Simply Happy

So I have to say, even though the lady who talked about urine therapy to us on Thursday was really weird, I have to thank her for the probably the best 45 minutes of my life. She invited us to her natural health center this morning to get massages. I got my first ever full body massage and I was in heaven. A little weird at first because I had no idea what people were saying to me, but I learned quickly if I just closed my eyes, they would wake me up only if they really needed me.  ;) I have to say I would be willing to listen to more talks about urine therapy and the seven energy zones to get a free massage.

The one of the missionaries from St. Patrick’s invited us to lunch at a hotel resort here in Piura. This place was really fancy and I am so glad I was finally able to eat something besides chicken and rice! I had a delicious steak and cheese sandwich!

We then went to a chapel in one the local villages to teach women about hand washing. We just took Meg’s teaching project and shortened it. There were about 24 women and they all practiced washing their hands and then we answered any other health questions they had along with taking all of their blood pressures. To get back to the church I got to take my first Mototaxi ride! Usually there is always a can or truck from Sacramento that takes us places and picks us up but the St. Patrick Missionaries and some of the missionaries left from the Eye surgical team were all leaving so they needed the vans and trucks to transport all of them to the airport! For those of you who don’t know what a Mototaxi is, they are essentially a motorcycle with a kind of caboose that people sit in. It is the main form of transportation around here because the majority of people are too poor to afford their own cars. It was a little scary considering the people drive a little recklessly here, but we made it back safe and now I can check it off my bucket list. 

I can’t believe I have already been gone three weeks! The time here has really flown by but at the same time I am becoming so familiar with this place that it is becoming a home to me. (Not to scare you Mom, I DO plan on coming home!) . I never thought I would get this comfortable with being here, sometimes I forget I am a thousands of miles away from home and my life in the U.S.  I just know the streets and the people so well now that I don’t ever go somewhere without remembering a face or someone remembering me. The sincerity and gratitude that the people have shown me is really one of the main reasons why the transition has been so easy. (Besides having four AWESOME friends and a great teacher here) The people have so little and live in what one could really only call a “shack” and yet they are the happiest people I have ever met. They don’t crave having the newest iTouch, iPad, coach purse or name brand clothing. They are happy with their dirt floors and wearing the same exact clothes multiple days in a row. We pray to God for success in our job, more money, gifts, etc and they just pray to stay alive and are so grateful every morning they wake up. I don’t think I have ever lived this simply before and yet been so happy. 

It was a nice relaxing day but we have MUCH work ahead of us. Our aggregate project is due Friday and I believe I am doing my personal teaching project on Thursday! With lots of work ahead of me extra prayers and thoughts are very welcome. 

Babies and Feet

Yesterday morning I started off at the Pro-Life clinic that they have here in the basement of the church. It is run by a nurse midwife named Cecilia and they take all patients concerning women’s health. We saw five patients, three whom were pregnant and we got to feel for the baby, measure the fundal height, and use a Doppler to find the baby’s heartbeat. Cecilia is great with her patients, one woman came in because she hadn’t felt movement from her baby in the past week and she was having a lot of pain. We found a strong heartbeat and the woman felt much better, but Cecilia wanted to stress the fact that she needs to take it easy and rest. Many of these women, if lucky, have what is equivalent to about an 8^th grade or freshmen education, so they don’t understand a lot of the medical jargon that pregnancy could involve. So rather than talking about stress and the mechanics of her pain she just said, “When you feel pain that’s the baby saying ‘Mami, you need to rest! I want you to rest!’”. The women giggled a little bit but she understood how serious the situation was.

                In the afternoon the church brought in some natural medicine healers to give us a little presentation. It was to say the least, interesting, but we did a lot of transferring of our energy and deep breathing. I didn’t really buy into it but it is pretty popular in the culture here. Many people are scared of the healthcare system because they really don’t care about the patient. There is a national healthcare here but it doesn’t really cover anything so most people have to pay anyways. So they try (if they can) to go to a private hospital but it costs so much more. So they use these healers because I don’t believe they cost too much. Even though it was a little weird, I am glad I got to experience it. 

This morning I got to do my very first set of home visits! The other girls have gone and I have only heard great things about their mornings spent doing home visits. We had five patients (all women) that we visited with today. What we do all depends on the person’s ability to do things on their own and how they look at that moment. Mostly it consisted of blood pressures, filing and cutting nails, hand massages and washing feet. The first lady came to the door and looked great besides the fact she kind of limped when she walked. After she sat down she showed us her legs and she had really bad scars, all up and down both legs. She had been in a car accident and was in the hospital for 2 months! She looks great now, but I can’t imagine what she looked like while she was in rehabilitation. Her daughter and two granddaughters were there and showed us their backyard when we were done. I wasn’t expecting much besides some animals because there is really only sand everywhere, but was I wrong. We stepped out back and I honestly felt like I walked into a jungle! Then they started showing us all of their beautiful flowers that they sell. I really wish there was a way to bring them back to the U.S cause I would have bought some in a heartbeat. The second lady was really healthy and we just checked her blood sugar. The third lady was a little older and we just did her BP and hands. We wanted to wash her hands and feet because they seemed a little more dirty but she wasn’t very personable and didn’t seem to enjoy our company too much. The fourth lady was losing it a little bit but was very sweet and sang the whole time. I washed her feet while Maria did her hands. The last lady was 92 and hadn’t walked in 7 years. She was laying in a bed so we did everything plus gave her a bed bath. 

I really enjoyed these home visits. It really is a humbling experience to be accepted into someone’s home and then do things such as cutting their nails and washing their feet. These people have so little and yet every home we walked into, within a minute of walking into the room they were getting chairs and insisting that we sit down and rest. It is such a great experience and I can’t wait to do more in the coming weeks.

                We got the afternoon off so we went to Catacaos, which is a market that sells really great Peruvian made things at really cheap prices. We enjoyed roaming the streets and looking at all the vendors. We finished our last interview today, so we plan on starting the data portion of the project tonight and will be working on it all weekend! 

Healing

             Things have been really busy here. Marianne and I have been working on our joint teaching project non-stop since Monday. Also we started our big aggregate and now we are waiting to conduct interviews before the next stage in the process.

              I went to the hospice again yesterday morning, but this time I went with Meg and Chelsea who have never been before. So I got to teach them how to do the dressing changes. It was very challenging because I had gotten into a system with Marianne and Maria that we just did it without even really thinking. They had never done this before, even in the U.S, so I had to teach them EVERYTHING! It was a little difficult at first because I would keep forgetting to say stuff or that a certain thing had to be used. We started off with Eusebia who just has the small ones on each leg, I showed them what to do on one of the legs and they did the other, with my guidance. We then had to tackle our biggest hurdle, Oswaldo, who has the very large wounds on his bottom. Even though it was a challenge, I really enjoyed teaching them what I knew.  It is such a great feeling to be able to share your knowledge with someone, especially an eager audience. I helped them to accomplish something today that they have never seen or done before and it was so great to see it all come together. This is why I became a nurse; I get to teach my patients EVERYDAY about their illness, medications and how to stay healthy. My love of teaching has also led me to set my goals high and eventually go to grad school so I can teach future nurses.

                 My confidence in Spanish is growing every day.  The missionary group from St. Patrick’s church in Chicago, only has a few people who can speak/understand Spanish so they have been relying on us a lot to translate and ask people questions. So yesterday, Father Pat (from St. Patrick’s) and two other women were giving Eucharist to the hospice patients. None of them could speak Spanish and Deisy doesn’t speak English so Deisy pulled me aside a couple times to translate for them. I was really nervous because I was thinking, “I can’t translate. This is going to be a disaster!”. I don’t know if it was adrenaline or something else but my brain kicked it into high gear and I was able to translate for them! My Spanish is not perfect by any means but I am able to speak enough that Deisy can understand the main points. After three hours of trying to speak and translate Spanish, I find myself getting flustered with English speaking! I never thought that would happen!

           The afternoon was spent in the hospital. It was slower and the staff didn’t seem to care too much that we were there. So for the first little bit we just stood around and watched. After about an hour, a surgical tech came and got us and brought us into the Trauma room. Here we then watched someone get stitches and someone get a subclavian catheter put in. The catheter was very neat because I have never seen that done before and it is a very dangerous procedure because you are essentially putting an IV into the heart.

This morning I started off at the hospital again but this time was placed in the nebulizing and injection room. I don’t believe they really have anything like this in the U.S. It is a room with about 8 lawn chairs and one bed. Patients come in and hand the medicine to the nurse, the nurse gets it ready and then injects it into the patient either through a shot or an IV. At this hospital, after they get a diagnosis from the doctor, the hospital doesn’t give them the medicine that they need to take. The people actually have to go outside the hospital to the Pharmacy, pick up the medication and then bring it back to the ER so a nurse can give it to them. How crazy is that?! The nurse and tech that I worked with today were super nice. At first she spoke really fast but she must have figured out that I had no idea what she was saying because she started to speak slower to me and using words that I could understand. She let me do a lot of IM injections, which is something I have never done in the U.S before. About halfway through my time there, I pulled out a handy little pocketbook of some key medical terms (Thanks, Jessica!). The nurse spotted it and her eyes grew big. I handed it to her and then we spent pretty much the rest of the time looking at the book. She would say the word in Spanish and then ask me to pronounce it in English if she couldn’t. It was a different position for me to be in because I am so used to being taught what the Spanish word is for something. This was actually one of the only people I have worked with that have been that interested in learning the English words.

                   This afternoon, Marianne and I presented our First Aid presentation to the women of Vaso de Leche. It was really rough at first, because Marianne and I had made a powerpoint in Spanish, and we had a rough time pronouncing a lot of the words. About half way through we asked if anyone had questions and the women were raising their hands left and right. This boosted our confidence and I really feel like we reached a lot of the women. Even though I was so stressed trying to put this entire thing together in two days, I felt so accomplished when it was all done. The women really enjoyed it and definitely took away some crucial tips like not to tip your head back when you have a nosebleed and to not wrap your child in lots of clothes and blankets if they have a fever. It was all very simple stuff, but will make a huge difference in these villages. Here are some pictures from the presentation!

Me talking and Marianne demonstrating

 Demonstrating how to stop a nose bleed.

 Marianne talking and me demonstrating the nosebleed again. (They really wanted to know about nosebleeds!)

                So tonight was a special kind of mass. We kept hearing that it was a “healing” mass and that the church was going to be packed wall to wall with people. The only other thing I knew was that mass was going to be about two and a half hours, which didn’t make me too happy because I was so tired from the pass couple of days. Of course, there was standing room only when mass started and the congregation was going crazy clapping and yelling “Viva Cristo” and “Alleluia!”. I honestly felt like I was on one of those church T.V shows. After the homily, the lights went out and Padre Jose told everyone to close their eyes and that the missionaries and the nurses could get up and pray over those who they felt needed prayers and healing. At first I thought, “what the heck am I supposed to do? I can’t heal people”. I don’t know what it was, possibly God, but I got up and started walking to people. I just started placing my hands on people’s shoulders and saying a silent prayer. As I was placing my hands on these shoulders I looked around the congregation. An overwhelming feeling came over me and I could feel everyone’s worry, stress and pain. I started to tear up with every thought of a single mother, sick grandparent, loss child, workaholic, or homeless person. In a matter of seconds I had tears streaming down my face. At first I thought that my crying was not allowed because I was supposed to be “healing” these people. I then realized that I am no different from them. I am human, I have stress, I have worry and I have pain. It doesn’t matter what culture you are a part of, everyone is human, we all experience these things and we all need healing. 

Proud to be "American"

This morning, I started off back at the hospice with Marianne. To our surprise we were told that we weren’t doing dressing changes that day, but taking vitals of all the patients. We had only spent time with the three patients last week so we were both excited and nervous to be meeting and working with everyone at the hospice! They were all so cheerful and very cooperative when it came to taking their BPs, temperatures, pulses, etc. Most of them who are more coherent knew the routine and exactly what to do without any prompting from us! One of my favorite patients would have to be Felix, who is in a wheelchair and can barely talk, but every time we walk by his room, he gives us the biggest smile I have ever seen on a person without many teeth. He was so fascinated the entire time Marianne and I were taking his vitals. He even looked at the meter when I was taking his BP, just smiling and laughing the entire time. He joked with us and flirted with us by asking us our ages and saying things like we were the prettiest girls he had seen. He even asked if we would take a photo of him but wanted us to be in the picture.  Here it is:

 Surprisingly, taking vitals for 12 patients took us about two hours (we did a lot of chatting and sitting with some of the patients) then we just charted the vitals we had collected in PAPER charts! I am so used to the computer charting system in the U.S, it took a few minutes to read and understand their method.

Rather than having lunch back at the parish, we went out to San Jacinto and had lunch with our Marquette Family. For those of you who I haven’t told, Sacramento Santisimo has a Family to Family program here. Families from the U.S (usually from the 4 major churches affiliated with the parish) financially support a family here in Piura. For $25 a month, the family gets a large food package. It then is up to the individual U.S families to decide how much more they want to support the family through helping to buy things for their house(shack), helping to pay for school, dental work, etc. Even though the nursing students that come to Piura, change each year Marquette still wanted to sponsor a family. So we have a wonderful family of five, Alex (Father), Erika (Mother), Christian (8 yr old boy), Kiara (4 yr old girl) and Jessica who is 5 months old. (Jessica was named after a nurse Jessica who came down last year! Many of the families here, name their children after their family members in the U.S, HOW COOL!)  We had a great lunch made by the parish and then we were able to just hang out. I played ball/tag with Christian and some of the kids in Meg’s family (Her family has been sponsoring them for many years). It was so much fun getting to run around and the kids absolutely loved it. Even though I can’t communicate all that well with them, I still feel a strong bond growing and I can’t wait to see where our relationship with them will be at the end of our time here. 

 Baby Jessica: What a chubby baby!!

This is Kiara (she didn't want to be in the group photo!)

Group Photo of the family and the Marquette nurses! 

 This afternoon Meg did her teaching project to the women of Vaso de Leche. She taught them how to properly wash their hands and why it is SO important! She did a great job and the women really loved it! Marianne and I are teaching First Aid on Wednesday (which we found out this afternoon!), so we are frantically trying to put together something simple for the women. It actually isn’t that hard because there are these two books called, “Where there is no Doctor and Where Women have no Doctor” which are GREAT books that basically that teach about health for people who either are not in the medical field and/or do not have many resources available! I think every household in the U.S should have one because they have such great information. (Mom and Dad, if you ever need a gift idea for me *wink wink* J ) So we have gotten all of our information from here which has actually made it easy and now we just have to put it all together! My REAL teaching project is still in the works, and I should be doing that sometime next week!

Decorations put up by the workers in our dining room area!

After mass, Sacramento Santisimo made us an American dinner of burgers, hot dogs, baked beans and potato chips. They even had dinner entertainment! Two groups from the school the parish has built came and performed some traditional Peruvian dances. They were absolutely amazing and to finish up the night they even shot off fireworks for us! They made our Fourth of July feel as if we were right in our backyards in the U.S. It was such a great way to end the day. Especially after the fiesta tonight, I started thinking about how the Peruvians here were so excited about America’s Independence Day. Most of the have never been to the U.S and they still wore red, white, blue and waved little American flags. It was so awesome to experience but I couldn’t help but to feel the irony in it all. I don’t ever recall celebrating another country’s Independence Day in the U.S. We get so caught up in our “American” culture that most of us don’t even realize that our ancestors came from those foreign countries, and that is what makes us American. Being here and seeing things from another point of view has really made me aware of such cultural differences. I really am going to work on being more aware and accepting of cultural differences when I get back to the U.S. If I don’t, I would feel as if my experience here and the knowledge about this culture I have learned and grown to love would go to waste. 

Dance and Love

Today started off by going to mass at San Jacinto and having lunch after at their retreat center. There was a very large group of us because about 25 people from St. Patrick’s church in Chicago came down for the week. So right now there are a lot of people staying here at the parish!

In the afternoon we went to Madre del Redentor, which is an orphanage for girls. Most of the girls come from abusive families or dangerous parts of Piura and the surrounding jungle. This is kind of like a safe house for them and the only opportunity for them to get an education and possibly even stay alive. We pulled into the orphanage and immediately the girls were running up to the trucks and starting to grab our hands. Two little girls, Marvel and Esmeralda, grabbed my hands immediately and didn’t leave my side for the afternoon. They are both twelve and the sweetest girls I have ever met. They asked me what my favorite color was, what I liked to do, how many siblings I had, my favorite sport, etc. These girls are starving to love and be loved, and I was very happy to fill that void, even if for only a couple hours.The girls took us to their little “shop” and we were able to buy things that they have made. At the orphanage the girls learn how to sew and make bracelets, necklaces, rosaries, etc. Besides donations, this is how most of the money for the orphanage is made. They then took us to a patio area where they then performed a dance a couple of the girls made up and a couple traditional jungle dances. They even got us up to dance to the Macarena and Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie. While we were waiting for the trucks, Marvel and Esmeralda took me to their dormitories and showed me their beds and their class schedule. They taught me some Spanish words and I taught them some English. One of the sisters who runs the orphanage, knows English very well and they have English class once a week! It was so sad when we had to leave, the girls had wrapped their arms around me and didn’t want to let go. After we had gotten into the trucks, the girls walked along side holding our hands until we reached the gate. It was such a great afternoon and I hope we can go back, but I don’t think our schedule will allow us. L

Esmeralda, myself and Marvel.

Here is a video of one of the jungle dances that the girls performed for us!

Sawdust

Yesterday morning I was at the hospice and we started off by doing wound care on the two patients we had changed dressings for on Wednesday. This time we knew what we were doing so we were able to work faster and more efficiently. After we were done with the dressings, I got to do something that I have only ever done in the lab at Marquette; I got to place a Nasogastric feeding tube! It was for a man who has pneumonia and is nearing the end of life. He wasn’t in a coma but he couldn’t really open his eyes and he didn’t move besides his chest with each breath. Even though he couldn’t do much with resisting me, his body definitely did. I was so used to placing these tubes through the nose of the mannequins in the lab and just sliding all the way down. I had gotten about an inch in when he started coughing and gagging. I had to maneuver the tube so it would curve around the back of his throat, which was something I usually never had to worry about on the mannequins. It was a painful couple minutes, not only for the patient, but for myself because I felt so bad putting him through so much pain. I know that is something I will have to face every day in my career, but it is never easy the first time you do it.

We also sat down with Coco one of the other hospice nurses and talked with her for a long time. She mentioned to us about how sad she was when her first patient died on her and how she felt guilty. This really made me excited about my teaching project because I was planning on teaching the hospice nurses about how to cope with grief and death. I am going to have to work hard this next week to make sure that my project is SUPER great for these wonderful women who work such long hours at the hospice and have to deal daily with grief and death.

In the afternoon we went to Vida Nueva, the men’s drug and alcohol rehab center, for Marianne’s teaching project. She talked to them about having a low self-esteem and how to overcome it. They were really intrigued and really listened to what she said! She definitely set the standards really high for the rest of us!

This morning we started off by touring the public hospital here in Piura. It is a lot bigger and nicer than the one where we have our clinical. There were lots of mothers giving birth, so we got to see lots of babies, some even only hours old! None of the women have private rooms, no cribs for the babies (all babies sleep in the bed with the mom), and the longest women stay after they give birth is 24 hrs! In the U.S, most women even with perfectly normal pregnancies are in the hospital for at least two days! I am learning so much about this culture and even though it is very different from the U.S, it works for them. 

Here I am with one of the babies, only a couple hours old!

 Right before lunch, we went to one of the markets about a ten minute walk from the parish. It is basically rows, upon rows of outdoor stands that sell everything from luggage suitcases to fresh meat. (Yes, I saw many beaks, hooves, claws, etc). We were warned before we went that there are pickpockets and to be very careful because Dr.Weis (the other professor) had her earrings stolen right off of her ears one of the first years they went! Luckily, we all made it out what we went in with but I quickly realized how easily one could get pickpocketed in such a crowded space. Obviously we are white, have blonde and brown hair and stand out to most Peruvians. We get looks but today it was the worse it has ever been. I have never felt so many eyes on me before, not only do we look the complete opposite of the people, we are about 4-5 inches taller than most so we REALLY stick out when walking in a huge crowd of Peruvians. The entire time I was walking amongst the hoards of people, I thought about how Ryan or Uncle Dave Rapien would be TOWERING over these people. For probably the first time in my life I was in the racial minority and I did not like it one bit. I can’t imagine how people live with all the staring eyes for the entirety of their lives.

This evening, Sacramento Santisimo had their own parish procession of the Blessed Sacrament for Corpus Christi. It was the same deal as what happened this past Sunday, but with less people, and this time, we had to walk the ENTIRE WAY. Another thing the parish did special was that they made these beautiful colored sawdust pictures on the road. The walk took us about three and a half hours! And after about the first 45 minutes, I either was holding the hands of four or five kids, or physically carrying one in my arms. So I am very tired to say the least and am ready for a great night sleep.

Here are two of the sawdust images. I wanted to take a picture of all of them as we passed, but I guess once the Blessed Sacrament walked over them, then everyone else could as well!  

 Here is the beginning of the procession.

 My four little friends and I that I made on our walk.

This upcoming week is most likely going to get very busy due to the fact we have to start working on our big aggregate project and finish our teaching projects. So I apologize in advance if I am not able to update my blog as frequently. Send me e-mails, Facebook messages, etc and I will try to respond to those first! Sending my love and blessings to the States

Without Words

This morning we went to Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola, which is a Jesuit school for boys starting at age 3 and going all the way through high school! We just toured the grounds, which were absolutely beautiful by the way, and at the very end got to go into a couple of the classrooms. The little boys were so cute and so excited to meet us. I highly doubt we are doing any clinical sites here and there is no connection with Sacramento Santisimio so I am not sure why we visited but it was nice to get a little break in the morning. 

After our wonderful seista, I headed back to the ER, this time I was placed on the pediatric unit. I was nervous due to the fact I was by myself with no language help from Maria and amongst twenty people who only spoke Spanish. As soon I stepped into the room I was told by the nurse to take out an IV from a one year old boy. During my adult clinical this past spring, I became the QUEEN of taking out IVs. I think out of the 7 or 8 patients I had, I took out at least 4 IVs. So even though the baby was squirming around I was able to get it out with ease and I gave myself a nice mental pat on the back. I told the nurse (in Spanish) that I only knew a little bit of Spanish. Rather than just rolling her eyes at me and then just letting me sit and watch she started showing me the charts and how they charted. She was speaking all in Spanish but slowly enough so I could pick up most words and pointed at things. I didn’t say much but I feel like I picked up on most of what she was explaining to me. I have learned in my first three days of clinicals that nursing has its own language and it doesn’t change no matter the language. The drugs may be spelled slightly different but you can put two and two together and can figure out what they are. Many medical terms are very similar so even if I don’t know the word I can make a pretty good guess at what it is, which has been a blessing for me. After explaining the charting system (which is all by hand and on paper), she started showing me how to draw up drugs and get injections ready for the patients and how to make the formula for the nebulizing treatments. I helped to get all of the supplies ready and then she told me to follow her and we took a 3 day old baby into the “trauma” room. The baby needed an IV because he had an infection and needed antibiotics right away. So I helped set up the equipment then held the baby as the nurse inserted the needle. After the needle was in, I started to tape it all up and make sure it was secure. We really didn’t say anything, everything was done through hand motions and pure nursing instinct. After that I gave more medications, took out another IV and gave a couple nebulizing treatments to the kids. I also helped the nurse soak a two year old in cold water because he came in with a fever! Very old fashioned, but it definitely brought the child’s temperature down until the doctor could come and look at him.

I was changing out one of the patient’s IV container/bag that had normal saline running and I was about to throw it away when the nurse said “no” and pointed next to the sink. I saw some other ones that had a side cut out sitting there, the nurse picked it up and pretended to spit in it. It finally hit me that they REUSE the plastic containers that they use to run IVs for spit containers for the patients! I couldn’t believe it, a hospital REUSING something! All the hospitals I have worked at in the U.S, you use something once, even if just for a second, it gets thrown out immediately and you get a new one. It made me think about on one hand, how grateful I am to live in the U.S and have all this equipment readily available for us. On the other hand, we are so wasteful with our supplies and could save so much money if we just reused some equipment. 

Giving some IV push meds to one of the patients with the wonderful nurse at my side!