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!