I think I try to do that. Most of the time I feel like what I really do is bounce around, doing mildly good works somewhat haphazardly and wishing that I was making more of a legitimate difference. I guess that requires focus, commitment, and a level of sacrifice that tests how much we truly care and how important the cause is. A level of commitment that is rare, but that I have seen displayed over the last couple of weeks in a beautiful love story.

When Sarah first encountered
Aissa, she was nearly dead. Having survived a disease that kills 90% of its victims, her body had literally wasted away to just skin and bones. Noma had eaten away a large portion of Aissa’s facial tissue, and she was left with a gaping cavity directly into her mouth, where her cheek should have been. The first time Sarah saw Aissa, she was lying on the ground outside a local pharmacy, too weak to sit, let alone stand, with an insect-covered cloth covering her face. Her immediate thought was that the child in front of her was about to die.

I have to assume that everything inside of her was telling her to run. After having been in Africa for a little while, I am starting to understand the brutal, but essential mentality of “help the ones you can – don’t beat yourself up over the ones you can’t”. But, God specifically told Sarah to help this one – and she listened.

Sarah took
Aissa back to the mission’s hospital in Cameroon, where she was working as a physician’s assistant. Aissa was treated and began the long road back to life. Through the use of nasogastric feeds, she started to gain some weight. But with Noma being such a rare condition – and one unique to West Africa, there are next to no facilities with experience in repairing Noma wounds. Truly by the grace of God, Sarah happened to be working with a doctor in Cameroon that conveniently had spent time on the Africa Mercy the previous year, learning about these exact types of patients. And thus began a great journey that seems to be coming to a glorious end.

Over a month ago now,
Aissa arrived on the Africa Mercy, in Sarah’s tender care. I distinctly remember my first encounter with the parentless 8-year-old and thinking how obnoxiously misbehaved she was. Some children are easy to love – and some, by no fault of their own – take an extra bit of grace. It was obvious to me from the beginning that she was going to be one of the extra grace required types. But then Aissa had her surgery by two of the few surgeons in the world who actually have experience in this type of thing. A few days later she started to feel better and became the self-appointed ward assistant; shredding paper, sticking pre-op photos in charts, helping make assignments, and choosing the music for the ward from the charge nurse’s ipod. Then she started to learn English and would readily declare to her favourite nurses “I LOVE YOU!!!” (which, ironically, sounded like it was coming from an old Italian man every time she said it). Then, she started this habit of falling asleep on your lap while you were working on the computer. Then she figured out the game of memory to a level that very few humans have achieved and was able to whoop us all at any given time. And it seems, that somewhere in between all of these happenings, Aissa ended up being one of those patients that touches your heart just a little bit more than the rest and I found that it required very little grace on my part to love her. It turned out that an outpouring of unconditional love from all directions, transformed Aissa into exactly who Jesus always meant her to be.

In a few short days, Sarah will have the privilege of travelling back to Cameroon with a beautiful, brilliant little girl who is full of life and potential. I have no doubt that this life will continue to present
Aissa with challenges. But Aissa has proven to be one of the strongest, feistiest, most ahead-of-her-time children I have ever met, which leads me to believe that she will conquer whatever life throws at her with a huge amount of gusto. I believe that she will live life with passion, with purpose, and with determination. And, most importantly, I know that she will live. All because Sarah chose to say yes -which makes me think that when I grow up, I would like to be a little bit more like Sarah.










I'm lovin it....


posted by Jenn

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Between typhoid fever, pseudomonas x "too many", MRSA, an absolutely gridlocked hospital, malaria x "i forget", a visiting surgeon that refused to wear (or maybe it was just answer his pager) and too many ICU patients....last week/weekend felt like much longer than seven days! Ali & her husband went on holiday to Ghana last week for their one year wedding anniversary, and, in her absence, Togo exploded onto the Africa Mercy. (I think she is tired of hearing that she chose the right week to go away). I think the good news is that somehow, after it all, I still love being a nurse here more than I could have imagined I would ever love anything. Yesterday morning, amidst wondering if I had Jeannie's powers to blink and make magical beds appear, I joined in with the rest of the ward for church. As Liz & I got our groove on with the patients, in the middle of the jam-packed ward, nothing else really seemed that important.

And today is Monday....so, here's to more moments like this!














Independence Day


posted by Jenn on ,

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A couple of weeks ago was the 50th Anniversary of Togo’s Independence from France. As good missionaries do, we decided to go out and celebrate Togolese style. This excursion proved to become by far, my most favourite experience in Togo thus far (Easter trip to Ghana excluded – since that occurred in Ghana). In order to effectively document said excursion, I have been planning to blog about it for the past two weeks…but alas, I am highly distractible and sitting at my computer is never high on my priority list. At this point, I have given up the dream of a clever, informative, entertaining report of the details of my first Togolese Independence Day, but decided that it would still be worth it to post some photos – courtesy of the day volunteers who served as our tour guides for the day.

More than a nurse


posted by Jenn

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I embraced my patient assignment last Friday morning with all the gumption I could muster up at the end of a long work week. Conveniently enough, Ali’s box of special crafts and a Lion King itunes playlist also found their way to A ward on Friday morning. Aissa, Lovelace, Akoh, Gloria, and two children I stole from B ward for the festivities set about putting together the most counter-culture tribe of sock puppets I have ever seen. (Marius tried too, but apparently breathing, eating, laughing, and pooping are about the extent of his skill set at this point.) Amidst a production line of sparkles, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, giggling children, and nurses singing Hakuna Matada, I met Ali’s eyes. I can’t remember which one of us actually said the words:

“This is why we pay to work”

I started to feel just a little bit smug. After the emotional rollercoaster of the previous couple of weeks, I couldn’t have been more grateful for a shift like Friday morning’s. I had spent the previous day bent over a little baby in an oversized ICU bed, trying for IV’s, building an oxygen hood out of a coat hanger and plastic bag, attempting to build compatible CPAP tubing out of NG tubes, wishing that we could do so much more, and strangely at the same time, wishing we were doing so much less. O’brien had taken another turn for the worse, and he spent Thursday morning yet again, struggling to breath. After 4 hours of fighting crappy saturations that everyone knew could have probably only been resolved with an ET tube that would have then had little chance of ever being removed, I was - to put it plainly - absolutely spent. By 1:00, my comrade in crime and I finally flopped down into chairs and pronounced that we couldn’t do anymore. Not for now anyways. We decided to give our little man a break and, as so very often is the case, less turned out to be more. He settled a little bit - just enough to allow us to report off to the next nurse who would hopefully have some novel idea about how to help him. Needless to say, when I arrived on Friday morning to realize that I had an assignment in the ward, a small part of me was relieved. As selfish as I felt, I didn’t know if I had it in me to be the one there with him again. I didn’t want to be the one who held O’brien’s mama as she held him in his last hours. And, it actually seemed that things had maybe turned around a little.

But, at shift change on Friday afternoon, we got the call

“O’brien just passed away. His mama wants to be alone right now”

I swallowed the words. I chose to be numb for a moment rather than feel it. I carried on as nurses do….administered my last couple of meds, gave report, put away a couple of lingering boxes of supplies. I left the ward and went to meet the tailor who was meeting me to make adjustments on the skirt I had him make. I made plans for the evening.

Then, I did it. I set my own desires aside and I went back. I walked into the tiny little room where she was sitting. Barely through the door, she cried my name. I fell to my knees to receive her desperate embrace. We stayed like that, crying and rocking, until I couldn’t feel the bottom half of my legs. We cried until I felt it. Not in the therapeutic empathy kind of way that you learn about in nursing school, but in the my heart is breaking not only for you, but also for me kind of way. Other nurses who had played an instrumental role in his life came in and joined in our mourning and kissed his head and commented how peaceful he looked. We talked about how hard he had struggled and how he was now with Jesus. When mama was ready, we started to pray. And we sang.

God will make a way
When there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me

He will be my guide
Hold me closely to his side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way, He will make a way


We held her and cried and prayed and sang because we were her people. We had become O’brien’s people, and for the time being, we had become her people. And, I couldn’t help but think that this was something special and unique that I might not get to be a part of anywhere else. That here, I get to be so much more than a nurse. That this was why I pay to work.

VVF

The VVF ladies arrived today.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I can say that, from the B-ward charge nurse perspective, things were a little bit chaotic. As we set about the task of discharging half the ward full of max-fax and plastics patients before 9:00am and playing the ever intriguing game of "crack the gridlock" with the hospitality center to find beds for all of our new clientele, the VVF team screened four weeks worth of surgical patients. By 10:00, half of our ward had been taken over by more women than we had beds for, beating drums, and the smell of urine. And, regardless of the fact that we are all working with the same goal, purpose, and hopefully the same selfless motives, there were times when it seemed to be taking some extra effort for us all to see eye to eye.

To be completely honest, I found today to be challenging. I am a peds nurse - an NICU nurse more specifically - and that whole "region" isn't necessarily my forte. Add that to the fact that this whole charge situation is still relatively new to me and every once in a while, the 42 point running to-do list in my brain becomes overwhelming, and I was left wondering if today was going to be the day I cracked. .

I got to lunch and started to cry. One of those emotional breakdowns that happens for no particular reason and I realized that somewhere along the way I had lost my joy. I think my mom used to say that to me, when I was being a drama queen about something that didn't really matter. I remember her telling me not to let the wrong people or situations "steal my joy".

Because the reality is, that there was nothing that happened today that had the right to steal my joy. A couple of extra phone calls, a noisy ward, and a mildly elevated blood pressure for a couple of hours are very little price to pay for what is really happening down in B-ward right now.

By the end of the next four weeks, hopefully dozens of women will be going home with a future that could have never been possible without surgery. And, yes, if day one is any measure of how it's all going to happen, it is going to be a challenge. It will be busy, and exhausting and potentially quite messy. But, I am gonna remember Mama Sue's words, because the minor sacrifices we are all going to make in order to give some incredible women an immeasurable gift are more than worth it.

I’m a pretty firm believer that the most valuable thing we can do with our life is to positively invest in someone else’s. Show them love. Take them in. Care for them. Prove to them that they matter.

I think I try to do that. Most of the time I feel like what I really do is bounce around, doing mildly good works somewhat haphazardly and wishing that I was making more of a legitimate difference. I guess that requires focus, commitment, and a level of sacrifice that tests how much we truly care and how important the cause is. A level of commitment that is rare, but that I have seen displayed over the last couple of weeks in a beautiful love story.

When Sarah first encountered
Aissa, she was nearly dead. Having survived a disease that kills 90% of its victims, her body had literally wasted away to just skin and bones. Noma had eaten away a large portion of Aissa’s facial tissue, and she was left with a gaping cavity directly into her mouth, where her cheek should have been. The first time Sarah saw Aissa, she was lying on the ground outside a local pharmacy, too weak to sit, let alone stand, with an insect-covered cloth covering her face. Her immediate thought was that the child in front of her was about to die.

I have to assume that everything inside of her was telling her to run. After having been in Africa for a little while, I am starting to understand the brutal, but essential mentality of “help the ones you can – don’t beat yourself up over the ones you can’t”. But, God specifically told Sarah to help this one – and she listened.

Sarah took
Aissa back to the mission’s hospital in Cameroon, where she was working as a physician’s assistant. Aissa was treated and began the long road back to life. Through the use of nasogastric feeds, she started to gain some weight. But with Noma being such a rare condition – and one unique to West Africa, there are next to no facilities with experience in repairing Noma wounds. Truly by the grace of God, Sarah happened to be working with a doctor in Cameroon that conveniently had spent time on the Africa Mercy the previous year, learning about these exact types of patients. And thus began a great journey that seems to be coming to a glorious end.

Over a month ago now,
Aissa arrived on the Africa Mercy, in Sarah’s tender care. I distinctly remember my first encounter with the parentless 8-year-old and thinking how obnoxiously misbehaved she was. Some children are easy to love – and some, by no fault of their own – take an extra bit of grace. It was obvious to me from the beginning that she was going to be one of the extra grace required types. But then Aissa had her surgery by two of the few surgeons in the world who actually have experience in this type of thing. A few days later she started to feel better and became the self-appointed ward assistant; shredding paper, sticking pre-op photos in charts, helping make assignments, and choosing the music for the ward from the charge nurse’s ipod. Then she started to learn English and would readily declare to her favourite nurses “I LOVE YOU!!!” (which, ironically, sounded like it was coming from an old Italian man every time she said it). Then, she started this habit of falling asleep on your lap while you were working on the computer. Then she figured out the game of memory to a level that very few humans have achieved and was able to whoop us all at any given time. And it seems, that somewhere in between all of these happenings, Aissa ended up being one of those patients that touches your heart just a little bit more than the rest and I found that it required very little grace on my part to love her. It turned out that an outpouring of unconditional love from all directions, transformed Aissa into exactly who Jesus always meant her to be.

In a few short days, Sarah will have the privilege of travelling back to Cameroon with a beautiful, brilliant little girl who is full of life and potential. I have no doubt that this life will continue to present
Aissa with challenges. But Aissa has proven to be one of the strongest, feistiest, most ahead-of-her-time children I have ever met, which leads me to believe that she will conquer whatever life throws at her with a huge amount of gusto. I believe that she will live life with passion, with purpose, and with determination. And, most importantly, I know that she will live. All because Sarah chose to say yes -which makes me think that when I grow up, I would like to be a little bit more like Sarah.










Between typhoid fever, pseudomonas x "too many", MRSA, an absolutely gridlocked hospital, malaria x "i forget", a visiting surgeon that refused to wear (or maybe it was just answer his pager) and too many ICU patients....last week/weekend felt like much longer than seven days! Ali & her husband went on holiday to Ghana last week for their one year wedding anniversary, and, in her absence, Togo exploded onto the Africa Mercy. (I think she is tired of hearing that she chose the right week to go away). I think the good news is that somehow, after it all, I still love being a nurse here more than I could have imagined I would ever love anything. Yesterday morning, amidst wondering if I had Jeannie's powers to blink and make magical beds appear, I joined in with the rest of the ward for church. As Liz & I got our groove on with the patients, in the middle of the jam-packed ward, nothing else really seemed that important.

And today is Monday....so, here's to more moments like this!














A couple of weeks ago was the 50th Anniversary of Togo’s Independence from France. As good missionaries do, we decided to go out and celebrate Togolese style. This excursion proved to become by far, my most favourite experience in Togo thus far (Easter trip to Ghana excluded – since that occurred in Ghana). In order to effectively document said excursion, I have been planning to blog about it for the past two weeks…but alas, I am highly distractible and sitting at my computer is never high on my priority list. At this point, I have given up the dream of a clever, informative, entertaining report of the details of my first Togolese Independence Day, but decided that it would still be worth it to post some photos – courtesy of the day volunteers who served as our tour guides for the day.

I embraced my patient assignment last Friday morning with all the gumption I could muster up at the end of a long work week. Conveniently enough, Ali’s box of special crafts and a Lion King itunes playlist also found their way to A ward on Friday morning. Aissa, Lovelace, Akoh, Gloria, and two children I stole from B ward for the festivities set about putting together the most counter-culture tribe of sock puppets I have ever seen. (Marius tried too, but apparently breathing, eating, laughing, and pooping are about the extent of his skill set at this point.) Amidst a production line of sparkles, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, giggling children, and nurses singing Hakuna Matada, I met Ali’s eyes. I can’t remember which one of us actually said the words:

“This is why we pay to work”

I started to feel just a little bit smug. After the emotional rollercoaster of the previous couple of weeks, I couldn’t have been more grateful for a shift like Friday morning’s. I had spent the previous day bent over a little baby in an oversized ICU bed, trying for IV’s, building an oxygen hood out of a coat hanger and plastic bag, attempting to build compatible CPAP tubing out of NG tubes, wishing that we could do so much more, and strangely at the same time, wishing we were doing so much less. O’brien had taken another turn for the worse, and he spent Thursday morning yet again, struggling to breath. After 4 hours of fighting crappy saturations that everyone knew could have probably only been resolved with an ET tube that would have then had little chance of ever being removed, I was - to put it plainly - absolutely spent. By 1:00, my comrade in crime and I finally flopped down into chairs and pronounced that we couldn’t do anymore. Not for now anyways. We decided to give our little man a break and, as so very often is the case, less turned out to be more. He settled a little bit - just enough to allow us to report off to the next nurse who would hopefully have some novel idea about how to help him. Needless to say, when I arrived on Friday morning to realize that I had an assignment in the ward, a small part of me was relieved. As selfish as I felt, I didn’t know if I had it in me to be the one there with him again. I didn’t want to be the one who held O’brien’s mama as she held him in his last hours. And, it actually seemed that things had maybe turned around a little.

But, at shift change on Friday afternoon, we got the call

“O’brien just passed away. His mama wants to be alone right now”

I swallowed the words. I chose to be numb for a moment rather than feel it. I carried on as nurses do….administered my last couple of meds, gave report, put away a couple of lingering boxes of supplies. I left the ward and went to meet the tailor who was meeting me to make adjustments on the skirt I had him make. I made plans for the evening.

Then, I did it. I set my own desires aside and I went back. I walked into the tiny little room where she was sitting. Barely through the door, she cried my name. I fell to my knees to receive her desperate embrace. We stayed like that, crying and rocking, until I couldn’t feel the bottom half of my legs. We cried until I felt it. Not in the therapeutic empathy kind of way that you learn about in nursing school, but in the my heart is breaking not only for you, but also for me kind of way. Other nurses who had played an instrumental role in his life came in and joined in our mourning and kissed his head and commented how peaceful he looked. We talked about how hard he had struggled and how he was now with Jesus. When mama was ready, we started to pray. And we sang.

God will make a way
When there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me

He will be my guide
Hold me closely to his side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way, He will make a way


We held her and cried and prayed and sang because we were her people. We had become O’brien’s people, and for the time being, we had become her people. And, I couldn’t help but think that this was something special and unique that I might not get to be a part of anywhere else. That here, I get to be so much more than a nurse. That this was why I pay to work.