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




Archive for December 2011

Sailing


posted by Jenn

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Saturday morning, I woke up before my alarm. Unlike most days, I didn't need to lay around for 20 minutes willing myself to get out of bed and embrace the day. Before 10:00 I had already gone to the gym, showered, eaten breakfast, spent a few last precious moments on the dock, watched the crane lift the remaining items onto the ship, mulled with the rest of the crew about when we might actually leave, and secured every mobile object in our cabin to the floor.

Saturday was sailing day.

Now, for all the time I have spent on this ship, I have never accompanied it onto the open water. I have known this ship in three different countries, through various stages of my life, but I have only ever known it to be stationary.

Which was why I was so excited on Saturday morning. Excitement - a sentiment I seemed to share with the other 275ish crew that are currently sailing somewhere off the coast of West Africa - was the overall vibe of the morning. It really felt like we were a family, all getting ready to set out on some big adventure together.

And, it seems that all of the anticipation was well-deserved.

This whole sailing thing has been incredible for me thus far. Highlights are as follows:

- We saw dolphins yesterday. Hundreds of them. Apparently there is something about swimming alongside the ship that makes life easier for them so they seem to hang around us a lot. Which is fine by me.

- It really IS like we are a tight-knit family on a vacation together. Sure, people are working and getting the essentials done, but everything just feels a little bit more laid back. That, combined with the uniqueness of a smaller crew on-board, with no one coming or going, makes for a very cozy-like atmosphere.

- The air is AMAZING! I tried to think of the last time I breathed air so clean and pure, and my conclusion was clearly.....never!

- Sunsets and full orange moons and stars. How anyone can experience such things and not be blown away by the magnificence of creation is beyond me!

I am sure there are more. However sailing does have it's downfalls and sitting in front of a computer screen for too long and causing seasickness is one of them, so this session of counting my blessings shall conclude for now. But, I am left feeling overwhelmingly blessed and romanced by a very powerful God.

Hospital Ship


posted by Jenn

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It’s a fairly common debate around here: Are we a ship that happens to have a hospital on it? Or are we a hospital that happens to be located on a ship?

The majority of the time, my answer would be “B”. It generally feels like a hospital to me. Despite the added bonuses of fire drills, overhead announcements about fuel bunkering, the constant white noise of generators, the lack of candles, and the pleasure of trying to explain to people that “yes, in fact, I do live on a boat”, my life here typically revolves around the fact that I am a nurse...in a hospital...doing typical nurse activities. Therefore, I have grown a strong affinity for the hospital-located-on-a-ship philosophy.

Every so often – this week being one of those times - I get swayed to the other side. Surgeries are over, all the patients (and a large proportion of the nurses) have gone home, and now all that is left to do is bleach and pack up every supply and piece of equipment that is required for a hospital to function and get the place ready for the sail. Sounds simple enough

Now, I have never sailed on the Africa Mercy, but, thanks to Discovery Channel Canada, I have seen a computer animation of what happens to our vessel when out on the open sea. It rocks. That being said, everything we store away in the hospital also has to be packed tightly and well secured to some sort of stable structure in order to prevent damage when we head out into the ocean.

These are the times when I am starkly aware of our shipness.

Late Tuesday afternoon, I was standing in the middle of B ward with a fellow nurse. A nurse who is incredibly competent at reading a cardiac rhythm, giving IV antibiotics, drawing venous bloodwork, doing an assessment or suctioning an intubated patient. Those skills proved to be highly useless to us when faced with a ward full of benches that needed to be secured to the ground with some strappy-clippy-tie-things that we couldn’t even begin to figure out how to use. We threw the straps around the ward for a couple minutes, with no particular aim, but hoping that upon manipulation of said ties, we might be inspired as to how the integrity of the benches might be preserved by them.

The answer never came.

We really are a ship, and such tasks are best left undone by folk such as us. Thank goodness for Maike, the one member of our nursing team who knows what she is doing and had the place whipped into shape in about a quarter of the time it would have taken us to pretend to do it.

I guess we all have our strengths. The rest of us spent the week scrubbing and waxing floors. Again, a trade not particularly within in our scope of nursing practice, but one that is at least straight forward enough for us to master within a try or two.

This week, we are definitely a ship.

Saturday morning, I woke up before my alarm. Unlike most days, I didn't need to lay around for 20 minutes willing myself to get out of bed and embrace the day. Before 10:00 I had already gone to the gym, showered, eaten breakfast, spent a few last precious moments on the dock, watched the crane lift the remaining items onto the ship, mulled with the rest of the crew about when we might actually leave, and secured every mobile object in our cabin to the floor.

Saturday was sailing day.

Now, for all the time I have spent on this ship, I have never accompanied it onto the open water. I have known this ship in three different countries, through various stages of my life, but I have only ever known it to be stationary.

Which was why I was so excited on Saturday morning. Excitement - a sentiment I seemed to share with the other 275ish crew that are currently sailing somewhere off the coast of West Africa - was the overall vibe of the morning. It really felt like we were a family, all getting ready to set out on some big adventure together.

And, it seems that all of the anticipation was well-deserved.

This whole sailing thing has been incredible for me thus far. Highlights are as follows:

- We saw dolphins yesterday. Hundreds of them. Apparently there is something about swimming alongside the ship that makes life easier for them so they seem to hang around us a lot. Which is fine by me.

- It really IS like we are a tight-knit family on a vacation together. Sure, people are working and getting the essentials done, but everything just feels a little bit more laid back. That, combined with the uniqueness of a smaller crew on-board, with no one coming or going, makes for a very cozy-like atmosphere.

- The air is AMAZING! I tried to think of the last time I breathed air so clean and pure, and my conclusion was clearly.....never!

- Sunsets and full orange moons and stars. How anyone can experience such things and not be blown away by the magnificence of creation is beyond me!

I am sure there are more. However sailing does have it's downfalls and sitting in front of a computer screen for too long and causing seasickness is one of them, so this session of counting my blessings shall conclude for now. But, I am left feeling overwhelmingly blessed and romanced by a very powerful God.

It’s a fairly common debate around here: Are we a ship that happens to have a hospital on it? Or are we a hospital that happens to be located on a ship?

The majority of the time, my answer would be “B”. It generally feels like a hospital to me. Despite the added bonuses of fire drills, overhead announcements about fuel bunkering, the constant white noise of generators, the lack of candles, and the pleasure of trying to explain to people that “yes, in fact, I do live on a boat”, my life here typically revolves around the fact that I am a nurse...in a hospital...doing typical nurse activities. Therefore, I have grown a strong affinity for the hospital-located-on-a-ship philosophy.

Every so often – this week being one of those times - I get swayed to the other side. Surgeries are over, all the patients (and a large proportion of the nurses) have gone home, and now all that is left to do is bleach and pack up every supply and piece of equipment that is required for a hospital to function and get the place ready for the sail. Sounds simple enough

Now, I have never sailed on the Africa Mercy, but, thanks to Discovery Channel Canada, I have seen a computer animation of what happens to our vessel when out on the open sea. It rocks. That being said, everything we store away in the hospital also has to be packed tightly and well secured to some sort of stable structure in order to prevent damage when we head out into the ocean.

These are the times when I am starkly aware of our shipness.

Late Tuesday afternoon, I was standing in the middle of B ward with a fellow nurse. A nurse who is incredibly competent at reading a cardiac rhythm, giving IV antibiotics, drawing venous bloodwork, doing an assessment or suctioning an intubated patient. Those skills proved to be highly useless to us when faced with a ward full of benches that needed to be secured to the ground with some strappy-clippy-tie-things that we couldn’t even begin to figure out how to use. We threw the straps around the ward for a couple minutes, with no particular aim, but hoping that upon manipulation of said ties, we might be inspired as to how the integrity of the benches might be preserved by them.

The answer never came.

We really are a ship, and such tasks are best left undone by folk such as us. Thank goodness for Maike, the one member of our nursing team who knows what she is doing and had the place whipped into shape in about a quarter of the time it would have taken us to pretend to do it.

I guess we all have our strengths. The rest of us spent the week scrubbing and waxing floors. Again, a trade not particularly within in our scope of nursing practice, but one that is at least straight forward enough for us to master within a try or two.

This week, we are definitely a ship.