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Published: January 23rd 2008
I got weed on last week....and I didn´t mind a bit! I think that I might be falling for the little niños of Cochabamba, I´m now into my 3rd week of work and each day is getting more exciting. I am being given more responsibility, most days i will be operating the enfermary mostly single handed while Alejandrina potters about the health centre injecting things or people. I am also teaching the interns how to use scales, take the arterial pressure and put thermometers where they shouldnt go. You have no idea how many parents bring in 4yr old children and are shocked that they still have to have the bottom treatment, and the funniest thing is is that a 4 yr old child cant hold an oral thermometer in its mouth (most dont want it) so how else am I supposed to take their temperature. However after 5 minutes of telling them they poor dear does have to have a rectal thermometer, Alejandrina settles it with a stern look and a simple question ´cuantos años?´ the reply is usually along the lines of ´4 y blah blah meses´, ´temperatura rectal´ in a flat dont question me tone, well it works! within seconds that kids trousers are down round its ankles and the parent is holding done the baby waiting for it all to happen (i wont get graphic as although it is medical some of you may have eaten).
I´m also regularly becoming a foster father to the babies while the mothers or fathers are checked out, which is incredible!! I wonder round the centre clicking my tongue and imitating the quechuan mothers...however I think the only reason why the babies dont cry but stare at me with their big brown eyes is because A) I am a giant and B) I am very different to what this baby has seen so far for the 26 days of its life. Talking of being a giant it is unbelievable just how small people are here...you realise when you spend 3 hours, on average, a day measuring bodies! OOOOO exciting news I now assist with the procedures and am expected to do things such as top up the solutions, pour the solutions, hand out implements and hand them more bandages with out being asked!!! Next I´ve been told I´m going to learn to suture and inject, med students in the civilised world EAT YOUR HEARTS OUT!! I´m learning the old fashioned way, through practice...on human beings! Well that isn´t necessarily true, I start with a kit then work my way up to a human being! I am also speaking better spanish and understand most of the things spoken about in conversations around the centre as well as on the street, I no longer speak english to my spanish teacher or to my host mother and only stoop to that level to talk to the other gringos or daily to write emails, my blog and speak to nicky. Speaking of that if anyone out there wants to speak to me I am online usually from 9pm english time for an hour or so....so having said everything is poor here it isnt necessarily true as there are more internet cafes that people who speak or understand english. But the number of people with their own internet is near to no one! What else have I done at my work....well doctora poso has returned as is the one pushing me to learn everything fast, she lets me go into the consultations when I finish with the enfermary each day (which is usually by 11 each day however today I never made it to the consulting room), expects me to do the filing each day, make sure all the TB patients have all their medication. This means checking how many packets they´ve got left, working out how many days of their section of the treatment (1st, 2nd, 3rd phases) they have got left and with all this give them not only the right number of packets with the right number of pills BUT the RIGHT pills! There are red ones, white ones, white ones with lines, yellow circular ones and slightly differently yellow oval ones and no patient has the same number or type! Today I put together 48 packages for 3 patients and each patient has to have their name written on the package and the right medication (1.25 red pills, .5 white pill with line, 1 white pill and a yellow circular one), it took me an hour! Well at the moment Carolina the other nurse is away on vacation but should be back soon....and at that moment I will start in the consulting room full time, I HOPE! But until then I am going to love each day with the smiling people and children I care for. I hope you are all well and having a blast wherever you are without me! Missing everyone xxx
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Angus
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Just remember you were a baby too and byt he way dont get the thermometers mixed up! Hope you are having a great time. Ella is with us this weekend so we are saving up some ironing. Have fun....Angus