A little about my time in Africa.

Life is all about expectations. When I think of people going overseas to do medical volunteer work, I think of going to save the poor starving people who have little to no medical care. At the age of 24, I was so excited about going to save the world in Kapsowar Kenya! On February 26, 2007, after four plane rides and a long bumpy automobile ride, I arrived at a small mission hospital on the ridge of the Great Rift Valley of Kenya. Even though I was exhausted from the travel, I was eager to start. 

After training as a surgical technician at Watauga Medical Center in Boone North Carolina, I took my skill to this little hospital in Africa. More than an adventure, I wanted to challenge myself outside a nice comfortable community hospital in the United States. Based on previous experiences in Ecuador and Honduras, I knew that practicing my skills in Africa would be a difficult and rewarding challenge. I can say honestly too, that I desired to serve the Kenyan people. So on February 27, I found myself in the small Operating Room with holes in the floor, a scrub sink no more than five feet away from the operating table, patched cloth drapes and gowns, and a bucket of bovie cauterizing pencils soaking in cydex. I was overwhelmed by my surrounding and I could not believe that Dr. Rhodes performed surgery in such conditions! It was all that I could do not to start cleaning and organizing immediately.

            After this initial peek inside the operating room, I was  introduced to the rest of the OR staff as they were drinking their morning chai. I was greeted with curious smiles, but they shook my hand and said hello. They were extremely friendly and accepting of me. However, as I got to know them I noticed significant cultural differences that we would have to work through, mainly language, but also differing priorities in life.

After two weeks of scrubbing every case with Dr. Rhodes and cleaning and packaging all the instruments, I realized that was not helping anybody. Through much thought and prayer, I recognized that I needed to gain the respect of the staff, to work with them, not for them and to bridge the cultural barriers by attempting to learn their language. Eventually our team did reorganize the OR. Together, we established  proper procedures and protocols for the OR including the basics of cleaning and packaging surgical instruments. As a team, one of our most exciting accomplishments was replacing  the ant-infested wooden shelves in the workroom with   metal shelving.  

We accomplished many tangible goals, but what I will also remember are the beautiful faces of the Kenyan people. One of the most important things I did everyday was to “take chai” with the OR staff at which time they would teach me words and phrases in Swahili and I would ask them questions about their families. And most importantly, we formed a team that permitted Dr. Rhodes to perform more demanding and exacting surgeries as we became more effective in the OR with less risk of infection.

How did this trip impact my life? Honestly, this trip inspired me to finally pursue nursing. I longed to know more to be able to help in various other situations beyond the operating room. I learned that tangible change comes slowly and that relationships are built through trust and laughter. I learned that I was not the answer to Kenya’s deepest prayers. And finally, I learned that I must never work for the praise of men, but that I should work hard because it is the right thing to do.

from the jungles of Africa

The good and the not so great

I leave for Kenya in just one and half weeks!! That is incredible. I am going to be living out in the bush doing surgery. I don't want to make anyone jealous but this is going to be one GREAT trip! And that's the good part. *happy smilie faces*

Bad- not so great part is that I didn't get into med school. Now before you start feeling sorry for me - (I've done enough of that already) I did get a personal phone call explaining why. The director of the admissions called me and told me that my application looks great but that she wants me to take some graduate level science classes to prove that I can handle the rigors of med school science. My C in Molecular Biology wasn't quite impressive enough I guess. = )

So, it's not quite back to the drawing board. She said I don't have to retake the MCAT if I don't want to and I don't have to re-take any classes. I just have to make decent grades in the two classes (Biochem and Immunology) that I take at App State in the fall. In a sense I am still going to be going to school in the fall but it just won't be med school.

I'll be honest though- it's quite the blow to my pride. But you know what? Damn my pride.

Just how badly do I want this? Enough to wait.

An ER moment (more like an hour or so)

Ok, here it goes.

Many people ask me if working in the OR is like Gray's Anatomy. I say, there's no Dr. McDreamy and that's the end of that. Even though we do have a very good looking Anesthesiologist.... (but he's like 50)

But I experienced a TV moment two Tuesday's ago. Well, it was Wednesday really. I get a trauma page coming from the ER. I look at my clock and it's 12:12 am Wednesday morning. I have to decide what to do at this point, do I call the ER, do I just put my clothes on and go into the hospital to see what's going on, or do I go back to sleep and let the ER take care of it and if they really want me they can beep me again (trauma codes happen a lot so that was my dilemma). I decide to call while I am putting my clothes on to head out the door. They said, "Yeah, come on in we might need you." I get another beep, this one said, "One chest stabbing - two abdominal stab wounds- med air coming." Sounded serious.

I get to the hospital and as I ran upstairs to the ER I called my circulator to let her know that I was in the hospital. I slowed down as I walked into a completely made for movie scene. Let me set the stage, the police, the sheriff's dept, EMS, ER staff (including nurses, xray...), the ER doc and our surgeon were all crowding around this patient. They were pumping blood and IV fluids into the patient who was covered in blood (details will only be disclosed if asked for). I just stood there with my badge and I got another page. I just raised my hand and a nursed yelled at me, "We're opening the chest, we're coming up." (Up means the OR) So I start booking it up to the OR to get the chest stuff ready. The circulator already had some instruments pulled when she got called from the ER saying that they were going to do it down in the ER. So we wheeled down our instruments and by this time more people had shown up.

I just stood there. I had a great view of everything going on but it was like I was invisible. The ER staff and doc had already cracked the chest and Dr. Bell was massaging the heart in his hands. The surgeon was checking out the other wounds to the abdomen when another guy comes rolling into the ER accompanied by the EMS. Someone yelled out- "He's the guy who did it! Put him in room 11." So I am standing there witnessing a guy dying, and catycorner to me is the guy who stabbed this other guy and he's moaning on the stretcher (apparently the two were completely drunk and the one who had stabbed the other had fallen off the front porch and landed on his head).

Imagine all this chaos and then everyone went silent and looked at the clock. One of the nurses looking at the clock declared the guy dead at 1:06 am. In my mind I was thinking, uh, he's not supposed to die- but he did. The next moment I heard my name being yelled out, so I went up to the body. The nurse wanted me to see the heart in defib. Dr. Bell was still holding the heart as it was quivering, I looked up at the monitor and there was no flat line- it was a squiggly line and then I glanced back down and saw the arm hanging off the bed and the face was blueish grey.

I was thinking I should feel something at this point but I didn't and I haven't since. Nothing- no attachment, no sorrow, no nothing!! I have thought about it though.

Come to find out the two were brothers. The one did die, the other lived.

Weird weird. We took our instruments back up to the OR, I changed back into my street clothes and went home. It was 2:00am at that point. But I didn't sleep until 3:30. I still thought I should feel something but I didn't and I gave up trying to feel and I went to sleep.

I saw a guy die for real. hmmm....