Time to update on all the news I feel comfortable sharing which means that as a nurse it's information which is non identifying and also because not all readers are healthcare professionals means I won't describe or post photos of the gory bits which nurses revel in. Details to follow. I could at this point make apologies about being sick last week with a really rotten cold - I usually get one on week two of my contract but when I escaped that milestone and thought I was in the clear, I was ambushed in week three, or the fact that we were working with only two nurses (both of us struggling with the virus) instead of three while one of the co-workers attended her daughter's graduation. But no one likes a whiner….
Lots of exciting news to announce this post. The teacher daughter, someone who has wanted to be nothing else but an elementary school teacher, since she came home from school in grade two and announced it, the one who graduated with her BEd in 2010, has begun work on her MEd, has been working a series of assignments of split classes in various schools while awaiting her permanent teaching contract and hoping to stay at the great school she works at this year…..Well, she was not only awarded her permanent contract but went to job fair and scored grade primary at 'her' school. Over the moon is an apt description. This is good for her, but also for her employer as she is an excellent teacher and puts her heart into her work (as do all my children) but mind you, many bright young teachers do and the average length of time from education degree to permanent contract in my home province is 10+ years. So hard work + luck = happy ending.
I am pleased to share that I have been officially conditionally accepted (meaning send your money) to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene for the Diploma of Tropical Health Nursing. This is an intensive eight week program with two weeks pre-course work, three weeks on site at LSTMH in Liverpool, UK (December 1 - 19) and three weeks post evaluation work. My colleague and I are both accepted so it'll be nice to have a study buddy, especially one with connections across the pond. Sounds like we won't have to evoke the Plan B of Cyprus. And my occasional travel partner (non student) is planning to come along as well to share accommodations which will be good company and fun. So, I must dig out my resources and do some online research into the tropical health world when I'm home for the next 'break' beginning July 4th, but who's counting?
I have passed the contract milestone of the halfway point and although things move quickly every day, they move at warp speed after the mid-point. Make it so, Mr. Spock. My roommate is going home to get her oldest daughter graduated from high school and pointed in the right direction for UNB in September. She leaves on Thursday for two weeks and I'll be solo except for about four days when the Dr. comes in to do his clinic and brings his second year medical student daughter up with him to "show her that you can practice medicine without a lot of resources" and she'll bunk with me. I might get some reading/writing done if I'm on my own as my roommie (who arrived with the 360+ movies) is a bad influence on me - as if I needed an excuse. Since Wednesday we've watched 12 Years a Slave, Unclaimed Baggage, Promised Land, The Sessions and Thanks for Sharing. They were all worth watching. After reading the book 12 Years a Slave I found the movie had been shortened but mainly followed the story, Unclaimed Baggage is a light comedy, Promised Land was about oil companies buying up land in the midwest but Matt Damon is always easy to watch, The Sessions was about a guy in an iron lung machine and his sex therapist and Thanks for Sharing was about sex addicts - now why did we think those last two would be light watching? I'm going to do more research on the subject matter next time I told the movie holder.
I had a FaceTime chat with the life partner on my 'day off' and he was sharing the news on the home / seafood industry front. The second daughter and son-in-law had taken him out for supper for his birthday to a local restaurant which has changed hands from our German friends to a young couple who have just moved to the area. The shore captain described it as 'yuppie' and also disclosed that he'd been wholesaling lobsters to them (he keeps crustaceans until end of July in his holding tanks). Mister said he'd delivered lobsters a couple of times to the restaurant but on the last day of the season he'd tasked the boy captain with the delivery - makes sense as the lad lives in the same town as the eatery. When he received a call for another order this week, the owner/chef mentioned that the seafood should be delivered to the side door and the shore captain assured him that he always did. The chef chuckled and said "well the young fellow who delivered them last week came through the front door and dining room and some of the 'up there' ladies didn't care for it". I had visions of our lanky, six ft tall son with a tired, sun/wind burned face with dark scruffy facial hair, ripped pyjama pants, torn and paint stained weathered t-shirt with holes from battery acid or bleach, grubby rubber boots covered in salt water stains / fish scales, long tanned forearms ending in large likely grimy black hands from fixing something in the engine room, smelling of bait and diesel fuel, carrying a plastic bucket of lobsters. I chuckled to myself and thought….it's okay to see where your food comes from and what the person who catches it looks like in his natural habitat ladies. As my late father-in-law used to say when someone wrinkled their nose at the smell if he stopped at the bank on his way from baiting trawl "smells like money to me".
Speaking of which….the O/T vs sleep deprivation balance is in the positive monetary balance. When questioning locals on situations/injuries etc. they will often say "alcohol was involved" sort of like the police PR in the media, thus the title of this post. Call on Thursday night resulted in two and a half hours of broken sleep - from 0245 to 0345 and 0600 to 0730 just doesn't cut it. Started out reassessing /fixing up a baby with bronchiolitis about midnight (been a little outbreak in the region this past two weeks) and getting ready to crawl into bed when a phone call came from the front entry from two hysterical females yelling that they were "being chased by drunkers and I should call the police". Nope, but I'll let you in and you can speak to the dispatcher. "Ok". I head down the stairs and hear a commotion in the porch with yelling and thumps and find no one there. I open the locked interior door, keep my foot in the door and open the outside door to look on the steps when a group of males rushes up over the stairs towards me. I manage to retreat back through the door and slam it just as a hand grabs the door. Lots of swearing, yelling, threats to open the door, banging and kicking on the door. Okay, now you got it, I AM going to call the police. I phone the 10 digit emergency number (no 911 here) which forwards to dispatch (two time zones and thousands of km away in Iqaluit) and speak to the dispatcher. He asks if I know who it is "no, and I'm not going to open the door to find out". He agrees and tells me that he'll dispatch the two local officers. I share that this is unusual behaviour for this community in my almost two years experience here. The RCMP were actually out on patrol and drive by shortly after the visitors have absconded. The community is just hopping. I consider attempting bed again and a call for sterile water for a tube feed from someone who "was busy all day". I leave the litre of water in the front entry. I'm in bed reading to wind down at 2 am when the phone call for a sick baby takes me downstairs. My one hour nap is ended by a call from the lobby phone "my friend had a bike accident I think she fractured something". Dressed and downstairs to find a 13 yr old who was riding her bike down the outside steps of the school and holding her elbow "did you tip over or did you mean to ride down the stairs?". She freely shares that she was intending to ride down the steps. Warning - this does NOT endear you to a sleep deprived old nurse. It does get you examined - full motion, circulation, and sensation - motrin, now and to go, an ice pack and return later (which she didn't) for a reassessment / x-ray if needed and instructions to GO TO BED!!! Another sick baby with respirations of 72/min, temperature and low oxygen sats - fixed and home for recheck later and fall into bed until the alarm. I made it through the busy morning without being too cranky and only started to fade by the 'admin afternoon'.
My roommate made us shrimp alfredo with noodles for supper and we watched a movie to distract ourselves as I was only second call (backup) with an early bedtime scheduled. Sound asleep by 10:30 pm and when the phone rang in my darkened room I thought 'must be about 4 am and she needs a hand'. My coworker says "I need your help, I've got someone with quite a cut" so I look at the clock and I've been asleep an hour. Downstairs to find a seriously inebriated patient with a below the knee gash measuring 17 cm across, 3 cm wide and deeper than a nurses finger (as in you can see the muscles like an anatomy diagram). Some photos emailed and phone discussion with the on call physician about an hour flight away who reassures that we can do this surgery or he can have the patient sent over to him (meaning he'll send the medevac plane over to pick them up, he'll suture and return) Good thing we didn't opt for that plan as thick as pea soup fog appeared from nowhere about 15 min. after the first phone call. The first call nurse sets up to suture, we flush with 2L of saline, I provide security and assistance to the surgeon and long story short about four hours, three reels of vicryl for interior closing and 32 prolene sutures on the exterior, a couple of photos/phone consults later and two very tired nurses it is all finished. We send the final photo to the Dr. and head to bed. When I open my email in the a.m. there is a message from him reading "great work, you two did a great job". Not often you get that kind of support from physicians. We agree that we'd tackle something like this again if we had to and head to bed.
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| Sandy Point |
I slept until the noon siren (no church bells here) wakes me. Out for a nice walk to find sik siks, snow
and Canada geese, song birds, ducks, gulls, ravens and the snow retreating quickly. Was nice to not wear my winter jacket thinking 'spring has arrived' until it snowed again last night and this morning. It's -1c which is prime snow weather today.
It's been a stressful week for my roommate who is from Moncton where there was a shooting rampage which resulted in the death of three RCMP officer and injury of two more. Brought back memories of 35 years ago when the shore captain was RCMP for three years and I worried every shift he worked. Haven't worried about him on the water over the years as it seems safer to be dealing with mother nature than cop haters. Sad story.
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| Nevada tickets |
I am first call again today but it's been a more manageable so far with just a sick baby to deal with. It's 4 pm here now and the community for the most part has been sleeping until just now. Not just drinking but lots of gambling not sure if those are goes on so the comment "I've been sleeping late" pertains to not just the 24 hours of darkness when you might as well sleep but to the 24 hours of sunlight when your schedule is not constrained by hours of daylight - as in you can just as easily ride your bike at 4 am as 4 pm if it looks the same. The nevada tickets here on the left are an indicator of the clash of two cultures.
Time to wrap up and think of some supper and I'll leave you with two links to explore:
