It's not easy-oh!

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When the nurse coordinator asked me for a detailed list of what I’ve been doing the last 10 weeks, I realized that the actual nursing tasks that I learned were few, yet there are no words to describe everything that I saw and came to understand. The pace of Ghanaian hospitals is slow and the equipment is simple. Like the rest of the country, there is a lot of waiting, even as a nurse. I was shocked by the lack of attention paid to patients, with the excuse that basic care is the families’ responsibility. Supplies are limited, so if someone doesn’t bring his own towel, he will not be getting the bed bath he needs to cool his fever. If he can’t afford the drugs prescribed, the doctor shakes her head and discharges him, even if his condition is critical. Perhaps because there is little they can do, the ward staff routinely choose to shrug it off and spend the day watching South African soap operas.

There is, however, one exciting area in which the nurses are always on their feet and blood splatters on the floor almost constantly... The Treatment Room. I lasted only four hours there, but saw over 30 cases unlike any I had encountered before. This was my chance to begin the necessary process of desensitization to gore and horror, to care for the seriously wounded, but I became weak and dizzy and skeptical that I could withstand the day. In one morning we cleaned and dressed burns, sutured head lacerations, human and animal bites, bedsores, diabetic cellulitis and HIV-related skin infections. One of the regular diabetics has a foot swollen to triple its usual size with huge pieces missing, exposing tissue, blood and bone, yet he manages to walk on it (!) painfully with a cane. An 11-year-old girl with AIDS, paralyzed from the waist down, comes every few days for maintenance of the open sores that cover a third of her body, many of which are holes up to three inches deep.

How do I even begin to confront such a gut-wrenching reality? How do I have the ability to walk out of the hospital and slowly let go of what I saw, the little hand I held that could no longer feel pain? How is her mother, who is also retro-positive, strong enough to strap her nearly teenage daughter onto her back like a baby, and go home to care for them both? Because that is life. That is the world: unfair and cruel and ridden with disease that is preventable but nonetheless rampant.

From inside the black tornado of chaotic tragedy, the only step forward is to nurture those who are suffering and ensure that the next generation will be better off. So therein came the joy of working in the NICU with newborns and in the Disease Control department with kids under five. Holding a baby that is still caked with dried amniotic fluid in her first hours on Earth, time slows and you appreciate the present, because you realize the slightest little capacity for growth in each passing moment. But it’s not easy! Observing infants having seizures and in respiratory distress on Day One, you also remember that from the very beginning, life-- childhood, even-- was not meant to be a magical fairytale but a battle.

Though some of the work was boring, the mere act of seeing kept the nuts and bolts of my mind constantly shifting, my heart swelling for all of us playing this game of survival in one way or another. And every single day, I felt grateful for my relative wellness.

I was also blessed with an incredible community of colleagues, whose positive attitudes, unwavering smiles and humorous support carried me through the shock of health conditions here. They praised me for catching on quickly and helped me improve my conversation in the local languages. We spent many afternoons after work “chilling” in one of their homes, laughing and dancing freely, giving thanks to God for our lives. Nurses really are amazing people! Though my respect for them has grown immensely and I was able to complete my voluntary trial, I am still unsure of whether I, too, can handle such a difficult career and not let it kill my idealistic hopes.

Then again, this is Africa. The medical field is a whole different ball-game over here!

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Photos

1.85 kilos!
(sadly this one didn't make it past one week, not sure why)

Friday Baby Clinic
We weigh around 300 babies weekly; mothers bring them once a month for immunizations and check-ups

My new favorite ladies
Dancing with the public health nurses at a wedding

Comments

[Click me amazing]

GREAT WORK.
GOOD JOB, PEACE WORLD.. Http://www.discountedugg.com

[Homayun Etemadi]

You Rock!
Hi Taylor, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading all of your posts, thanks for keeping us all updated. I applaud you for taking on this challenge and having the courage to go after what you want. Your posts are always a great reminder for me that we need to think about more than our immediate reality and to remember the bigger picture. Thank you sooooo much for being you, YOU ROCK! I'm still working at UCSC and really enjoying Oakes. How much longer are you planning on being in Ghana. I'm always trying to remind my four year old daughter how lucky she is, but I'm not sure if she's fully getting it. I thought it would be interesting to possibly start some type of fundraising or some other way of helping the people you work with. I would try to get her pre-school involved in some way. Let me know if you're going to be there for a while longer and maybe I can possibly working on something like that on my end. Best, Homayun