Hello! What a week its been~ was it a full moon this week? Strange things kept happening. My week started with a big CRASH... monday night at the end of my shift we were all sitting down to give the next batch of nurses report when i heard a pulse oximeter beeping on one of my collegue's patients. I walked over to see what was causing it and our very first Thyroidectomy patient (removal of a huge goiter)was coding!! She turned a horrible ash color, eyes rolled back and the left side of her neck started to swell to the size of a cantalope completely occluding her airway! I just froze for a second..looking at her is disbelief, we had JUST talked about how bleeding was a RARE risk from this type of surgery. Adrenaline kicked in and ran for the oxygen and crash cart, 911 emergency team was called and about 20 minutes later she was put on the pulley system to the OR to reconnect her carotid artery. Found out later she lost all her blood, but was quickly replaced with IV fluid and blood tranfusions. Well, I guess God answered two of my prayers... I got to see my miracle and she lived! I keep playing it over and over in my mind and there is no way she should have survived that. I was sure she was gone. It was quite emotional and hard for me to continue work this week, but the staff has been great and we are all really becoming a team. My nightmares have ceased thankfully and 2 days ago she was extubated and walking around making funny comments as she is still a little doped up!
The other real life nightmare this week was happening simultaneously as the code... the sewage system was broken on 3/4 of the toilets on the ship for 2 days! enough said. Its fixed now, thank goodness.
Got another new roommate this week that i'm really excited about. She is working as one of the Community Health directors (one of my other huge interests here) and seems to be really adventerous, I'm looking forward to getting to know her better :)
This week got to go see some of the other ministry sites. Mercy Ships has some on-shore projects such as building a maternity ward unit extenstion to the local hospital. They designed it after the typical model here in Ghana (4 women laboring in ONE ROOM!) yikes. Its interesting how modesty plays a big part here in some ways but not in others?? Also building a HIV/AIDS education center just for teens as they found out that many weren't going to get help b/c they were afraid of running into their elders at the local hospital. They just layed the foundation. I have such a huge respect for these workers. They make it brick by brick in hot, hot weather (6 degrees from the equator)!! Also saw the dental and eye clinics Mercy Ships has out in the community. They were using the same building as a local community health center in which this week in 5 days Ghana is trying to immunize every kid under 5 for Polio and Measles, still killers here. It was a bad house!! ha. Babies everywhere!
Had to get away from the full moon a bit this week, so we had a roommate day and rode bikes to the local health club to swim for the afternoon. The ocean is not safe to swim in around here b/c of riptides and bacteria. Besides riding while inhaling much gas and dust, wearing pants in 100 degree weather... its was a little piece of heaven! Also ventured out to the lighthouse near the port and its absolutely my favorite place around here. If you go in the morning you can see all the colorful, beat up sailboats heading out to catch fish for the day. Its like something out of National Geographic, each boat has three pieces of timber crafted between a bedsheet to become a sail! The sea is gleaming and its stunning, a place for fresh air and peace. I love it. God is good to get me through this week.
