Cake, Coffee, Creativity

Yesterday was not an especially eventful day, but the evening was busy enough that I didn't have time to blog about it. After placement, Brianne and I went to the supermarket to pick up a few edible souvenirs (I want to bring the whole store home!) and some supplies for John's birthday cake. It's his 21st today, so we'd planned to make a chocolate cake while he was at the hospital last night and hide it in our room until this evening. I was especially excited because Brianne said we could make it with a box of cake mix and a can of pop. Who knew?! Unfortunately, the oven shut off about five minutes into the baking process because the gas tank was empty. We weren't sure how long the cake mix + coke chemistry would last, so we buttered half a dozen mugs and made miniature cakes in the microwave! We had a lot of fun making them and were pretty surprised when the experiment actually turned out well.

Once everyone had had cake, I headed down to maternity with Brianne. My luck was just as good as last time - a delivery had just begun! Unlike last time, though, things were a little tense. One of the residents was on call, but by the time the baby was born, he and his supervisor had called in two other OB/GYNs. It wasn't that anything particularly dramatic was happening - rather that nothing was. The woman, who was incredibly small, just couldn't seem to push hard enough. (I'm sorry, I'm trying not to be too descriptive.) Brianne even heard the doctor mutter, "She should have had a c-section" partway through. I think that's what would have happened at home given the size of her pelvis. Still, despite the tension, the near-silent labour and the very necessary episiotomy, everyone was okay in the end.

This morning, I took one set of vitals, then spent four solid hours doing arts and crafts. (Sigh.) Roxana, Elio and I worked hard on our lactancia materna display and I have to say that it's going to be pretty sweet. While I wish I could be doing more medical work in the clinic, there are seriously days where nobody comes in after 9:30 AM. There isn't much I can do about that, so I might as well make myself useful in other ways.

Having no patients means being able to talk with the residents more, which I'm really enjoying. We laugh a lot! They're really kind and generous, too, which seems to be a trend among Nicaraguans. At the clinic, doctors, nurses and techs always seem to have candies in their pockets or purses that they share with whoever's in the room. In the past week, people have given me homemade candy, helado de coco (coconut ice cream in a bag), churros... It's really something! Today, I made sure I bought some churros when the vendor came to the clinic so that I could share them.

In the hospital this afternoon, I gave more injections and started more IVs. I know a lot of nurses in emerge now and it's strange to realize that I kind of know what I'm doing now! Most of the IV meds come in these little glass ampoules with a blue dot on them. To open them, you have to flick the dot and then just break the top off; it's best if you hold the top in a cloth when you do it to avoid any accidents. Luckily, my only vial-induced injuries have bruises under my index fingernail... until today. The cut on my finger is shallow, but the gauze around it is cumbersome enough that I had to switch to manual labour partway through the afternoon. Carlos and I moved boxes of IV bags and I hung around in x-ray waiting for a particularly inebriated patient I didn't want to leave alone. Later, Carlos had me start one more IV before I left (I'm getting better!) and then I headed home with a delicious 4-cordoba coffee from the canteen.

I'm going to need another one tomorrow morning, I think, because I really haven't been sleeping very well. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I had crazy dreams about tiny spider bugs crawling all over me. The past few nights, I've been dreaming that patients have been in our room, waking us up and asking for help. I'm pretty sure that I've actually been sitting up in bed, thinking that there's a person there and then waking up just enough to realize that it's actually the fan. I thought ditching my mosquito net would make for better sleeps, but apparently not.