Safe & Sound and Settling in on PEI

So I've returned home to PEI safe and sound (from one island to another)! I have had quite the adventure and look forward to sharing my experiences with everyone in person! Thanks to everyone who supported me through prayers, encouraging emails, skype chats or just reading this blog! I felt very loved and supported my entire trip and I am so thankful to have all of you behind me!
Now back to 'regular' life...

The Never Ending Friday...

Last week was ‘Nurses Week’ and we had a pretty rough/hectic week in general (which you can read some about in my last blog) but our Friday, was the icing on the cake. We just got a donation of new laptops for the clinic and they got them up and running so Friday was our first trial with them. It was a terrible mess!! The computers were not working and it created worse problems than before when we were using the old ones! We had to paper chart, we couldn’t look up old info, we had to handwrite all the pharmacy labels and I could go on and on! Basically the day was chaos x100 because of the computer issues. Only blessing was that we didn’t have as many patients as usual. It was just a really tough day that capped a tough week and we were so glad to go home at the end of the day.

We had barely arrived home and I had just sat down to have a nap (Kate & Alisha were hanging out in our living room & still in their scrubs), when we heard Adam (another volunteer) yelling for help!! So we headed down to the street to see what the matter was and found a whole bunch of our neighbours were very distraught. Alfa; a 60 something year old neighbour of ours from down the alley, collapsed on her upstairs porch and they were calling for help. We arrived on the scene and found her unresponsive, not breathing and we couldn’t get a palpable pulse. From what we could understand from the family, she had just gotten up to grab something from the fridge and collapsed and it was probably about 5 mins before we got there. She has a cardiac history and was a known patient at the clinic. But basically as soon as we discovered she was not breathing, we started CPR. We did rounds of CPR while we others called for help and discovered the ambulance was too far away, so they found a person with a random truck. We moved her down to the truck (carried her on a sheet) and then we continued CPR on the back of a pickup truck driving at scary high speeds to the local hospital. I was pretty sure on our way there that our efforts would not be successful, and sadly the hospital doesn’t have a defibrillator anyway, but this is what the family wanted and we were not about to stop compressions. So we took her to the hospital and they unloaded her into a bed but they didn’t really tend to her, they just put some oxygen in her nose and shooed us out of the room. It was difficult for us to let it go because we wanted to give report to someone and ensure that things were continuing... but they just kicked us out onto the street and locked the door. We heard later that they declared her deceased shortly after arrival at the hospital and ruled cause of death a massive heart attack. But we did what we were trained to do and did our best. We provided the best care possible and if nothing else, we acted which gave the family the chance to feel as though they did everything they could.. and it gave her a bit of dignity not to be left in her home around a crowd of concerned neighbours and family members who had come to gawk. I'm proud of our efforts even if they were unsuccessful and I would do it again if the situation arose again.. although it has been discouraging that some at the clinic disagree with our decision to step in and figure it was a waste of time. Oh well, I can only be responsible for me.. and I am totally comfortable with my decision to use my skills to aid the patient.. again, even if it was unsuccessful. 

Interesting continuation of that story is that after being kicked out of the hospital we realized that we are all wearing scrubs (well I was wearing gym shorts and a tank top..) but none of us had pockets, little alone money! So we weren’t sure how we’d cab home! We ended up taking a cab and getting the driver to wait while I ran down the alley to grab money and then return and pay him. Saddest thing was that as I ran by Ms Alfa’s house, a young boy stopped me and asked “What happened to my mama? Where is she?” (Note: they often call their mom & grandmother or whoever is raising them mama)... and all I could do is tell him was that we took her to the hospital. It was heart breaking.

So after the whole situation was over, we returned to our apartment but we were exhausted and still pumped on adrenaline! We decided to continue with our evening plans to meet some friends for supper at the local Thai restaurant. So we headed out for supper and when we walked past the house we were informed of her passing. Then later that night when we walked back by, we got to experience some of the local grieving traditions as many friends and family gathered to remember her and celebrate the great life she lived. It was sad for us too because she was such a permanent fixture in the neighbourhood. She always smiled and said good morning as we walked to clinic etc. It was also hard because it was the first time Kate & Alisha had truly experience death like that and been so closely involved in it.

So as if our Friday wasn’t chaotic enough already, the clinic ended up getting a pediatric inpatient admission over suppertime. We were called in to work a shift and they were struggling to find someone to work the night so I ended up working the overnight shift. So I spent a full day at clinic, then had our crazy CPR experience then supper, then I went and worked the night at the clinic. My body wasn’t really sure what to do! I was absolutely wrecked the next day.. my muscles ached from the compressions, my body craved sleep and I was just frustrated with the way the whole week had gone! We had experienced a lot of disrespect from other clinic people this week and it’s been hard to deal with and then it came to a crazy climax on Friday. I came home on Saturday morning, slept 2.5 hours then got up and continued with my Saturday plans as usual, like making jewellery with some local girls at Bob & Debi’s. By the time Saturday night came, I was fit to be tied! They tried to call me back in for the second night but I just couldn’t. I was exhausted!!

Sunday was spent seeking God and His will in all this craziness! I have been getting discouraged for awhile and He has been the only thing keeping me sane.. but Friday certainly stretched my limits. I know God won’t press us further than we can bear but I think I’ve been gaining a new appreciation for that! And it is certainly His strength not mine that is getting me through because I gave up trying to do this with my strength, patience, endurance, energy and love... a VERY long time ago!! It has been a hard week and harder weekend, but He knows what is best and I’m hoping that there will be much good come from this in the long run. Overall, its been quite an adventure!

We are here for just two weeks more, who knows what might be in store for this last bit... well, I’ve got a 13 days left to find out! :) Bring it on!

Blessings among the bad luck!

 (This is the blog post I wrote on Thursday and planned to post on Friday.. but my Friday turned into a crazy day!! So I'm posting this now, but I'll write a new post about Friday tomorrow, so stay tuned...)

This past week or so I’ve been learning a lot about perspective.. and how I need to aim to be optimistic and seek to have God’s perspective because He sees the big picture and I don’t. Its been a rough week and a fantastic week all rolled into one! I’ve been having a bit of a string of bad luck recently… several weeks ago was the car accident and then since then my Kobo (E reader) has just broken entirely (will need to be sent back with warranty when I return home), I discovered that the grocery store over-charged me by $600 (accidently charged me $600 USD by accident rather than the $60 I should have paid.. someone probably accidentally pushed an extra number on the credit card machine.. but that’s a lot of money to me.. and even more in Honduras with roughly a 20limp:1US conversion) and my credit card was stolen. The tricky part was I needed to sort out the grocery store issue before cancelling the card because if I cancelled the card I’d never get my refund, but trying to explain to the Honduran cashier about the error in Spanish was miserable.  Last Thursday, I ended up on a ridiculous adventure that involved a dodgy cab ride to another city and talking with person after person in the administration at of the grocery store; only to be told that I might get my refund… but it certainly won’t be for another 4 weeks or so… (and we leave in less than 3 weeks..) and while I was on this adventure, the credit card caper was spending more and more money.. then I tried to call VISA Canada, on their emergency/lost & stolen card line, and they told me they couldn’t talk to me since I was on a cell phone.. so after several phone calls to them and a lot of frustration I got the card cancelled. Long and the short of the story, I am praying that I’ll get my refund, waiting for VISA to do an official fraud investigation and I survived a dodgy cab ride mostly by talking about my fictional husband waiting for me.

Kate & the little bundle of joy!

I made it back home just a few mins late for tutoring so I tutored as usual. Then I was exhausted, starving (because I went straight from clinic on my grocery store adventure without eating lunch and forgot my water bottle and had only enough cash for my cab.. so no food or water) and frustrated! I was ready to get home to rest when we got a call about a patient who was in labour!! So we turned around and headed straight back to the clinic to help deliver the baby! After about 3 hours of labouring at the clinic, our patient delivered a healthy baby girl at 7lbs, 1oz! I was helping look after the mom but Kate was totally in her element doing the baby stuff!! She took care of the baby after the delivery and was really helpful in deciding the baby needed suctioning etc and she was helping to teach the Honduran new grad more about labour and delivery/postpartum nursing care. All in all a great experience! So glad we could finally be there for a birth and it was a huge blessing!! We arrived home really late and basically collapsed into our beds! Tuesday was an incredibly long day with some really low/frustrating moments and some really exciting/beautiful moments all rolled into one!!

fresh new baby! :)

Saturday we went on a little adventure to French Key which involved several public buses, and a long walk to the dock where we took a little boat to a secluded island for the day! We had such a great time! Kate, Alisha, Megan, Jessy and I went and we met up with Angely (our receptionist at the clinic) and we really enjoyed the day of bonding and relaxing. Then after supper we just stayed in and watched a movie but I got to do some sewing for the girls. I made some alterations and repairs and it was so nice to be sewing again!! It’s certainly something I miss!

 

Monday Kate and I hosted a ‘Nacho Night’ at our house as a chance for all the volunteers (new and old) to hangout apart from clinic (with our titles aside and just chill/get to know each other!) I really love hosting people so I had so much fun preparing for this! Some of the volunteers asked if I could make red velvet cake, so I decided to give it a whirl! I’ve never actually even tasted it before… but I figured why not? So I made 2 different batches from recipes I found online (one from a big US cooking network and the other from Canadian Living magazine.. so it was semi a battle of which country has better recipes too!) So I baked 2 cakes, and we had a whole feast of nacho dip, baked nachos with chicken, rice, guacamole etc. Quite a few of the volunteers came over and we had a super fun night that ended with a pretty intense game of Dutch Blitz!!

Tuesdays we tutor and afterwards it has become our tradition to go to trivia hosted by a local pub. The clinic usually has enough people to enter several teams and despite our impressive collective education levels.. we suck at random trivia! But we always have a blast despite coming dead last!

This Wednesday we had an end of the year party with our tutoring kids!! We invited them over afterschool to bake cookies and make homemade pizza with us! It was so much fun! These kids had never baked before at all and they had such a great time measuring and stirring!! We had a few fun mishaps along the way, like accidentally adding double the baking soda.. so we just doubled the entire recipe! Interestingly enough, they were all super grossed out by the idea of forming chocolate chip cookies into balls with their hands!!

They thought the texture of cookie dough was gross and slimy! But they eventually warmed up to the idea! And their cookies turned out fantastic!! The pizza was similar; they all had a blast working together to make it and even more fun eating it! Then we took them outside to the beach in front of our house and taught them to swim. Many of these kids live within a mile of the ocean but cannot swim and are very afraid of it (I think it’s a cultural thing for parents to teach their kids to fear the water because it keeps them from trying to swim when they can’t but it is sad because they are missing out on so much fun!) So we borrowed a bunch of life jackets and all jumped in! We taught them some of the basics of swimming and then just swam around together! 

me & Esmerelda

(FYI: Kate & I are wearing life jackets in the pics for three reasons: 1) it makes it ‘cool’ to wear one, 2) we proved that they actually hold you up for the skeptical kids and 3) it made it easier to support the weight of the kids who clung to us because the jacket was keeping us up somewhat. We can both swim on our own, I swear!) So overall, it was a day of learning, of first times and of making sweet memories!! It certainly made my day and blessed my heart to be able to love those kids and bless them with the fun and the food! :) 

   

Clinic these past two weeks has been a chaotic blur!  We have a ton of new volunteers and they need to be orientated plus for the last few days of last week the local public hospital was on strike (which seriously increased our patient load!) We have been having serious computer issues and this is causing a lot of chaos and headache! I’m trying to be optimistic and just focus on the big picture! I think it’s interesting that God seems to always provide blessing and hardship together, but we often get tunnel vision and only see the negative. Like today for example what very chaotic at clinic with two really sick patients that needed to be taken to the hospital (woman with tonsillary abscess who was septic and a young woman visibly pregnant who was bleeding profusely). However, we also provided a lot of great care and helped a lot of people and we had a fun reminder of the good things of life when the baby we helped deliver came to clinic for her one week checkup. (Side note: guess what they named her? Emily!! I’m sure it had nothing to do with me.. but I can wish! And it is my spelling too, not the Hispanic spelling.. so who knows! Lol! But I doubt it!) The baby is adorable, healthy and happy! The mom couldn’t be prouder to bring her in to see us! It certainly made my day! Some people only see the chaos but I’m learning to step back and try to take it all in.. the bad, the good and everything in between! And usually I’m left feeling more positive and optimistic than ever!

A little taste of May...

Life here has been rolling on as usual. Kate and I have a pretty normal routine with work, tutoring and other things we do in our afternoons. Clinic has been really busy so we haven’t had much free time in the afternoons and most evenings I’m beat, so we have been resting and just hanging out. We have made some really fantastic friends here and its been fun to live in community and share/learn from one another. Several times a week we have people over to the house for supper and we usually end up all cooking together! It’s fun to learn how to make other peoples favorite dishes and to teach them how to make ours.. we have quite a following for our layered nacho dip! Lol. I’m more of a baker than a cook and I’ve been baking up a storm! I’m having fun experimenting with the local ingredients and substitutions. Plus it’s fun to bake all the desserts I used to love making with mom when I was little.. and share them with my friends here because many of them have never heard of them. Nanaimo squares, O’henry squares and carrot cake have been among my latest attempts.. and my usual: brownies and ice cream. So I’m constantly hosting the other volunteers over for dessert because I need to eat up what I’ve made to free up the pans to make more! Our house has been full of people and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know and working with so many great people! I’m getting to share life with some beautiful new friends and really being blessed by the outcomes!

Kate and I recently learned what ‘May day’ is. May day is celebrated the first of May and is a local holiday here, so we got a day off clinic! However, apparently in the US, some people celebrate May day by giving their friends and loved ones secret gifts.. usually you would leave a gift on your friend’s porch, ring the bell and run… if the recipient catches you, then they have to give you a kiss. Kate and I were just settling in for the night when we heard our doorbell ring. I went down to get it but had to kill a cockroach before I could get the door open.. and when I did, there was no one to be found.. there was however, two ice cold pop (our fav flavors too!) with little ribbons tied to them!! We were a bit bewildered until we googled ‘may day traditions’ and realized that our American friends must be playing a little ‘May day’ mischief!! :) It certainly made my day!! And although I was technically too late to catch the culprit and give them a kiss … we politely reciprocated with a few of the Hershey’s kind today! :)

We have such a great group of friends here and seem to turn everything into an adventure! Hitchhiking into town to get groceries, liquados (milkshakes) in the market, going to trivia at a local resort on Tuesday nights, bartering with shopkeepers as we buying goods/souvenirs, and riding in sketchy taxis/buses (sometimes the back door flies open or we lose our spare tire in the road..etc). We are always up to something fun and crazy!

Camilla the birthday girl!

 Clinic has been super busy recently so we’ve been working super hard, but also playing hard during our downtime! We got to experience a typical local birthday party on Sunday. The clinic administrator’s daughter, Camilla turned one and she invited us all to the party! They hosted the party in the lawn at the clinic because there is a fun swing set for the kids to play on and they set up the waiting room chairs for the adults to socialize too. There was a bunch of typical Honduran snack foods and tacos for the meal!

little Krista taking a whack (Raul in background)

 And a beautiful Dora the Explorer cake and piñata!! We had a hoot watching all the kids take their turn at the piñata. Raul, our security guard at the clinic (who happens to be very ‘grandfatherly’) was the one holding/pulling up the piñata and it seemed to me that he was having more fun than the kids were!! We had such a blast and it was fun to be treated like family and welcomed into their celebration! Feliz Cumpleanos Camilla!! And in typical clinic style, we had a random patient stumble upon us at the party who had a fresh machete wound that needed attention. So a few of us slipped away from the festivities to clean, stitch and dress his wound, and give him a quick tetanus shot before we sent him on his way again! Then back to the party we went, as if we hadn’t missed a thing! :)

nasty pneumonia Xray

We have certainly been busy bees at the clinic recently! We have had a couple births in the last few weeks ( all of which Kate & I didn’t get called to! Unfortunately! ) and several pediatric inpatients (some who only needed IVs during the day and others stayed overnight). I have been taking the overnight shifts because I really don’t mind nights (after lots of practice during my time on Unit1) and my body seems to adapt to them fairly well. So that has been a new adventure, doing night shifts at clinic and sleeping during the day (which is way harder here where it is always over 30 degrees in our room! And everyone else is doing fun stuff outdoors!) It’s a bit trickier here than home because we are always kind of ‘on call’ and never know when we might need to keep an inpatient.. both the last two weekends we have had to take shifts in the inpatient unit. 

This last weekend, we had a really sick 8yr old girl with a bad pneumonia. We took really good care of her for days but it ended up that the island just can’t provide the level of care she needed ( her respiratory status was deterioriating and they can’t do ABG’s here.. and she started bradying down to the 60’s with the occasional PVC.. which is not a good scene!) so we transferred her to a hospital on the mainland. I just love watching God provide the people we need at the right times though! We have a new volunteer, Doreen, in for just two weeks who is an old Peds ICU nurse, and she was such a valuable resource and help during this girl’s admission!! And God has been really faithful to provide donation-wise too! We are getting low on some really essential things in the pharmacy like children’s liquid acetaminophen.. but we always get a few more bottles, just as we are about to run completely out! And we just got 10 bottles yesterday, and that same day we had a baby come in having febrile seizures!! (so the liquid Tylenol and the box of acetaminophen suppositories we just had donated last week.. were essential in that baby’s care!J) Clinic is so blessed with God’s favor in donations of supplies, money and people’s time! When I sit back and think about all that people are investing in the ministry of the clinic it AMAZES me!! We have a full scale medical facility! We provide a great learning opportunity for many students while simultaneously serving a large and diverse client population!! How cool is that!!

Lately I’ve been getting bogged down with all the hecticness of clinic! Some days it just seems like it’s one thing after another.. charts get misplaced, doctors don’t show up, we are running low on certain meds, there is someone throwing up in the waiting room, patients are complaining about the wait, the kid with chickenpox is touching everything (potential contaminating things b/c he is contagious), the computer goes down, and the list goes on and on.. But when I sat back this morning and reflected on what the clinic actually does, I couldn’t help but smile! Despite all the chaos and headache and frustration to me (and the other staff)... we serve between 60-80patients on any given day. We provide North American standard health care in the midst of a corrupt third world country, for a minimal cost the patient can afford (and never refuse care if they can’t pay). At the end of the day, we have taken a lot of vitals, seen a lot of patients, prescribed/filled/passed and educated on a lot of meds... overall provided a lot of great care, showed a lot of love and I think, made a difference in at least one person’s life. So for me, it’s worth it.. and I need to remember that. This reminds me why I’m a nurse! That I have a passion for caring for others and making a difference, even if it is one patient at a time! I love this… I will add that I certainly don’t love every day, or every case or every patient.. but at its core, I love this. And the bonus is, I’m learning so much about life, nursing and about myself in the mean time too!!  I’m just so blessed to be right where I am, doing what I love every day and hopefully making a difference… 

A Well Deserved Lull ...

So this week has actually been fairly uneventful compared to the rest of our trip! Kate and I have been doing a lot of reflecting and its funny how time passes.. looking back it seems like we have hardly just arrived, yet we are 2/3 of the way done! Crazy! And we accomplish so much each day that usually I look back on a week and can only blog about the true highlights and even then my posts are nearly novels! This week has been no different really; just as busy as usual, but a bit less chaotic maybe?

We spent the first part of the week getting everything from our car accident sorted out. Long story short; we are incredibly lucky no one was hurt and we have to pay the damages. Our concept of how lucky we were was even further confirmed because there was another accident involving tourists on a scooter and one of them died and the other was in critical condition. So we were reminded over and over, that money can be replaced.. friends can’t. And I think it also shows a bit of Troy’s character that as we were on the way to deal with all the details of our accident, a random stranger approached us on the street and asked if any of us were A+ (blood type) because the survivor of the other accident was in critical condition and needed a blood transfusion but without a blood bank here, they needed immediate donors. Kate & I didn’t know our blood type off hand, but Troy knew he was A+ so he immediately (well after we assured him we could deal with the car stuff without him) jumped in a cab to head to the hospital and donate blood. (When he arrived, they told he they had already received enough donors and didn’t need him.. and they shortly med-a-vac’d her to the mainland anyway. But it’s the thought that counts right?)

Troy left to return to PEI on Wednesday and we tried our best to not let a car accident ruin the rest of the vacation… does put a damper on things, but we made the best of it. Troy seemed to have a blast helping out at the clinic and we really enjoyed having his help! Its good to get a new perspective every once and a while to keep things efficient and fresh. Simple things like fixing the paper towel dispenser that we have long since given up on.. he managed to figure it out for us! And he came to tutoring with us a few times and worked with Oscar, one of our regular kids. Oscar took a real liking to Troy and he brought a chunk of cake to share with everyone on Troy’s last tutoring day! :) Overall, he made quite an impression and certainly livened things up around here!

Kate and I now have a bit of lull because for the first time since we arrived we don’t have roommates or guests visiting us. It’s a bit bittersweet. I really enjoy roommates and guests, but this week at least, its been nice to just rest and relax after coming home from clinic. I’m working to catch up on my sleep and I’ve taken to power napping in the afternoons! :)  Not that anyone really said I couldn’t nap before, it just seemed rude and I didn’t want to miss out on anything.. but now, I can nap as I please!

Friday was a big day because it was the local Science Fair! Our tutoring kids have been working on their projects since we arrived.. so months of preparation and helping them with their experiments and project boards, has all come down to this one day! We took turns leaving clinic for an hour to run over to the school to see the projects and I was so impressed!! I felt like a little mother hen, going around to all ‘our kids’ projects and seeing how well they had done! And they were all dressed in their finest clothes and looking so professional!! I was bursting at the seams I was so excited and proud of them!!

This weekend has just been resting and re-charging as always. A big storm blew in on Saturday night and our 3^rd floor apartment is basically a wind tunnel! Nothing will stay on the counters or  anything because the wind just blows everything around. I tried to pick things up and put them back originally.. but I’ve since just resigned myself to wait until its over and clean it up then! It was so windy this morning that Kate and I couldn’t hear each other talk! And the internet has been down too which is annoying. And we’ve not yet seen the waves so angry, pounding the reef with huge white spray!  This is the kind of weather that reminds me of beaches at home with surf and wind/breeze… both of which are very rare on this island.

And last but not least, we have a baby overnight in the clinic, so I’m working my first overnight shift down here. I volunteered to do the overnight because I have done many nights home on Unit 1 and figured I was up for the challenge of staying up (although I’m used to it being busy and hardly having time to be tired.. ). This was a pretty easy shift though, two patients: a mom and 1 day old newborn. They have the newborn on antibiotics and we are watching her as preventative measures because the birth happened so quickly that she didn’t make it to the clinic but was born at home instead (apparently as the cab driver arrived!). The mom is a natural and therefore I’m not really doing much; just providing support; giving a few medications and checking vitals routinely. But a fun experience either way! :)

Fun Friends Visiting and Lots of Adventure (with a tiny dose of mishap)

So this past Sunday was Easter and we celebrated in style as I hid a bunch of eggs for Katelyn to find all over our apartment! She isn’t a morning person, but we did have fun searching for them once she ‘woke up’. Lol. We all went to church on Sunday and enjoyed the Easter service followed by a little lunch. We spent the day on the beach and then we headed home. We came up the stairs to our apartment and we heard a male voice in our living room.. hesitantly we walked through towards it and got a huge surprise to find Troy standing in our kitchen!! He decided on Friday to come visit, so he switched his shifts, booked his flights and hopped on the plane! It was the craziest Easter surprise ever!! J So on Sunday night we had Kara & Neil and Troy all visiting and it was a hoot!!

Kate took the first few days off clinic this week to spend with Kara & Neil, but Troy and I went to clinic. We had a pretty busy day catching up on all the patients who got themselves hurt or sick over the Semana Santa break we had from clinic, plus our usual Monday busy! But things went really great all things considered! Troy & I were in the pharmacy and he caught on super quick! The biggest issue was the Spanish but he was a quick learner and by the end of the day, he was able to write simple medication instructions in Spanish (with minimal supervision). Then Tuesday was an even busier day and we saw 80 patients, so we dispensed a LOT of medication! Troy has been jumping into daily life here and he came to tutoring with us and had fun tutoring Oscar! Then we all hiked up into the Colonia to see the living conditions of the people who live there and we visited some of our tutoring kids homes along the way. It’s quite the climb, I’ll admit but so worth it! It is an eye opener to see the homes etc and the view from the top of the mountain is spectacular!

Kara & Neil were supposed to leave for home on Wed but they ended up getting really sick with a travelling bug and Kate did too. Kara & Neil delayed their flight til the next day and they all stayed in bed with the nasty travelling sickness. Troy and I went to clinic and had a great day! Then we came home and played home care nurses to everyone who wasn’t feeling well. Kara & Neil were able to fly home on Thursday and made it home safe and sound!

So now we still have Troy visiting and we have been showing him around the island and what our ‘normal’ life here is like. We have been doing fun things like going kayaking at sunset, swimming off our dock, random movie nights etc. I have been working on learning to bake in Honduras. It’s trickier than you might think because they don’t have the same ingredients as we do at home in Canada, and I also don’t have any measuring utensils.. so it becomes a big game of guesstimation! J But I was determined to make Nanaimo bars because another Canadian expat had asked if I could.. and I never back down from a good challenge! It was a few days in the making, but I seriously think I did it! J And who knew it was such a ‘Canadian’ dessert! But I’ve had fun sharing them with others and I think I’ll make another batch soon!

               

Saturday we rented a car and headed out to explore the east end of the island where it is more remote. We don’t get to go out east very often because its expensive to cab and things are more rural so you’d basically need a rental car to do that. Kate, Troy and I had an absolutely spectacular day hanging out and being adventurous together! We saw a lot of beautiful places, enjoy some rest on the beautiful Camp Bay beach, had some fantastic pizza and watch the sunset on a little café over the water! 

Spectacular day! But it had a bit of an unfortunate ending… a car accident. It was a miracle no one was hurt! So praise God for that, but we totalled our rental car and it has been a mess to sort all that out. I’ll leave the story there… perhaps when I get home, it will be easier to tell. For now though, we are thankful that we are all ok and are resting in the fact that cars can be replaced.. people can’t! But we’d all really appreciate your prayer around this! :)

Semana Santa here in Roatan!

So this is ‘Semana Santa’ or holy week.. which in Canada is a more somber respectful holiday and we generally only celebrate only Good Friday and Easter Sunday.. but here it is more of a week-long celebration/vacation which is mostly a week long drunk-fest. Many Hondurans spend the week vacationing and a lot decide to come to Roatan where they can spend the week on the beach, so the island is PACKED with people! The clinic closed at noon on Wed and we are off Thurs & Friday. It has been so nice to have a few days off and I’ll admit I’m just catching up on sleep and finally taking a few mins to update this blog!

It has been a whirlwind these last few days.. actually the entire time I’ve been here thus far has been a whirlwind. I thought that I’d have a bit more free time this year, compared to last year because I’m not a student and don’t have schoolwork to do.. but I seem to be just as busy or worse than last year! Lol.

So this past two weeks has been transition time, lots of volunteers coming and going. Danielle, my roommate from last year has come for 2 weeks, and she is living with us. It is so GREAT to have her around again!! I really enjoyed living with her last year and it has been so nice to reconnect again. Then Lacy, another volunteer I had gotten to know fairly well last year came in this past week (just for a week) as well. So its been a really great reunion of sorts and we are having such a blast! It has kind of softened the sadness of everyone leaving last week to have them coming in instead. We have had a really great time catching up and doing all our favourite things from last year and man, we have crammed a lot in! :)

Our last two weeks at clinic have been good. Still lots of changes going on at the clinic; among the management and how things run (so continue to pray about that). Plus it’s hard when there are people in for such a short time too. It takes a few days to train them and then they are only there a few days before they go again. Also we are learning to work with less volunteers around the clinic. I think we got a bit slack having so many people around, but our numbers have thinned out and after the next week or so it will be constant for prob 6 weeks or so til we have another transition time..  We’ve seen some interesting things over the last bit and had some very challenging days! (my time on unit 1 has certainly prepared me well.. in more ways than I can even be thankful for!) And I’m certainly growing a lot as a person and as a nurse!

We seem to have had a lot of excitement at the clinic recently.. there was a gringo (American) bit by a coral snake last Sunday who had to be medivac’d out to Houston because there is no anti-venom here or on the mainland. The clinic had its first birth since Kate & I have been here and unfortunately we missed it! : ( They had tried to call us in the middle of the night but there was no cell phone service and we missed it. Apparently they picked up the labouring mom on the side of the road as she attempted to walk to the clinic and they delivered her baby less than a half hour after arriving at the clinic! Then we had a crazy day at clinic with the new mom & baby upstairs, a peds inpatient for most of the day and growing chaos downstairs. I felt like I spent the day ‘putting out fires’ so to speak; it was just one crazy thing after another! I finally finished triage and things seemed to be going smoothly, and then we had a crazy emergency! A young man was swimming and he stepped on a poisionous fish.. he was in such excrutiating pain that I couldn’t even get a set of vitals when he arrived (he busted off a BP cuff and I couldn’t hold his wrist because he was vibrating in pain and kept grabbing ahold of me and screaming in agony). We finally after we googleed it, we were able to identify the fish, which was both good & bad – good to finally know which fish but bad because now we realized that its poison could potentially kill him (very toxic!) So it was a race against the clock to see what we could do for him and try to save him. The med students all jumped in to brainstorm how to save him and I popped in an IV and we gave him some narcotics IV push to calm him down some (also hoping to slow the spread of the toxins thru his bloodstream) Then after a few mins of researching we learned that no one had any kind of anti-venom for this type of fish nearby (here or on the mainland) & he couldn’t afford a medivac. Then a med student discovered an article that said submerging the puncture site in hot water can help draw the venom back out, if it is done within a 90 min window. So I tried to keep him calm and the others began boiling water in the microwave and running it thru the coffee pot without any grounds. We had a great system going to keep the water his foot was in hot and we kept him comfortable with narcotics and long story short, he survived! : )  So the miserable chaotic day had a silver lining because a baby was born and we saved a young man’s life. 

Oh, the other fun thing that happened this past week is that Katelyn’s sister and best friend came to visit! Kara & Neil came in on Sunday as a big surprise for Katelyn!! I was in on it, so I knew they were coming but we managed to keep the whole thing under wraps and she was beyond excited!! It was sweet! And now they are here visiting for 10 days! It has been tons of fun to have them here with us! We have been showing them around our island home and it has been such a blast! It was like the cruise ship day, times 10 days!! We get a little taste of home and we get to share our home with them.. its great! Just what we needed! And it’s perfect that we have the Easter holiday to spend with them!! We have been enjoying lots of fun adventures: swimming at the dolphin pen, going out for supper, having ice cream on the dock under the stars, visiting the market, having a movie night and just enjoying each others company!

Pictures! Pictures! Pictures!

Finally getting strong enough internet to post pictures! So I thought I'd post some photos of our last month here to give you guys a sense of what I've been talking about! :)

 Hope you enjoy them! :)

Me, Kate, Beth & Amy (pharmacy students) painting the local hospital

Kate and I up on benches painting! (super warm! over 30degrees indoors!!)

our painting crew in front of the local hospital

impromptu drink picnic as the boys change our tire that blew on the way back from the beach

Me & Kate at the secluded beach

Beth putting in my IV during rotavirus.. note the attempt to smile with bucket very close by! :)

local kid playing in a beautiful sunset

Oh and some people have suggested I post some prayer requests here, so..
Prayer requests:
- for the overall running of the clinic, that we are able to see patients and provide the best health care possible
- for the volunteers and our 'community' here - for an ease in relationships and learning to grow/get along with others in a tight space and strange environment and bond us together in love
- for health ( I'm still getting over my Rotavirus and I have a sore throat, so I'm just hoping that I'm not getting a cold after that nasty rotavirus knocked my immune system)

Our Tiny Taste of Home via our Cruise Ship Visitors!

So since recovering from Rotavirus last weekend, I've had an incredibly busy week!! Monday I was off clinic and thats when I wrote the earlier post.

Tuesday was a VERY busy day at clinic we saw over 80 patients!! It was just a jam-packed day! Lots of chaos like usual, plus just a really busy day with lots of IV fluids etc and add in the decision to keep a patient overnight in the pediatric ward (first time that has happened since we have been here..) it was nuts! It was 'just one of those days'... and it just wouldn't end! We would get to a point where we thought we could see the end, and we would find another stack of charts.. lol. And we had a number of people on IVs who we were monitoring, then the pediatrician Dr Rafael decided he wanted to keep a sick baby overnight to monitor her and give her IV fluids (she had rotavirus..) and so Katelyn & I left clinic a few hours early to go home and rest because we came back to do an afternoon shift in the inpatient ward upstairs. We decided to go as a pair for the company and because it would have to be 100% in Spanish (with a non-English speaking family and Dr, if we ever needed to call him). We had a really interesting afternoon shift! When we got there, we had 3 patients: two kids and a pregnant lady on IV. We got a quick crash course in Honduran nursing paperwork (how to read the Dr orders, where to fill in vitals, where to write our nursing note.. etc) and started monitoring  our patients. Everything went super well. We were able to discharge the pregnant mom after about an hour when her fluids finished running. Then we discharged the 8yr old girl about 45 mins after that when her IV finished up too.. she has sickle cell anemia and was in sickle cell crisis and since we can't give her blood (there is no blood bank here and blood transfusions basically don't exist) we just gave her a ton of IV fluid to try to flush her bloodstream. She was pretty cute though! I had fun chatting with her and she thought my spanish was a hoot! She just kept laughing at my fumbled sentences! But at least I was making her smile! :)
Our time with the baby was also basically uneventful. She started to spike a fever, but didn't get high enough for us to administer tylenol, so that was nice. And she started to come around quite a bit.. by the time we passed off to another nurse she was up playing with the toys and babbling a bit (whereas when we arrived she was just lying in her dads lap too sick to be interested in much..) We went right from the clinic to Coxen Hole where a bunch of the volunteers went out for chinese food for Megan's birthday (she is our lab tech). So that was a blast!
Wednesday was another busy busy day at the clinic and it kinda continued on the same path of 'just one of those days..' But everyone went for a nice snorkle in the afternoon which seemed to make things better!
Thursday was our highlight this week! Katelyn and I took the day off clinic and we had 16 people from Belfast come in on a cruise ship to visit! It was a coincidence that their cruise stopped in Roatan but it was a huge blessing from God!! So we got Bob Cowan (my host dad from last yr) to help us, and we hired two vans and meet them at their dock. We took them out and toured them around and showed them our island for the day!! I just had SO MUCH FUN!!! Its the same kind of fun that its been showing Katelyn life here.. like just driving along and pointing out, this is where I buy my groceries, this is where we go to do this.. etc. Just sharing my life with people I know and love! It was SO AWESOME!!

Katelyn, JoAnne, Me & Graham at 'the View'

 I can't even describe in words how great our day was and how encouraged I felt!! I got to chat with everyone and hear about home (and its not that I'm homesick.. but its just nice to hear whats happening..) and I got some really great hugs! We gave them a little tour of the island, saw some authentic stuff and met some real people. We had a really authentic lunch in Coxen Hole, then we gave them the flying tour of the clinic and our house. We stopped for a group picture on the dock after a quick recharge of apple bananas and cold water. Then we headed back to the port because people were getting anxious about missing the boat.. and for all those who know I'm habitually late.. we had them back in plenty of time!

our group shot on the dock (I have a funny squinty face but its the better shot of everyone)

I hope they had as great a day as I did! And in addition to the awesome day, they brought me a little package of stuff that my mom sent me from home.. mostly stuff I forgot! lol. But there is a little Easter gift (its wrapped and says don't open til Easter morning on it! ) It was hilarious though because Kate and I got back to the house after seeing them off and we opened our packages from home and it was kinda like Christmas! I was so exhilarated from the whole day and still full of adrenaline and excitement.. and I said to Kate that it was more exciting to see what was in the package and I felt about opening my gifts this past Christmas!! I got some nice cards and things and it was just soooo great! So thanks family and friends who sent us stuff! We loved it!
The whole day was just what I needed!! Clinic has been tough and I was getting a bit discouraged. This is a big turnover weekend/next week. Most of the people we spent all month with will be leaving in the next few days, and it creates a bit of a lull. Our visit with the group from Belfast was a really nice burst of energy that I needed. It was encouraging and reminded me that this is what God called me to. I'm here because He wants me to be and He has great plans for this trip! And it gave me a fresh perspective of how much I truly love it here and do love what I'm doing. When I was telling them all about it and showing them things, I was grinning from ear to ear. I could hardly contain my passion! So it was nice to be reminded that I am passionate about this!
We finished our Thursday off by tutoring and going out to supper with our roommate Lexi for her last night.
Friday was another day at clinic and Lexi left so we are currently down a roommate (but Danielle, my roommate from last year is coming in today and she is going to stay with us!) Friday afternoon a bunch of us went shopping. A lot of people were interested in getting souvenirs because they are going home. We stopped by Bob & Debi's and people bought stuff from the Made in Roatan shop, then we went to Coxen Hole and shopped for hours in the market and local shops. We ended our shopping adventure in Carrion (a local clothing store) and a bunch of people left to go watch 'the game' (some important american college basketball game on TV at a local bar..) and there was just 5 girls left. We had a hoot trying on stuff and just shopping! We all bought stuff and it was such a great night! We topped it off with supper in West End and came home to collapse into bed.

This morning I'm just sitting on the porch in the relative coolness of the morning, enjoying writing this blog and reflecting on my crazy week! :) Never a dull moment here!!

Great week that ended with Rotavirus! :(

I wrote this post on Monday while I was recovering from rotavirus.. just didn't get a chance to post it til now.. so here it is.. and hopefully I'll have post from this week up tonight or tomorrow! Trying to get better at posting frequently! And some pics on my next one too if I can!

Another week has flown by! Man, I never seem to have enough time for things here… It seems like when you live on a Caribbean island, life should just slow down or something.. nope! Not true! Each day is so jam packed and I feel like I just have so much to share with everyone!!  Clinic has been busy as always and we are undergoing some changes amongst the staff and I have moved into a new role. I will be working some now as the charge nurse/nurse manager of the clinic. It has been a big switch for me, but I feel like God knows what He is doing, so I’m just trusting that He will sort it out. It has been a transition, and I feel like its more of a shared job anyway but I’m just moving a bit more into leadership than I was before. But prayer for this new role and the transitions would be greatly appreciated. We saw some really cool stuff at clinic last week too… a lady with active TB (who greatly benefited from some donated N95 masks, because she can now protect the grandchildren she cares for from getting it), guy with serious chemical burns on his right arm/leg which we cleaned and dressed (he will continue to come to the clinic to have his burns debrided/cleaned/dressed on a regular basis), we had a 28wk young pregnant lady on the fetal monitor because she showed signs of preterm labour and we gave her some medication to hopefully stop the progression of labour (Kate was having a field day reading all the fetal monitoring strips!! ), a little girl with facial injuries from a car crash, and so many more. We are enjoying lots of opportunities to use our skills to help and teach, such as putting in IVs etc. So the nursing side of things is going really well.

Tutoring is going well. We are really getting into a groove with our students and I’m really enjoying Emmy. She takes some getting to know… she is a typical preteen girl, but I think we have bonded now. After tutoring we ran into Bob & Debi (the family I lived with last yr) in the Colonia and ended up going to their house for awhile. I spent some time catching up with them and Kate enjoyed hearing about their shop (quick promo for them.. check out www.made-in-roatan.com). Also they are going to help us set up that adventure we have planned for the group coming from Belfast on a cruise ship this coming Thursday. 

Wednesday we had a nice going away party for Trish, one of the volunteers from here who was returning to the US. It was a nice chance to have everyone hangout outside of clinic and we had a really great lunch out. In the evening we had a bunch of people over to our apartment and taught them to play Dutch Blitz! It was hilarious!! But it has really caught on, we’ve played it a number of times since then... I almost wish we had 2 decks so we could play bigger games! And man, my competitive nature is really coming out, I kept yelling ‘cheater! Daniel you are cheating!!’ ironically, it didn’t seem to be effective! Lol.

Friday there was an ‘American’ band playing a big concert here and it was a big deal.. so we all went to this concert. It started over an hour late, in typical island style! And to be honest, I enjoyed it, but the band sounded exactly like every other Caribbean band here! But it was a cute night out and it was fun to say we did it... and we did some good clinic promo.

Saturday was a day of jam-packed fun! I started early in morning by going to Bob & Debi’s to distribute some more of the donations I brought down. Debi has a bunch of local girls over to her house on Saturday mornings to learn the art of jewellery making (using donated beads, cord etc) and they sell their creations in Bob & Debi’s shop. For Debi, it is a way to mentor young girls and spend some time investing in them and helping them learn skills and what money they make from the sale of their jewellery helps support their families. Anyway, I had some donated clothes, shoes, toiletries etc which I brought over to the house. The girls were VERY excited and grateful for the gifts! So it started my day off on the right foot! Then a group of volunteers from the clinic all headed out to a more secluded local beach (out behind the dump actually.. on Mudhole Road) and spent most of the day there. It was so nice to be at a beach where we could walk along the shore and not be tripping over hundreds of other tourists! We just really enjoyed the peacefulness and it is a unique beachfront that isn’t like where we normally go. The beach is actually great for beachcombing so we picked some pretty shells and took lots of pics! Then we all had a potluck picnic lunch! I love sharing food and good company here! What a great way to spend my Saturday! We hardly got home from the , when Angely (the receptionist from the clinic who is 19yrs old) called us to ask if we wanted to go shopping through Coxen Hole with her. She wanted to take us around and show us the market etc. So we headed straight to Coxen Hole to meet her. We spent the afternoon shopping in the market and around. We got delicious milkshakes from a stand downtown, that were more like McDonald blizzards (I got Oreo!)! By the time we got home, everyone one else had headed out to celebrate St Patricks Day already. We got dressed in all our green gear and met some of them for supper. Then finished the day off at home with some green cake and sweet game of Dutch Blitz!

Unfortunately.. I got really sick overnight! : (  I got rotavirus! It was absolutely terrible! I’ll spare everyone the details but I was violently ill and much to my dismay (and protesting), I had to stay home from church and the beach on Sunday. Katelyn and Beth gave me Zofran IV before they left for church which took a bit of the edge off my nausea.. but mostly I just had to let it run its course. I was MISERABLE! I could hardly move, I was too weak to even sit up, little alone use my computer or hold a book.. I just laid in my bed all day. I had a terrible fever and when the girls came home that night, I was holed up under fleece blankets while our room was over 30 degrees Celsius. Beth and Katelyn gave me a litre of IV fluids in the house (very bush medicine.. lol. Appropriate equipment, but some makeshift things like we hung the bag on the blinds.. lol). Daniel (one of the pharmacy students) went to the local store to get me some Gatorade and found it closed.. so he knocked on the door to the house next to it, til someone came out and opened the shop so he could buy me the Gatorade! How sweet of him! I was really blessed by how great everyone has been through this!

I am feeling much better today! I wasn’t well enough to go to clinic, but well enough to use my computer! Thankfully it only took me a few days though, most other people with rotavirus are sicker longer.. it was definitely all the prayer and the IV fluids prob helped some too. 

Busy busy first few weeks in Sandy Bay!

Well its been quite the adventure these past two weeks.. each evening I come home, I say to myself “I’ll write my blog tonight..’ but the time gets away from me and suddenly its late and I need to get to bed and I just didn’t get it done. So here is my attempt to describe nearly 2 weeks of my busy life in a single blog post and not bore anyone to death..

So we arrived mid-week and jumped into work at the clinic right away.  Things at the clinic are really different than last year, yet really similar too.. its hard to explain even. The atmosphere is different this year and there are a ton of volunteers in right now, so things are always busy and hectic.. but it’s a bit more of a disorganized chaos this year. I think it will just take some getting used to and I’m getting onto it. Katelyn went to work in triage and I was put to work doing ‘extra’ tasks.. since I had been here last year, I was able to organized and sort a lot of donations and things. Many of the organizational systems on the shelves etc was what I had put in place last year or was exactly the same so I was super familiar with it already.. so I jumped head first into all of that. So thus far, I have really been functioning as a ‘jack of all trades’ at the clinic.. sorting and organizing in the back room mostly, but being pulled in other direction when more urgent tasks come up.. like testing/fitting a patient for eyeglasses, passing meds, dressing wounds, etc..

So I’ll going to be really honest and admit it was a bit of a humbling experience at first to be in such a behind the scenes role. I was used to last year when there were only 2 nurses including myself and I was desperately needed out front to keep things rolling.. doing all the typical ‘nursing’ tasks like triage and med administration etc. So when I found myself behind the scenes and going almost a whole day without seeing a single patient, I began to get frustrated.. wondering what good I was if I wasn’t even seeing patients. I’m a RN after all, was my initial selfish/prideful thoughts.. but God soon fixed my attitude. He swiftly reminded me that I’m here to serve. If they need someone sorting donations, pulling meds & packing for outreach, stocking the pharmacy etc.. then that’s what I’ll do. I came here willing to help with whatever is needed, and right now this is my role. God has given me lots of gifts and skills, and organization is definitely one of them, and its where He has me for now, so I sucked up my pride and gave it 110%! J I found it was actually really rewarding because I had some spare moments to talk with other volunteers and to invest in others.. it was really great! Plus I got done a lot of things that have been on the ‘to do list’ for ages! And the storage room has never looked this good! ;)

Oh, and I also did a special assignment for the clinic last week! The clinic promised a school to provide judges for their science fair. So apparently being a RN qualifies me to be a science fair judge! Lol! Who knew, eh? So a few lucky volunteers were chosen and we travelled 45mins or so to a neighbouring town to judge the local bilingual school’s science fair. I judged grade 3-4 pairs. The kids were so cute! And the projects were cute too! Mainly just cool topics that they researched, like “The Sun” or “The Human Brain” and it was cute to see their nervousness etc and this was doubled because many of them don’t speak English as their first language and it was nerve wracking to know that I’d be evaluating them in English! But all of them did such a great job! I may have marked too generously! But I remember all to well how scary it is to be in the science fair! Overall a really great day!

Other than clinic, I’ve been tutoring again.. my student from last year Mycol, already has a tutor so I took on someone else. I’m currently tutoring Emmy, who is in Gr 6 and she is one of the girls I got to know last year (and who I brought down some clothes and things for). She can be a bit tricky to tutor because she is in the preteen phase, but we are pretty tight, so for now we are getting along… hopefully it continues! I’ll let you know how it goes.. After tutoring last Tuesday, Mycol took us up to his house in the Colonia to see his crabs (that he caught and is keeping for his science fair project) and it was quite a little adventure! His mother is super sweet and she remembered me from last year! Then on Thursday after tutoring, Mycol, Vanessa and Oscar (our oldest tutoring kids.. minus Emmy who had to take her younger siblings home) took us for a hike up through the whole Colonia to the top of the mountain. It gives the best view of the island and you can see both sides, it was a spectacular view and totally worth the climb.. but man, it was a really tough climb and it was raining on and off! It was super convenient thought because right as it began to pour, we were really close to Vanessa’s house so we all piled in, nearly taking up the entire house (it’s a small single room with a porch) to keep dry.

( I would be uploading pics but the internet won’t let me right now.. so you’ll just have to imagine the beauty of the island at sunset from the top of a mountain, looking down on the Colonia)

Saturday a group of five of us went into Coxen Hole and volunteered to paint the lobby/hallways of the public hospital. A group of locals have been trying to brighten/clean the hospital up some and the bought the paint & supplies but they couldn’t seem to find volunteers to actually paint. So we agreed to help. We showed up at 8:30 and in typical Island style, we didn’t really get to the painting til 10 or so.. lol but we got a nice tour of the hospital! And with the 5 of us going pretty solid we had it all painted by noon! The locals were so excited and it did actually freshen it up quite a bit! It was a really great way to spend our Saturday and I felt like we actually made a bit of a difference! It was very rewarding! Although I think I may have been a little overly happy due to the ridiculous amount of fumes I inhaled! Lol

Sundays are our day of rest and fun here! We go to RChurch (contemporary Expatriate church) in West Bay in the morning, then hit the beach for the afternoon. Our first Sunday, the water was super rough and a storm blew in, so it wasn’t exactly a beach day. But this Sunday, it made up for it! It was beautiful!! Thirty something degrees Celsius and sunny! We snorkled for half the afternoon then relaxed and read for the other half! It is such a great way to unwind from a busy week! And I got a chance to see my host family from last year, Bob & Debi Cowan. It was super nice to see them and connect with them again!

I think that is the brief highlights of my last two weeks here in Roatan! I’m going to try to be a bit more prompt about my blog in the next weeks! 

Let the Adventure Begin!

First blog post of my 2012 Roatan Nursing adventure!!! How exciting?!?! So obviously I have officially landed safe and sound in Roatan, Honduras! It has been quite an adventure so far!

Quick background of my last week or so, for those who don’t know.. I was a bridesmaid in my friends Julie & Rynier Carpendale’s wedding on Saturday, then Sunday I rested/packed, Monday I travelled to Halifax to do the exam to complete the ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support.. random extra nursing course I thought would be fun to have on my resume..) course I took. Then Tuesday we began our trek to Honduras and over 24hrs later we landed in Roatan! So my last few days have been busy to say the least.. but I survived and I can rest a bit now that we are here!

Ok, first of all, this trip I have one of my good friends, Katelyn MacKenzie (who graduated nursing with me and we’ve been friends for years..) with me. We travelled down together and are staying in an apartment (and sharing a room) together. It’s been great to have a travel companion but things are a bit more complicated with two of everything.

 So we had brought 7 hockey bags full of donations, plus a personal suitcase each with us..  so 9 bags (crammed to capacity and all weighing in around the 50lbs maximum). We originally planned to take all the bags and the ticket agent at the Continental Airline desk in Halifax was very eager to help.. but unfortunately she couldn’t authorize any extra free luggage (so rules say $25 for your first bag and gets progressively more expensive.. like $150 for each bag after that..) Anyway, long story short after a little coaxing and smiling, she went above her boss’s authorized 2 free bags to give us 6 free bags, with the catch that we’d pay $150 for the rest.. then we decided to leave one bag home because it was too pricy.. so long story short, we paid $350 (with tax) and got 8 bags (some quite a bit over 50lbs.. which she graciously overlooked) checked straight thru to Honduras! We cleared US customs fairly easily and went on our way. We also had a significant amount of carry on luggage.. basically all the heavy stuff we took out of our overweight bags, we just moved to our backpacks and purses and laptop bags.. lol.  We were quite a sight for sure! :) Our flights were basically uneventful and we overnighted in Houston, TX last night (with the usual mix up over the shuttle etc). This morning we arrived back in Houston to go through security to be informed that we had WAY TOO MUCH carry on luggage.. go figure! She insisted that we’d have to consolidate or throw stuff away.. and man, this lady was like the Gestapo! Straight faced and she meant business! We did our best to consolidate but it seemed useless! My backpack was already busting at the seams.. we tried other lines, sneaking past and nothing worked, she kept finding us again and insisting. I was nearly on the brink of a meltdown but we just buckled down, took a few breaths and focused on the task at hand.. finding a way to consolidate our carry ons. We emptied our bags onto the floor and basically re-packed in the middle of the Houston airport! But man, we got it all in.. and it was crazy heavy & huge! I was like triple deep with my backpack on.. I kept knocking into people! (I weighed my backpack at 38lbs!!) plus a very large and oversized laptop case with everything you can imagine stuffed in it too!! So we prayed that this would be acceptable to the mean lady and she finally let us through!

That behind us, we had a nice flight to Roatan and landed safely this afternoon. Our baggage seemed uneventful, until a mean solider guy insisted they put it thru the scanners ( this didn’t happen last yr.. but I guess the government is trying to step up or something.. ) The customs man decided randomly to choose two bags to search and they happened to have a lot of donated medications in them.. long story short, they held the bags for over an hour as I tried to get them released.. then finally they ended up confiscating about two grocery bags full of meds out of them and finally giving them back to me. I’m sure that I’m on some kind of black list at the airport now.. but whatever! The rest of the bags were unscathed (medications in those were left undiscovered I guess) and I’m sure that Mr. Mean Customs guy is selling those meds on the black market as we speak! Ugh. But that is corruption for you.

Anyway, so after being slightly frazzled with the airport experience, Dee (clinic volunteer who picked us up) took us to the grocery store where I treated myself to a fresh donut and cold diet pepsi (out of diet coke L  ) which improved my mood 100%.  Now I’m unpacking and settling in but I’m most likely heading to bed very shortly because I’m wiped!

Can’t wait to update you all on my first day of clinic! Thanks to everyone, for following my blog and being so supportive throughout this journey! LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN!