First week
Again sorry for the delays, it's been difficult to find the time to write online but I have managed to write most days so that I can always come back to it. I’ve decided to do this along with how each week is with a separate one for the weekends as there isn’t a lot that happens during the week that doesn’t happen at home.
So how was the first week?
Overwhelming. On arrival, you get up to the galley and get given a rough intro on the emergency bells and locations if we have to abandon ship, you get a tour around where to find the galley for food and where your room is. On Sunday I did the ship tour so I wasn’t expected to do that on Monday which was a sigh of relief. The ship tour was quite interesting and showed us all the other areas of the ship such as the crew galley if I felt the urge to do any cooking of my own, the laundry which I’m currently trying to figure out, the gym, and most importantly the cafe with all the puzzles and games. The ship tour also showed us the school which was more than I was expecting, with all the kid's artwork. There are about 60 children on board from pre-school through to high school and they use an American system much like most of the ship. There is a teacher here from NZ who has been here for 2 years but is heading back to the Africa Mercy. The school principal here at the moment is also a Kiwi.
Monday was full on with orientation starting with getting breakfast from the galley. Was a pretty basic breakfast and the buffet on the weekends. I also found out that there are pancakes on Wednesday so that was a great surprise. Breakfast is from 0630 till 0745 and then you have to go to the all-hands-on-deck meeting with the captain who is very strict that you are not late. There wasn’t a massive amount of info gained but I understand its need. The sermon at the beginning was interesting but I think I would still rather have just started work, the constant praying in the mornings is taking some getting used to, but I’ll live.
I found my scrubs the night before so on Monday headed down for orientation where we got a tour around the department. Much like most hospitals the theatres are all laid out the same and have all the equipment that you would expect to find at home which I was a bit surprised about and the omnicell cabinets that contain all the disposable items weren’t nearly as complicated as the online learning made them out to be. We sat in an empty room going through all the local policies, trying to get in what would usually take a few weeks we did within a day. Monday night was completed with a celebration for Canadian Independence/Thanksgiving celebration complete with poutine which was interesting.
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Tuesday was supposed to be my first day in theatre, and I was but I was in something called the clean core, which is kinda a silly role you’re there to help out and offer relief, supposedly look after the day crew which is tough when you actually don’t even know what's going on. I was orientated by India from Ireland who was lovely and she hadn’t worked there much so it was blind leading the blind. Could have been worse, Kate who arrived with me was stuck doing terminal cleans which they do every week. Because there were only two theatres running they gave us half the day off which was good as I was itching to get off the ship, so I managed to rope Kate into going for a walk. She was a little unsure so we were just going to go up to the port gates and not actually out but we ran into Arnie and his wife (Another Kiwi who has been interviewed etc for being here years ago and helped a woman with her baby). They were going to revisit the hospital and do a tour so they said they would walk up to the main roundabout with us if we wanted to go further so we walked up there and then a bit more.
It wasn’t too hot but definitely humid walking out and didn’t take long before I started sweating. Walking up the port was an eye-opener before we even got onto the street. One of the girls has adopted this puppy that lives in the gutter at the entrance of the port she has called Polly. We are under strict rules not to pat the dogs as they carry rabies. It's so sad the amount of dogs around and poor Polly is sick so Karis is trying to work out how to get treatment for Polly as she has wounds to her ears and is malnourished so she is also sneaking pieces of meat out to her.
Outside the gates was chaos, the markets weren’t even that busy but they were still insane, and there were no sidewalks to really walk on so you had to watch out for the cars and the Kekes (Tuktuks) as well as all the people around. The stalls were made out of pieces of rubbish and wood pieces that I guess locals could find. There were items that looked decent and others that looked not so good.
Wednesday was pancakes for breakfast which was a nice surprise, I wasn’t expecting that. I was in the clean corridor again, this time I was doing the teaching which seemed silly as I didn’t even get a full day in there but I made it up as I went along. There isn’t a lot to write for this day, once I finished work I went to the gym for a bit. Felicity another Kiwi over there said I could possibly come on ward rounds but then as they finished late changed her mind and said I could come with her later to see the patients. So we went down later with her ukelele. It was super cute and I was so pleased I went with her. They were so excited to see us. They only knew the words to one song ‘You Are My Sunshine’ so that song was on repeat, and they showed me some of their drawings and coloring that they did. I’m hoping to go back but get a bit nervous going alone, so will see if I can go with her next time.
Thursday was my first time on an actual list. There were only two cases of a cleft palate and an excision on an occipital mass. I was asked which case I wanted to scrub for and normally would jump at the bigger case but as I’ve never even seen a cleft palate I thought I’d stick to the mass. As it turns out Ash the other nurse hadn’t seen one either. The girl was young only 10 and had an internal cleft palate so the case was actually a palatoplasty where they made flaps and grafted them over the soft palate. Because of this, she had no voice and many issues with eating as well. It looks quite uncomfortable and the Dr said can take 6 weeks for the pain to get better. If this was back home she would be able to try eating more or less straight away but because of infection risk and nutrition, this young girl would go a few weeks without solid food to allow the grafts to start to heal first. The excision of the mass was pretty straightforward forward a large lipoma on the back of the head. It was impressive how the Dr’s cope with such basic sets, I think the ones I work with could use that sort of training. I had to relent and I dressed the surgeon in something that still doesn’t sit right with me but when in Rome…
After work another quick workout and then there was a basic Krio class that I really wanted to attend so I scoffed down my meal then rushed up to the class which was for an hour, and then there was karaoke happening in the international lounge so went and watched for an hour before going up to play some board games before calling it a night.
