A Slow Day & I am Tired

This is going to be a short blog post because I am super tired. I didn’t sleep well last night. I kept going over in my mind the De Santos family. I cannot imagine me with my 3 girls & my mom living on someone’s patio with a makeshift roof in the rain…it was so mind boggling. When I got up at 5 Dusty my roommate & the Clinical Coordinator said I really didn’t need to leave until 7 not 6 so I slept for another hour. Since the bus had gone earlier I walked to the hospital which was a hazardous experience – the street has lots of holes & missing stones & uneven walkways plus no one here pays attention to the light signals – especially the buses so crossing the street is a bit of a challenge & a risk…I don’t want to get hit by a crazy bus driver in Paraguay!!!

I got to the hospital by 7:30, we had the mock code & they were set up to film some of todays cases for a live stream to another room in the hospital for some Latin American surgeons to observe…it was sort of a +/- A great teaching opportunity – everyone raved about it but it basically doubled the surgery time – a 2 hour case was 4 hours etc.  It became a “waiting game” in the PACU which allowed us to get it all set up & organized but we didn’t get our first patient until 1:30. Our Peds Intensivist arrived this morning – Nicole who is from John Hopkins PICU.

The 2^nd floor bathroom was way more disgusting that the one from screening day – I will be going to the 1^st floor as needed or in an emergency use a mask with toothpaste inside to mask the smell.

We only did the 8 extra patients today & they were some of my cuties I remembered from screening – Marinelli who I mentioned in my blog on Mon who is here with her mom & her 13 year old sister & Yenifer who was the one here with her Grandma as her mom had abandoned her. I gave Yenifer a dollie that friends sent with me & also gave away some socks.

I am working with 2 local nurses who are credentialed & can work independently & 2 who are in training so I am really in preceptor/mentor mode. We will do 64 palates this week which is a TON!!! I don’t think I have EVER done that many palates on a mission so I am thinking late nights & lots of chaos – we will see. Off to bed for me – tomorrow is for sure a 5 am wake up call.