5:30 am came WAY TOO Early - especially since there is a disco nearby that is very LOUD & seems like it's in our room. I am quite perplexed at a disco in city center Tangier open at 3 am on a Monday night??? and I think I need to use earplugs tonite....I definitely only got maybe 4 hours of sleep. My morning shower did get me awake & going. I kept reminding myself this is what I LOVE TO DO & I know Mission Life is tough so let's smile & do this :)
At breakfast I was a little tired of hardboiled eggs for the 5th day in a row so I settled for toast. The Stryker guests are leaving today on a variety of flights & Megan & Anita their leaders were both with me in in India so it has been fun to hang out with them & their team has been a big help!
When we got to the hospital I went up to Post Op to see Brittany - the surgeons were rounding like usual but none of the patients were awake until they woke them up :) I did get to see some of the patietns & there were some very grateful moms & I snapped a few photos. They put all 8 palate repair patients in the same room which I actually thought was a great idea. Those patients will stay one more night but should be stable tonight - good thing because they will have 24 more palate patients!
The on call team had to go in last night from midnite til 2 am & Samia was the RN to go in. One of our last patients last night was a small baby we did as a deviation who was the right age but had a low weight. BY the time she had surgery she was a bit dehydrated & they had to put a deep IV line into her & gave her quite a lot of fluids. In the night the nurses felt like she was working hard to breathe etc so the on call team went in & then Sarah one of the night nurses pretty much stayed with her all night. So as soon as we got in the morning they brought her down to the PACU to see how she would do & if she needed to go to a "real hospital" Samia & I traded off watching her & over the next 8 hours she got a lot better. I played pharmacy tech again because the Intensivists wanted her to have 10% Dextrose & 1/2 Normal Saline IV fluid - so I did the calculations, confirmed it with Chris & used 50% Dextrose, Sterile Water & Normal saline to make it - that honestly felt like an accomplishment! So the 2 hours of calm we usually have in the PACU from 7-9 were actually pretty busy with that baby & the Megan from Stryker came in not feeling well so Chris & I took care of here & ended up starting an IV in her & giving her a liter of fluid & some over the counter meds. Then Abigail came back & was feeling much better so we took her IV out...which was a bit traumatic & tearful for her. Yep the primary care clinic we run in the back of the PACU was quite busy this morning!
We had 40 patients on the schedule today & 24 were palates which are much bigger surgeries with more risks. Honestly there are some missions where I think we did 24 palates total & rumor has it we have 24 palates on the schedule today, Wednesday & Thursday. Todays schedule had the first 8 surgeries as all cleft lips - one on each table then every table had 3 palates & each finished with a cleft lip. All 8 lips came to the PACU within 10 minutes of each other so we had complete chaos from 9:30-11 then we had a little calm until the palates starting coming off the tables at 12:15 & we got 3 fussy ones pretty quickly. By 3 pm 12 of the 24 scheduled palates had been thru the PACU so as always the PACU is lots of chaos & moments of calm typically!
With everything going on I didn't have much time to see pre-op patients in Child Life today & when I checked in there we didn't often have many waiting because with the 2 hour cases they let kid wait upstairs. Also with our crazy at one point we had 8 patients plus the one from yesterday & Chris somehow brought 4 moms back to help with fussy babies & pretty quickly thereafter we were told that "we don't bring mothers back in Morocco" - so we though that may have been our one & only but we may keep trying!
By 4 pm I had a giant headache & Tylenol & Motrin weren't working so I went back & just closed my eyes for 15 minutes & really that's all I needed to be back at it & get thru the rest of the night. One of the lips after all the palates was a little 5 1/2 month old that the program coordinators had to really work at getting final approval but they did & he did great! His name was Ziad & his mom was Naima - they traveled 8 hours by bus to get here - his mom spoke French & English so it was nice to be able to communicate with her. I had a so raise a male child as a single mother pecial baby quilt that a friend of mine made so I gave it to them. Naima was so grateful.
Two cute palate patients were 2 year old twins Othman & Ali who I remember from screening - one was having some challenges so believe it or not they let us bring the mom back which was perfect because it was 2 for one with that mom there. Another patient was a 5 year old boy that Chris remembered from screening....on the registration paperwork for info about the father it just said "dead". I don't remember him at all but at screening the mom told the local girls how hard it is in a Muslim culture to raise a male child as a single mother & then to have the defect it has been even harder. It just broke my heart.
3 cases were canceled today - 1 who had a fever & probably an upper respiratory infection, another had an airway that was concerning & the 3rd was dehydrated & they didn't want a repeat of the patient from last night so they postponed her til tomorrow. So our totals for today will end up at 37 surgeries. By 8:30 we only had one complex palate (that had some bleeding issues in the OR) and 3 lips left to finish up so the 3 of us who stayed late last night got things organized for tomorrow & then got to leave!!! So I got to the hotel about 9 pm - it was wonderful & I am ready for a good nights sleep :) (with my earplugs in!).
It was another great day here in Tangier & I am so blessed to be here & be a part of this team & have my life intersect with them & these children & families of Tangier even if only for a brief moment in the middle of a chaotic day or if it's holding a fussy baby after surgery & trying to figure out if his mom sways with him or bounces him or rocks him to comfort him & I try all 3 because f that was my baby or grandbaby I would want someone to think of that...
Missions remind me that we are all humankind just living very different lives in many parts of the world but we all have more in common that we have different especially when it comes to loving our children & our families. I am trying to #lighttheworld this week with the love of the Savior & the love of family & I am really grateful for my family...the one I was born into with my parents & siblings, my extended family, my own family with Doug & the many precious friends who really are family we choose...who enrich our lives in ways we never realize when we meet them...yes I am richly blessed this holiday season & family in all those definitions & love & service is what this Christmas season is all about.
Good night there are another 40 or 41 kids who need the best I have to offer all day & maybe the night tomorrow cause I'm on call so I need to get to bed!
At breakfast I was a little tired of hardboiled eggs for the 5th day in a row so I settled for toast. The Stryker guests are leaving today on a variety of flights & Megan & Anita their leaders were both with me in in India so it has been fun to hang out with them & their team has been a big help!
When we got to the hospital I went up to Post Op to see Brittany - the surgeons were rounding like usual but none of the patients were awake until they woke them up :) I did get to see some of the patietns & there were some very grateful moms & I snapped a few photos. They put all 8 palate repair patients in the same room which I actually thought was a great idea. Those patients will stay one more night but should be stable tonight - good thing because they will have 24 more palate patients!
The on call team had to go in last night from midnite til 2 am & Samia was the RN to go in. One of our last patients last night was a small baby we did as a deviation who was the right age but had a low weight. BY the time she had surgery she was a bit dehydrated & they had to put a deep IV line into her & gave her quite a lot of fluids. In the night the nurses felt like she was working hard to breathe etc so the on call team went in & then Sarah one of the night nurses pretty much stayed with her all night. So as soon as we got in the morning they brought her down to the PACU to see how she would do & if she needed to go to a "real hospital" Samia & I traded off watching her & over the next 8 hours she got a lot better. I played pharmacy tech again because the Intensivists wanted her to have 10% Dextrose & 1/2 Normal Saline IV fluid - so I did the calculations, confirmed it with Chris & used 50% Dextrose, Sterile Water & Normal saline to make it - that honestly felt like an accomplishment! So the 2 hours of calm we usually have in the PACU from 7-9 were actually pretty busy with that baby & the Megan from Stryker came in not feeling well so Chris & I took care of here & ended up starting an IV in her & giving her a liter of fluid & some over the counter meds. Then Abigail came back & was feeling much better so we took her IV out...which was a bit traumatic & tearful for her. Yep the primary care clinic we run in the back of the PACU was quite busy this morning!
We had 40 patients on the schedule today & 24 were palates which are much bigger surgeries with more risks. Honestly there are some missions where I think we did 24 palates total & rumor has it we have 24 palates on the schedule today, Wednesday & Thursday. Todays schedule had the first 8 surgeries as all cleft lips - one on each table then every table had 3 palates & each finished with a cleft lip. All 8 lips came to the PACU within 10 minutes of each other so we had complete chaos from 9:30-11 then we had a little calm until the palates starting coming off the tables at 12:15 & we got 3 fussy ones pretty quickly. By 3 pm 12 of the 24 scheduled palates had been thru the PACU so as always the PACU is lots of chaos & moments of calm typically!
With everything going on I didn't have much time to see pre-op patients in Child Life today & when I checked in there we didn't often have many waiting because with the 2 hour cases they let kid wait upstairs. Also with our crazy at one point we had 8 patients plus the one from yesterday & Chris somehow brought 4 moms back to help with fussy babies & pretty quickly thereafter we were told that "we don't bring mothers back in Morocco" - so we though that may have been our one & only but we may keep trying!
By 4 pm I had a giant headache & Tylenol & Motrin weren't working so I went back & just closed my eyes for 15 minutes & really that's all I needed to be back at it & get thru the rest of the night. One of the lips after all the palates was a little 5 1/2 month old that the program coordinators had to really work at getting final approval but they did & he did great! His name was Ziad & his mom was Naima - they traveled 8 hours by bus to get here - his mom spoke French & English so it was nice to be able to communicate with her. I had a so raise a male child as a single mother pecial baby quilt that a friend of mine made so I gave it to them. Naima was so grateful.
Two cute palate patients were 2 year old twins Othman & Ali who I remember from screening - one was having some challenges so believe it or not they let us bring the mom back which was perfect because it was 2 for one with that mom there. Another patient was a 5 year old boy that Chris remembered from screening....on the registration paperwork for info about the father it just said "dead". I don't remember him at all but at screening the mom told the local girls how hard it is in a Muslim culture to raise a male child as a single mother & then to have the defect it has been even harder. It just broke my heart.
3 cases were canceled today - 1 who had a fever & probably an upper respiratory infection, another had an airway that was concerning & the 3rd was dehydrated & they didn't want a repeat of the patient from last night so they postponed her til tomorrow. So our totals for today will end up at 37 surgeries. By 8:30 we only had one complex palate (that had some bleeding issues in the OR) and 3 lips left to finish up so the 3 of us who stayed late last night got things organized for tomorrow & then got to leave!!! So I got to the hotel about 9 pm - it was wonderful & I am ready for a good nights sleep :) (with my earplugs in!).
It was another great day here in Tangier & I am so blessed to be here & be a part of this team & have my life intersect with them & these children & families of Tangier even if only for a brief moment in the middle of a chaotic day or if it's holding a fussy baby after surgery & trying to figure out if his mom sways with him or bounces him or rocks him to comfort him & I try all 3 because f that was my baby or grandbaby I would want someone to think of that...
Missions remind me that we are all humankind just living very different lives in many parts of the world but we all have more in common that we have different especially when it comes to loving our children & our families. I am trying to #lighttheworld this week with the love of the Savior & the love of family & I am really grateful for my family...the one I was born into with my parents & siblings, my extended family, my own family with Doug & the many precious friends who really are family we choose...who enrich our lives in ways we never realize when we meet them...yes I am richly blessed this holiday season & family in all those definitions & love & service is what this Christmas season is all about.
Good night there are another 40 or 41 kids who need the best I have to offer all day & maybe the night tomorrow cause I'm on call so I need to get to bed!
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